The Obama administration has backed down on its plan to legalize lying when folks file Freedom of Information Act requests, after lots of folks got all het up, including some members of Congress, journalists, and just plain citizens who didn’t like the idea of a Justice Department rule to let cops and spooks claim they didn’t have information they actually have.
Jennifer LaFleur of ProPublica, our source for the original story, follows up:
Thursday, DOJ said it had withdrawn the measure from its final regulations.
In a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, one of several members of Congress who had questioned the proposal, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said that the measure would not be included in the DOJ’s final rule.
“The Justice Department decided that misleading the American people would be wrong, and made the right decision to pull the proposed regulation,” Sen. Grassley said in a statement.
The Justice Department has not set a date for when it plans to release its final regulations.
Nice to see the good guys win one for a change. But the simple fact that a “Department of Justice” would entertain the notion of adopting a policy of formalized lying is simply breathtaking. But to apply it to a law created specifically to enable citizens to learn the truth about the government is the the most hypocritical action we’ve seen yet from the Hope™ and Change™ cabal.
