Here we are : Obama moves to curb federal secrets !!!

Obama Moves To Curb Federal Secrets, Encourage DeclassificationANNE FLAHERTY | 12/29/09 11:25 PM |WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Tuesday ordered the federal government to rethink how it protects the nation's secrets, in a move that was expected to declassify more than 400 million pages of Cold War-era documents and curb the number of government records hidden from the public.Among the changes is a requirement that every record be released eventually and that federal agencies review how and why they mark documents classified or deny the release of historical records. A National Declassification Center at the National Archives will be established to assist them and help clear a backlog of the Cold War records by Dec. 31, 2013.Obama also reversed a decision by President George W. Bush that had allowed the intelligence community to block the release of a specific document, even if an interagency panel decided the information wouldn't harm national security.Advocates for a more open government are cautiously cheering the move."Everything will depend on implementation," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. But the order "has tremendous potential to reduce the level of secrecy throughout the government."In a memo to agency heads, Obama said he expects that the order will produce "measurable progress" toward greater openness in government while also protecting the nation's most important secrets."I will closely monitor the results," he promised.The still-classified Cold War records would provide a wealth of data on U.S.-Soviet relations, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the fall of the Berlin Wall, diplomacy and espionage. A Soviet spy ring in the Navy led by John Walker headlined 1985, which became known as "The Year of the Spy."On his first day in office, Obama instructed federal agencies to be more responsive to requests for records under the Freedom of Information Act and he overturned an order by Bush that would have enabled former presidents and vice presidents to block release of sensitive records of their time in the White House.The government spent more than $8.21 billion last year to create and safeguard classified information, and $43 million to declassify it, according to the Information Security Oversight Office, which oversees the government's security classification. The figures don't include data from the principal intelligence agencies, which is classified.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/29/obama-moves-to-curb-feder_n_406725.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1402291.html

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Replies

Vagelis4VP December 31, 2009 at 2:03pm

He cant arrest the criminals...because the criminals are the ones on top who make the decisions...
the legs cannot kick on against the head....the legs just do what the head tells them to...
- Amelia > Vagelis4VP December 31, 2009 at 4:50pm
  
  But it looks as if he IS trying to arrest the criminals. Haven't you all read the Human Rights Act that he just signed? It ties into this, and came first.
DRACO December 31, 2009 at 6:16am

Its a small step but he is going to have to do alot better than that to instigate real change. He could start by arresting all the criminals that have been deceiving this world for so long
- Daytuner > DRACO December 31, 2009 at 6:28pm
  
  Dear CoMdr, i'm definitely not an expert in politics but i think that indeed it's a small step or maybe another false illusion, who knows... I recently read that in all cases the Obama government couldn't afford to keep on wasting so much money on secret files and this article is just a confirmation.
  
  Who's side am i on ? LOL guess ;)
- Thomas > DRACO December 31, 2009 at 1:36pm
  
  I agree, arrest the criminals behind it all is the only real change I can imagine,
  anything else is just bullshit,....and besides that, as the GFL has all of earths history recorded
  anyway, whats the point of all this in the first place? ;-)))

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