Showing posts with label FOIA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FOIA. Show all posts

Sunday, November 2, 2014

What? Waste, fraud, abuse?!

November 02, 2014 Department of Homeland Security , FOIA 0 Comments
Fed Gov't Made $20 Bil In Secret Purchases In Recent Mths

Photo via Flickr
Scott MacFarlane, Nov. 1, 2014, NBC News

The federal government has spent at least $20 billion in taxpayer money this year on items and services that it is permitted to keep secret from the public, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team.

The purchases, known among federal employees as “micropurchases,” are made by some of the thousands of agency employees who are issued taxpayer-funded purchase cards. The purchases, in most cases, remain confidential and are not publicly disclosed by the agencies. A sampling of those purchases, obtained by the I-Team via the Freedom of Information Act, reveals at least one agency used those cards to buy $30,000 in Starbucks Coffee drinks and products in one year without having to disclose or detail the purchases to the public.

Read more: www.nbcwashington.com

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Thursday, September 4, 2014

Stonewalling on UACs

September 04, 2014 Breitbart TV , FOIA 0 Comments
Attkisson: Obama Admin Refusing to Tell Congress Where Illegal Children Went

Sharyl Atkisson
By Breitbart TV, Sept. 3, 2014, Breitbart.com

Wednesday on Newsmax TV's "The Steve Malzberg Show," former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson said the Obama administration is refusing to tell Congress where the ten of thousands of unaccompanied minors who crossed the U.S.-Mexican Border this summer were sent after they were processed though holding centers along the border.

Attkisson said the Obama administration seems to be intentionally stonewalling by not answering letters from members of Congress or reporters questions.

She added the only recourse is a FOIA lawsuit that will take years to go though the system.

Read the full story:  www.breitbart.com

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Friday, August 1, 2014

Courts restrain him again

August 01, 2014 Attorney General Eric Holder , DOJ 0 Comments
Judge Orders Release Of Fast And Furious Documents Withheld Under Obama Exec Privilege

Attorney General Eric Holder
By Katie Pavlich, Jul. 31, 2014, Townhall.com

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit pursued against the Department of Justice by government watchdog Judicial Watch, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled a list of documents being withheld from Congress under President Obama's claim of executive privilege must be turned over. Obama made the claim on the same day Attorney General Eric Holder was voted in criminal and civil contempt of Congress in June 2012.

"This order forces the Obama DOJ, for the first time, to provide a detailed listing of all documents that it has withheld from Congress and the American people for years about the deadly Fast and Furious gun running scandal," Judicial Watch released in a statement.

The FOIA lawsuit has been ongoing for 16-months and is now proceeding after a lengthy delay. The Justice Department originally asked the court for an indefinite hold on a FOIA request from Judicial Watch, citing executive privilege and an ongoing investigation. That indefinite hold request was shot down more than a year ago.
The documentation DOJ is required to now turn over is a "Vaughn index" of "all requested Fast and Furious materials from a June 2012 Judicial Watch FOIA request."
A Vaughn index must: (1) identify each document withheld; (2) state the statutory exemption claimed; and (3) explain how disclosure would damage the interests protected by the claimed exemption." In ordering the DOJ to provide Judicial Watch the Vaughn index, the Court ruled, “In this circuit, when an agency is withholding documents under exemption claims, courts require that the agency provide a Vaughn index so that the FOIA requester – at a distinct informational disadvantage – may test the agency’s claims.”
Read the full story:   www.townhall.com

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Friday, July 25, 2014

Media are 10% right about illegal "kids"

July 25, 2014 Breitbart.com , FOIA 0 Comments
Pew Report: Nearly 90% Of Illegal Immigrant 'Children' Are Teenagers

Photo Source:  www.examiner.com / AP
By Tony Lee, Jul. 22, 2014, Breitbart.com

Nearly all of the illegal immigrant children who have been apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border in the last two years have been teenagers.

According to a new Pew Research report, in fiscal year 2013, 91% of illegal immigrant "children" apprehended at the border were teenagers. Of the nearly 60,000 illegal immigrant "children" who were apprehended since October of last year, 84% have been teenagers.

