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Intershame On: U.S. President Barack Obama |
No Access to White House Visitor Logs?
06/18/2009
UPDATE 09/04/2009: It appears that President Obama has reversed his decision to hide visitor logs from the public.
We admire the President's willingness to change course and would like to take this opportunity to pat ourselves on the back for pressuring his administration to do so.
If anybody needed proof of Intershame's awesome power look no further. Clearly our massive 100,000 monthly visits put so much pressure on the adminstration, they were forced to do the right thing. We take 100% of the credit for this development.
Below is the original article which is obviously responsible for President's Obama's change of heart.
The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.
Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.
OK, the question must be asked: What is being hidden? If there is nothing to hide, then there would be no harm in releasing this information.
The populace must have access to as much information as possible. In an open democracy, information is a tool of the people. Information keeps those in power honest. The open flow of information is one of the edicts that separates countries like the United States from countries like Iran. Whenever those in power attempt to keep information from the public, it must be condemned.
Speaking of Iran... In light of what's transpiring there, this is a bad time for the Obama administration to be making the argument that concealing information is a good thing. How can the State Department ask Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance so that Iranian tweeters can use the service to get information out, and in the next breath argue that withholding information from U.S. citizens is acceptable? That last time I checked, White House visitor logs aren't a matter of national security.
There seems to be a trend here. More and more President Obama is adopting the condemned policies of his predecessor. The Iraq war is being curtailed, but escalation is occurring if Afghanistan. Guantanamo Bay remains open. Immunity has been granted to companies engaged in illegal wiretapping. Even habitual Obama defenders Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher have come out in recent days to criticize some of his policies. And I'm glad they're doing so. Had those on the right taken a more objective look at President Bush and not just gotten in lock-step behind whatever he did, maybe we could have escaped a portion of his asinine policies. If enough people on the left speak out after Obama makes a poor policy decision, maybe we can avoid some of his.
In this particular case, President Obama's stand against the open flow of information is Intershameful. Open government is vital. Our last president didn't understand this. I'm beginning to fear our current one doesn't either.
We admire the President's willingness to change course and would like to take this opportunity to pat ourselves on the back for pressuring his administration to do so.
If anybody needed proof of Intershame's awesome power look no further. Clearly our massive 100,000 monthly visits put so much pressure on the adminstration, they were forced to do the right thing. We take 100% of the credit for this development.
Below is the original article which is obviously responsible for President's Obama's change of heart.
Come on, Barack. Get your shit together.
From msnbc.com...The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.
Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.
OK, the question must be asked: What is being hidden? If there is nothing to hide, then there would be no harm in releasing this information.
The populace must have access to as much information as possible. In an open democracy, information is a tool of the people. Information keeps those in power honest. The open flow of information is one of the edicts that separates countries like the United States from countries like Iran. Whenever those in power attempt to keep information from the public, it must be condemned.
Speaking of Iran... In light of what's transpiring there, this is a bad time for the Obama administration to be making the argument that concealing information is a good thing. How can the State Department ask Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance so that Iranian tweeters can use the service to get information out, and in the next breath argue that withholding information from U.S. citizens is acceptable? That last time I checked, White House visitor logs aren't a matter of national security.
There seems to be a trend here. More and more President Obama is adopting the condemned policies of his predecessor. The Iraq war is being curtailed, but escalation is occurring if Afghanistan. Guantanamo Bay remains open. Immunity has been granted to companies engaged in illegal wiretapping. Even habitual Obama defenders Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher have come out in recent days to criticize some of his policies. And I'm glad they're doing so. Had those on the right taken a more objective look at President Bush and not just gotten in lock-step behind whatever he did, maybe we could have escaped a portion of his asinine policies. If enough people on the left speak out after Obama makes a poor policy decision, maybe we can avoid some of his.
In this particular case, President Obama's stand against the open flow of information is Intershameful. Open government is vital. Our last president didn't understand this. I'm beginning to fear our current one doesn't either.
Comments
- 1432 days ago\"So according to your explanation, we should then have grocery stores that everyone can shop at, but wouldn\'t have to pay anything\"
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No, that is not the point at all. The point is ANY form of insurance is a tiny (or large) pool of socialism. A bunch of people get together and give their money into an entity which then provides care as needed.
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In the private insurance case, the entity in question is a for-profit company. In the public run health care system the entity is the government. Which situation happens to most closely match YOUR reality is irrelevant. Insurance is still fundamentally a socialist concept. If you pay your insurance premiums or taxes all your life and never get sick, you don't get your money back no matter if your insurance is provided by Blue Cross or the government of Canada.
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