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

[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?