Donald Trump ran for president promising the most transparent administration ever. And the White House claims it is exactly that is exactly what has been provided.
How then to explain the notice posted yesterday, Aug. 14, in the Federal Register, the official government rule change book, proposing to throw out all existing Freedom of Information Act requests unless the requester renews their request?
Building a record of public opposition is crucial.
This looks like a test at one agency designed to significantly reduce and perhaps stop entirely complying with the 1969 law governing how Americans can hold their government accountable by seeking documents, databases, emails, and other materials.
The proposed new rule drew a stiff response yesterday from the libertarian Cato Institute, which said the proposed new rule is “facially unlawful.”
I agree. I rarely embrace Cato’s perspective on public issues, but here its analysis is spot on.
You can be sure that the largest group of FOIA requesters—big corporations and trade groups—we’ll renew because they have a clear business interest. One of the unexpected results of the FOIA law is corporations using requests to find out what competitors, and regulators, are up to. Citizens and journalists are less likely to meet the proposed new re-request rule.
This proposed new rule is part of a piece in which the Trump Administration 2.0 has displayed sophistication in turning away answers to questions it doesn’t like, hiding information, and generally working to create the most opaque administration in history.
Evading Answers
It’s not just Donald Trump attacking journalists who ask questions he doesn’t like, calling them various derogatory terms and then moving on after evading the issue. You can see this in the testimony of unqualified and poorly educated cabinet members like Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who can’t tell Artificial Intelligence from A-1 Steak Sauce.
To evade tough questions, McMahon and other Trump appointees often rely on feigned ignorance and irrelevant but long-winded responses that chew up the time of questioning lawmakers who generally are limited to 5 minutes.
All administrations to some degree try too deflect tough questions by journalists, Congress, and constituents. Trump 2.0 is just taking it to a deeper and darker level, often delivered with contemptuous smirks.
The Trump Administration asserts that this rule change is designed to increase the efficient use of limited government resources.
The federal Department of Energy “is being inundated with requests from vexatious requesters and automated bots… These requesters rarely respond to DOE inquiries… Therefore, DOE is undertaking this endeavor as an attempt to free up government resources to better serve the American people and focus its efforts on more efficiently connecting the citizenry with the work of its government.”
True, but…
No doubt that’s true, but as so often happens with trump loyalists what we are seeing is a meat acts approach rather than a scalpel or even a kitchen knife approach to cutting out the harm, in this case from what appeared to be bogus Freedom of Information act requests.
If you click on this link you can add your thoughts in the Federal Register comments. You don’t need to write anything long or complex. Simply writing that this is an abomination or unacceptable or contrary to good governance and should be rejected out of hand is more than enough.
The more people who respond the better the chances that our TACO president’s minions will chicken out and drop or ease the proposed new rule.
But building a record of public opposition is crucial so I strongly encourage you, whatever your thoughts, to take advantage of the law that lets you as a citizen advise your government on proposed rules changes.
As the notice states: “All responses to this notice must be submitted by email at [email protected].”
Send your thoughts to that address, please, before the Sept. 15 deadline.
“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.
