Openness for Thee, but Not for Me

"Iran for president promising transparency, and I meant what I said. And that is why, whenever possible, my administration will make information available to the American people so that they can make informed judgments and hold us accountable."

That was Barack Obama last Thursday morning at the National Archives.

We have heard this tune before. On January 21, his second day in office, Obama released a memorandum on government transparency. It quoted Louis Brandeis on sunlight. It directed executive agencies to operate with a strong "presumption in favor of disclosure." It spoke of our "national commitment" to open government and proclaimed, "at the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike."

It has been four months. In that time, President Obama has made it clear that he believes in transparency only when it serves his own interest. His administration has used the Freedom of Information Act as a shield, and in important ways his agencies are operating under a strong presumption in favor of secrecy.

The result? The American public has not seen three batches of documents that would better allow us to "make informed judgments" and hold our elected officials accountable. The still-classified documents are deemed sensitive--not because their release would compromise intelligence but because of their political implications.

For months, several news organizations--including THE WEEKLY STANDARD (see my "Second Thoughts," written with Thomas Joscelyn, in the March 16 issue)--have been trying to obtain a copy of the Pentagon's analysis of Guantánamo Bay detainee recidivism.

Despite the fact that we were told the report would be released in early February, and despite the fact that the Obama administration has proclaimed itself the most transparent administration in history, and despite a presidential memorandum ordering executive agencies and departments to treat Freedom of Information Act requests with a "presumption in favor of disclosure"--the Pentagon has actually taken additional steps to hide the report and keep it from both the public and lawmakers of both parties.

We were told on February 2 that the report would likely be posted on the Pentagon website that afternoon. When we followed up, we were instructed to check back "in a couple days." We made several additional attempts to obtain the report, and, on March 6, the Pentagon officially went into denial mode: "My understanding is that several requests have been received by our OSD FOIA office and it is being processed for a decision concerning release. If you would like to submit a FOIA request as well, below is a link for your convenience."
Thanks to an unauthorized leak, the New York Times was able to write about the report last Thursday. According to the Times:

Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama's plan to close Guantánamo.
The report shows that 74 detainees released from Guantánamo have returned to jihad--some 14 percent. In his speech Thursday, Obama went to great lengths to blame the release of these detainees on the Bush administration. Fair enough. One suspects that this was just a convenient political argument. But if he was sincere, and he honestly believes the Bush administration was too lenient in its judgments about detainees, he should release the report and show us the error of their ways.

Second, the CIA denied a request from former Vice President Dick Cheney to declassify two CIA reports on the results of "enhanced interrogation" techniques. In his speech on Thursday, Obama said: "I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation."

Why should we believe him? What evidence did he cite to support this claim? Where are the facts? What do the professionals believe? What did contemporaneous reports tell us? What information did they produce? We are left to wonder.

The CIA, with the direct approval of the Obama White House, used a technicality to keep the documents secret and hidden from public view. "In researching the information in question, we have discovered that it is currently the subject of pending FOIA litigation (Bloche v. Department of Defense, Amnesty International v. Central Intelligence Agency). Therefore, the document is excluded from Mandatory Declassification Review."