Not That Obama was lying, exactly, or something

[drwex]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-cites-security-more-censor-deny-records

An in-depth AP story shows how the Obama administration, which started off promising to be "the most transparent in history" has in fact denied more Freedom of Information requests than any other. Ever.

Given the current climate it's sort of unsurprising that their most-cited reason for denying citizen and journalist requests is "national security."

Nothing to see here, move along.

Comments

[aelf.livejournal.com]

The evidence suggests that Obama's administration has not only been similar to Bush's administration, but has indeed been less transparent. For example, from a previous analysis http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/156227/obama-administrations-foia-record-worse-than-bushs/ we have the following:

Pamela Engel, an Ohio University student intern for the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire in 2011, compiled data from 15 cabinet-level federal departments (Justice Department, Homeland Security, State Department, etc.). By email, she said she found these overall rates for the resolution of FOIA requests:

2010 – 62.3% granted, 37.7% denied
2009 – 61.7% granted, 38.4% denied
2008 – 59.5% granted, 40.6% denied
2007 – 76% granted, 24% denied (excluding Veterans Affairs, which had a spike in requests that raised the granted rate up to 91%)
2006 – 76.5% granted, 23.5% denied (excluding Veterans Affairs, which which had a spike in requests that raised the granted rate up to 91.5%)

(http://www.shfwire.com/node/6214 for more information)

The thing that disturbs me the most is that Obama campaigned on transparency and has done little (aside send a few memos) to encourage greater transparency in government. Now, it could be as he's actually done the job he's realized that his pledge of greater transparency was naive or wrong-headed or impossible in the face of entrenched bureaucracy, but in that case, in there interest of transparency :) , I would expect him to come out and say so.

[drwex]

I agree with two key points that aelf raises - Obama is acting contrary to his promises (sort of like Google abandoning its "don't be evil") and he's being opaque about his lack of transparency.

[macthud]

Those both look like assertions, but I don't see a whole lot of evidence.

[drwex]

You seem to be unwilling to accept either the evidence used by the AP in writing its story or the evidence aelf located. It's unclear to me what you would accept as evidence, or why you have this level of demand for evidence in a news story. It's not my experience that you demand primary evidence for other news stories, which makes me feel like you're unhappy with the message here contradicting what might be your political beliefs and are using extraordinary evidence demands to maintain your belief system.

[macthud]

Facile interpretations of aggregates without backup, nor even substantive description of the methodology by which they were produced, lead to conclusions which I always find questionable. My belief system demands at least the availability of such backup, if not my personal review of same, before I accept any such conclusion.

I am indeed unhappy with the message here, but I am more unhappy with the lack of useful data ("evidence") presented by the AP or any other source mentioned here, whether primary, secondary, or otherwise.

More people died this year than last! Of course, total population was higher, and the increase in deaths is statistically similar to the growth in population, so there's a likely explanation there. Or maybe you'd prefer, "Thanks, Obama!"

Only the aggregates have been presented, and I've asked several questions about those aggregates, which remain without answer. So far as I'm aware, the answers are unavailable, for a number of reasons, not least of which being that the people conducting such studies as have been reported seem not to have gathered the useful underlying data points, if they were available to be gathered at all.

In other words, I'm not really expecting anyone here to present those answers. But I am expecting that others see the weaknesses of the conclusions, exposed by these questions.

[macthud]

Oh, look! Processed numbers! Now... where's the raw data?

Seriously.

I want to know how many of the denied requests were effectively duplicates of each other -- where many reporters requested roughly the same info, for instance.

I want to know how the figures look for each department/agency/whatever.

Now, it could be that they were all completely original and distinct. And it could be that Obama's really keeping secret whatever-you're-really-worried-about.

Or it could be that simple aggregated counts like these are meaningless.

And it could be that more than Obama's done more than you've noticed and that the "few memos" you mentioned had greater effect than you grant.

From your second link --

FOIA exemptions were applied to 5.3 percent of requests processed in 2010, while 32.4 percent of the requests processed were denied for other reasons. Other reasons for denial include:

• The records do not exist
• The request does not follow the proper guidelines
• The records refer to another agency
• The cost to process the request would be more than $25 and the requester is not willing to pay
• The records are not reasonably described

Now -- how did each of these play in the denials counted above? What an excellent question...

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Do you think those explain away the increases from Bush to Obama, as well as the increases within the Obama administration? I think the trends are pretty telling, personally. As well as other administration decisions like happy-to-use-drones, and no-we-won't-promise-to-not-use-drones-on-US-citizens-oh-wait-you're-filibustering-to-draw-attention, and what-the-NSA-isn't-doing-anything-wrong, and more-patriot-act-more-more-more. But then, I have my own ideologically quirks which can blind me.

Do you have a counter-study, perhaps? Given the stark ideological divides in the country, one should be easy to find. Though I confess my 5 minutes spent googling didn't find one. Though I did find many different sources discussing the lack of transparency.

I'm happy to look at counter-data should you have it.

[macthud]

Counter-data comes against data. I haven't seen actual data to be countered yet.

I've seen aggregates, and partials, and assertions.

I haven't seen anything that can't be spun and interpreted multiple ways.

Historical transparency has been rather, shall we say, nonexistent, and it seems to me that no matter how much improvement Obama's administration might improve that, it won't (and possibly can't) be enough to visibly demonstrate that improvement.

And that's the biggest problem.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Data exists, yes?

And, you seem to be arguing, (several different) people with an ideological bent have interpreted that data in a particular way and offered it to prove a point.

If the data is so easily to manipulate - and the first group is doing so dishonestly - then surely (at least a few) people with a different ideological bent could have interpreted that data in a different way and used it to counter a point.

I haven't seen the counter. Have you?

And also, without any data at all, my gut feeling is if in any group of people I happen to know I began a conversation with "hey, isn't it great how Obama has been following his campaign promise for more transparency in government?" I would be assumed to be being sarcastic. What do you think?