US: Rule Change Would Allow Government to Lie About Whether Records Exist

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Your Freedom Of Information Act request may be about to hit a dead end.

A proposed rule to the Freedom of Information Act would allow federal agencies to tell people requesting certain law-enforcement or national security documents that records don't exist - even when they do.

Under current FOIA practice, the government may withhold information and issue what's known as a Glomar denial that says it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records.

The new proposal - part of a lengthy rule revision by the Department of Justice - would direct government agencies to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."

Open-government groups object.

"We don't believe the statute allows the government to lie to FOIA requesters," said Mike German, senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the provision.

While I am sure they deny certain items exist anyways, this is making so that it will for sure become common practice. Really the government does nothing but lie anyways, this is just making it legal.

They have denied the existence of area 51 for how long? You could be sitting at the gates looking towards the military base and they would still deny it existed. What idiots...

So now not only do they lie, they make it legal for them to lie........

Any thoughts?

Pred...

Doesn't seem like anything new to me. The governments and corporations have done whatever they've wanted for decades, shuffling paperwork around and changing what's written on paper as law isn't going to change their same techniques of lying and manipulations.

NASA has admitted they are deeming many space objects as classified, but they kept them classified before stating this regardless. It's all a show to keep the herd calm and stable, in their stables.

Thoughts? Yeah; WTF IS THIS CR@P?!?! Every day the Government gets sleazier and sleazier, I mean these days I would trust a hooker off 4th St more than I would trust the US Govt....

reply to post by predator0187
Slime. Utter and complete slime.

I just luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuvthis whole "transperency" thing.

Makes sense to me the current administration trying to hide its duplicity in numerous scandals we have heard about and the many we haven't.

Yep Hip Hip Hoorah for the most transparent adminstration is this countries history.

Meh You can always tell the crooks but the amount of info they keep off their books.

Worthless

reply to post by ArrowsNV

I would trust a hooker off 4th St more than I would trust the US Govt....

Lol at that!!

I'm sure it has been going on from the outset, just putting it into legislation that is all.

FOIA, really? With the amount of secrecy involved in running a country? I fear not!!

I know this is an old thread but I thought I would add my experience in case anyone does a search later on.

I did a FBI file request on someone who in a high level capacity worked with atomic secrets during the cold war, was involved in a public corruption scandal that was on the front page of a major newspaper, was a relative of someone involved (and most likely involved themselves) in one of the largest FBI investigations in history, and would routinely work on many government legal cases.


Guess, what .... this person has NO FBI FILE!!!!

Does anyone really believe this?

This person was very close to some relatives of my family and had a very negative impact on my life and the life of my family. I think this is one of those cases where the FBI is using misusing the process to protect themselves.