Friday, May 13, 2011

Obama’s ‘Transparency’ A Failure of Leadership

By Robert Romano
 
So much for Barack Obama’s vaunted transparency.
Americans for Limited Government (ALG) is appealing the Department of Labor’s refusal to turn over all documents related to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on enforcement of 185 laws the Department is required to follow. And the organization is still waiting to hear back on key items in the request.
This is nothing new with the Obama Administration. Recently, Crossroads GPS created an online repository for pending FOIA requests with the Obama Administration, called Wikicountability.org.

This included the request that covered the Department’s implementation of an online enforcement database, which should have included prosecutions of corruption in labor unions, ALG says, but was not.
“That data should be in the database, and the question is why not,” ALG President Bill Wilson explained, saying the request was being “stonewalled” by the Department. After all, the prosecution of union corruption is a key item of the Department’s enforcement responsibilities.

He speculated on the possibility that “they don’t want that information to be public because it makes union officials look bad. It may be embarrassing, but we want those documents; the public has a right to know.”
Get full story here.

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