“Super-Secret” Comm. Works To Reduce Deficit

akajas — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:53:14 +0000

Typical of the way government functions, the influential congressional committee formed recently to find ways of reducing the nation’s monstrous budget deficit is doing most of its work in secret.Known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the bipartisan panel was concocted to save the country from the dire financial crisis that has gripped it throughout President Barack Obama’s tenure. By the end of November the 12-member committee—equally split between Senate and House Democrats and Republicans—is supposed to make miraculous recommendations that will then be voted on by the full House and Senate under special rules.The goal is to reduce the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over the next decade. But the “Super Committee,” as it’s frequently called, is conducting most of its businesses behind closed doors even though the fruit of its labor will have a profound effect on the entire country. In fact, the panel’s Democratic chairwoman, Washington State Senator Patty Murray, has asked her constituents for ideas that could be “implemented by the Joint Select Committee to help move our country in the right direction.”“At this critical time for our country your involvement is important to ensuring that we can find common ground solutions that work for real families,” Senator Murray writes in a letter pleading for the public’s input. …”I want to hear from you,” she stresses.But she doesn’t want Americans, or fellow lawmakers who don’t sit on her committee, to know what’s going on behind the scenes. In a mainstream newspaper story about the panel’s secrecy Murray claims it must deliberate in private so members can be “open and honest with each other.” Someone needs to tell the senator that openness is what keeps government honest.Senator Murray offered a rather amusing anecdote to justify the committee’s secrecy: “I remember well one time when I was very little and I was fighting with my brother every other minute, and my mother put us in a back room and said, ‘Don’t come out until you got it figured out.’ We stared at each other for a while, but we came our friends.”The touching childhood tale failed to convince several lawmakers who don’t sit on the panel. One U.S. Senator, New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte, insisted “the American people deserve to know what is happening in this committee,” adding that the “negotiations should be fully open. We don’t get a better result for the people of this country when things are done behind closed doors.”Another lawmaker, Utah Senator Mike Lee, said he’s not aware of any other legislative committee responsible for matters of such “profound sweeping importance” operating in secret. Utah Senator Dean Heller has coined the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction the “super-secret committee.”

Homeland Sec. Blocks Politically Sensitive Public Records

akajas — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:23:09 +0000

In an act of retaliation, the Obama Administration demoted a senior career employee at the Department of Homeland Security for blowing the whistle on political appointees who illegally interfered with public records requests.This certainly contradicts President Obama’s repeated promise to run the most transparent administration in history. Americans have already seen many examples of how the administration has violated its own transparency guarantees but this case, exposed by a national news organization, ranks among the more atrocious examples.It involves a veteran Homeland Security lawyer (Catherine Papoi) who worked as a deputy unit chief in charge of handling public records requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Papoi told the agency’s inspector general that hundreds of public records requests had been illegally sidetracked to Obama advisers because the documents were considered politically sensitive.The administration officials delayed release and demanded information about the watchdog groups, journalists and others requesting the materials. If a member of congress requested documents, Homeland Security employees were ordered to specify if it was a Republican or Democrat who put in the order.Papoi, who is currently on leave, flat out said that political appointees broke the law by knowingly and intentionally delaying and obstructing the release of agency records under FOIA. Anyone who has ever requested records from the government, as Judicial Watch regularly does, knows well that this sort of stonewalling happens all the time even though it’s illegal.So is retaliating against whistleblowers that expose wrongdoing, although that happens routinely as well. In a letter to the Obama Administration, the chairman of the House committee that investigates government fraud, waste and abuse accuses it of retaliating against Papoi and warns that “obstructing a congressional investigation is a crime.”The hard-hitting letter urges Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to remind employees about their rights and whistleblower protections and to make agency managers aware of the consequences for retaliation against witnesses who furnish information to congress. Not surprisingly, the agency denies any wrongdoing.

Judicial Watch » government secrecy

“Super-Secret” Comm. Works To Reduce Deficit

Homeland Sec. Blocks Politically Sensitive Public Records