Pew obtained the government figures through a Freedom of Information Act request, and the numbers paint "the first publicly available detailed portrait of the age and home country of child migrants —unaccompanied and accompanied – caught at the U.S.-Mexico border from Oct. 1, 2012, to May 31, 2014."

Pew also noted that while the number of children ages 12 and younger who have been apprehended has increased, "the number of apprehensions of children who are accompanied by a parent or guardian has increased at a far faster clip, nearly tripling (160% increase) in less than a year." According to the data, "in the partial fiscal year 2014 data provided, 22,069 accompanied children were apprehended, up from just 8,479 during all of the previous fiscal year."

Read the full story:  www.breitbart.com

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Wednesday, June 11, 2014

FLASHBACK: US Gov't Leaflet Tells Mexican Immigrants They Can Collect Food Stamps Without Admitting They're Illegal

June 11, 2014 FOIA , Illegal Aliens 0 Comments
By Daily Mail, Apr. 26, 2013, Dailymail.co.uk

 A Spanish-language leaflet that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided to the Mexican Embassy in Washington advises border-crossing Mexicans that they can collect taxpayer-funded food stamp benefits for their children without admitting that they're illegal immigrants.

 Underlined and in boldface type, the document tells immigrants who are unlawfully in the United States that, 'You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.'

 The USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, is funded in order to prevent hunger by helping poor families maintain a basic level of nutrition for both adults and children.

 The Agriculture Department says SNAP benefits are only to be distributed to U.S. citizens and other legal residents. On its website, it acknowledges an education 'partnership' with the Mexican government, but insists that its aim is to help educate only 'eligible Mexican nationals living in the United States' about nutrition benefits for which they might qualify.

 That education partnership is carried out through a program called 'Ventanillas de Salud,' meaning 'Windows to Health,' implemented through 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S.

 Judicial Watch obtained the Spanish language leaflet through a Freedom of Information Act request. An attached email dates the document to March 2009, just months after President Barack Obama took office.

 In an email, a spokesperson for the SNAP program told The Daily Caller, which first reported on the leaflet, that “non-citizens who are unlawfully present, are not, nor have they ever been, eligible to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

 Read the full story:  www.dailymail.co.uk
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Thursday, May 1, 2014

Jay Carney Lies About The Benghazi Email --Was there an email? What email? Email? Oh, that email...

May 01, 2014 Benghazi , Dag Vega 0 Comments
By John Hinderaker, Apr. 30, 2014, Powerlineblog.com

Yesterday I wrote about the most significant email that the Obama administration produced in response to a FOIA request by Judicial Watch. It was sent by White House political operative Ben Rhodes to a variety of administration officials whose duties related to PR, not policy. Among the recipients were David Plouffe, Dan Pfeiffer, Dag Vega and Jay Carney. Sent on the Friday before Susan Rice made her infamous tour of the Sunday morning talk shows, it set the talking points for the prep session that the group had scheduled with Rice for Saturday afternoon. Here it is:


Read the full story:  www.powerlineblog.com

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Thursday, April 17, 2014

Judicial Watch Obtains IRS Email Showing Lerner in Contact With DOJ about Potential Prosecution of Tax-Exempt Groups

April 17, 2014 DOJ , FOIA 0 Comments
Lois G. Lerner
By Judicial Watch, Apr. 16, 2014

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released a new batch of internal IRS documents revealing that former IRS official Lois Lerner communicated with the Department of Justice (DOJ) about whether it was possible to criminally prosecute certain tax-exempt entities. The documents were obtained as a result of an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the agency refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013.

The newly released IRS documents contain an email exchange between Lerner and Nikole C. Flax, then-Chief of Staff to then-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller discussing plans to work with the DOJ to prosecute nonprofit groups that “lied” (Lerner’s quotation marks) about political activities. The exchange includes the following:
May 8, 2013: Lerner to Flax
I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ … He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who “lied” on their 1024s –saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs. 
I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS…
May 9, 2013: Flax to Lerner
I think we should do it – also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?
Read the full story: www.judicialwatch.org

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