CERDAFIED-The federal Freedom of Information Act was signed into law in 1966 under President Lyndon Johnson and was, in every practical sense, a pretense at truth and transparency. The bill itself was designed to withhold more information than it revealed.
American’s knew that their government needed a level of secrecy to conduct missions that safe guarded our nation. We also knew that our government, like all others, went beyond self protection.
There was very little doubt that these secrets protected the lives of our servicemen and protected decision makers from prosecution.
Some of these secrets only fueled the imagination of Americans. UFO’s and aliens were widely accepted as a matter of rational thinking. The government’s denial did nothing to squash public opinion. Other countries have released their documentation regarding UFO’s, but not in our country.
Anybody can make a FOIA request to the government agency, which holds the records you are interested in. Often, the records are heavily redacted to conceal relevant information. For journalists, this is profoundly disappointing, when trying to determine the accuracy of information.
For 47 years this “Freedom to Hide Information Act” sufficed. The government added a few amendments, but they were content with their charade, and courts failed to improve our access. But leave it to the Obama administration to propose changes that would further obscure the existence of requested information. All Hail the transparency King!
The FOIA has so many exemptions already. It does not provide access to records of the Congress or the federal courts, records of state or local government agencies, or records of private businesses or individuals.
The U.S. Department of Justice is proposing a change to the FOIA that would allow the government to lie about the existence of certain law enforcement or national security documents. I guess their standard Glomar response, “I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the material” is longer appealing.
Does this blatant deceit apply to court ordered documentation too? If this is the case, our courts would be hog tied and the truth greased up so that neither shall come to know each other. The courts are supposed to blind to prejudice, not blind to facts.
History is written by the victor, and shows no resemblance to the truth. Simply read our historical account of colonizing America compared to the America Indians account and you will fully understand why the historical lies remain with us for nearly 400 years.
Our government no longer wants to fake truthfulness or hide their deceptions. They just want to tell you that the documents never existed. They must be quite secure in their expectation of our tolerance, and why not? Thus far we have tolerated extreme taxation, the Federal Reserve deception, the Dream Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and so it goes without saying that we will tolerate this. Perhaps telling the truth about being a low down, dirty liar is as good as it gets!
(Lisa Cerda is a contributor to CityWatch, a community activist, VP of Community Rights Foundation of LA.) -cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 98
Pub: Dec 6, 2013
