Sibel Edmonds Quotes
The information I requested under the Freedom of Information Act has been blocked for two years.
Edmonds, Sibel. "Gagged, but Not Quiet." Interview by Jim Hogue. Baltimore Chronicle, 21 May 2004.
The next article itemizes a few exceptions such as national security, but by and large government documents are accessible.
Who does and does not get parole often depends more on politics and political contributions than on any issue of merit. Keeping all the records secret and the meetings closed allows much of this to happen. In Georgia, the politicians are so desperate to be sure that no one can determine the truth about parole decisions that they have passed a law that even the highest judges of the state cannot subpoena parole board records even if they are material and necessary for criminal or civil trials.
The main reason that the English or American Freedom of Information Act is not used so much by individuals is that the executive agencies make the process of obtaining documents very difficult and then when the government stonewalls, the requestor has to spend a great deal of time and often engage an attorney. The result is that few individuals can spend the time or money and the field consists mostly of media and non profit organizations which have staff and resources.
The executive order to which this statement referred was the then new President’s first—Executive Order 13489. It was enthusiastically received by the public, historians, researchers and the media. However at the end of Obama’s two administrations, the system was a little better than when George W. Bush, blocked much of the Freedom of Information Act from being implemented. However, the agencies who want to operate in secrecy without having to deal with public criticism, had developed even more sophisticated techniques of avoiding transparency and when they must disclose, they have developed techniques to delay the process, sometimes even for years, while they study whether the material should be disclosed. The president personally declassified a few CIA files from decades ago that the agency maintained should be secret, but he did nothing else systemic so solve the problem of declassifying and material and nothing to control the over classification which virtually everyone agrees is a major problem. More material is being classified than ever.
The Green Party and The Socialist Party had combined in an alliance. This was their publication. In addition to showing that the right to know and freedom of information was a major issue in other industrial democracies as well as the United States, the quotation is particularly interesting because the title of the article was used over 200 years before by none other than the American patriot, Patrick Henry. See {60328}. The phrase has been used many times in many lands since.
Sibel Deniz Edmonds is a former contract translator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the founder and editor-in-chief of the independent news website NewsBud.
