back to article Feds back down from legalizing government lies

The US Department of Justice has dropped a controversial proposed ruling that would have allowed them to say that records don't exist when, in fact, they do – a response that in the vernacular might simply be called lying. "The Justice Department decided that misleading the American people would be wrong, and made the right …

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  1. me n u
    Stop

    "And so a powerful Republican Senator and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee becomes a free-speech hero"

    How the hell did that happen?! Obviously it's time to get rid of this guy. Maybe a firebomb or something. How unpatriotic. <sigh>

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Of course...

    ... the ruling may actually have gone the other way, and this is the first lie that they are telling.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "... the ruling may actually have gone the other way..."

      Very possibly.

      "...and this is the first lie that they are telling".

      Definitely not.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    If all is as it appears here, then bravo to the senator. Unfortunately, a part of me thinks that his position on the matter was solely due to its potential for embarrassing the administration...

    1. Version 1.0 Silver badge

      And what's wrong with that?

      This administration deserves to be embarrassed for the complete failure to follow through on the vast majority of their election promises!

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Flame

        Really..

        "Embarrassing" this administration is about as hard as embarrassing Fonzi the Keynesian Military Fetishist Clown in SS Leather Gear currently demonstrating his skills at submissive bondage roles with his partner, Crazy Israel.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          Content is king, Mr. Monsters, and your five second diatribe has none. If you're going to post an incoherent flame, at least have the decency to punctuate your stumbling invective with a bit of fallacious reasoning. Part of a complete breakfast, you know.

  4. jake Silver badge

    A Republican pro "free speech"?

    Hell is about to freeze over.

    Agree with David W. I'm not looking forward to the next election cycle ... It's gonna get uglier than usual, methinks.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Stop

      RE: A Republican pro "free speech"?

      Why is it that people making fun of Republicans always conveniently forget that the Dummicrats are not exactly coated in glory when it comes to human rights, lying, etc? After all, Lyndon Johnson, accused as fabricating the Tonkin incident as part of some plan to escalate the Viet Nam war, was a Dummicrat. Or the fact the Republican party was formed bu anti-slavery activists to fight the pro-slavery Dummicrats, the same Dummicrats that formed the KKK. Yeah, that's right, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. Even simple marks of respect, such as when Reagan signed up Martin Luther King Jr Day as a national holiday, all conveniently forgotten in the rush to swallow the latest hype. Looks like the "pliant press" aren't the real problem, it's the appallingly low level of historical knowledge amongst far too many of the US electorate.

      1. Dahak
        Thumb Down

        [quote]Why is it that people making fun of Republicans always conveniently forget that the Dummicrats are not exactly coated in glory when it comes to human rights, lying, etc? [/quote]

        Because the Republicans and Democrats in general swapped ends with Nixon's Southern Strategy.

        The Republican attempts to make American political discourse more facist and the ultra rightist bias in the American Media don't help either.

        I'm not sure your inability to spell Democrat helps your case.

        1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          FAIL

          RE: Dahak

          "....Nixon's Southern Strategy....." Very old history. Do please try again.

          "....the ultra rightist bias in the American Media...." Really? Where? We talking about the same "listening to Obama I got a shiver down my leg" media? Get real!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Same reason

        ...as you refer to 'Republicans' and 'Dummicrats'?

        And maybe people's 'level of historical knowledge,' isn't *so* low, maybe they judge the current players on their policies and invidual merits rather than, as you seem tacitly to be advocating, taking the line that because Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, the current bunch of neantherthal god-bothering anti-science repressed-cousin-humpers are the only true 'Merkin choice.

        1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          WTF?

          RE: Same reason

          "....maybe they judge the current players on their policies and invidual merits...." Yeah, because The Obumbler's main selling points where his extensive experience and policies - NOT! The guy was barely out of the kindergarten of US politics.

      3. Hollerith 1

        political names

        'Republican' has been used many times since the USA was born: as a counter to federalism or to vested interests (during Aaron Burr's time), for the people who were identifying against the Southern interests (in Lincoln's time) and now, back to the vested interests. 'Democrat' and other words have similarly gone round the wheel. What does seem to be a constant is two groups: the vested interests in money and power in the hands of the inner circle, either nakedly so or hidden behind 'popular sovereignty' (as Andrew Jackson did), or millennial/visionary, either on a practical level (those Lincoln Republicans) or the 'liberals' under La Follette circa 1900, or even the tea partiers of today. The other constant has been the ranting, foaming-at-the-mouth hatred of one group for the other, each denying the other could be patriots, thoughtful, have a bit of right on their side, or even human.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        'dummicrats'?

        Oh, for Christ's sake. That's the best you can do? I don't give half a flying shit about whoever's bills whenever, or what party wants what - the real problem is people who put party before policy. The real problem is people who are so smothered with hatred for The Enemy that they can only manage infantile insults - Dumbocrat, Rethuglican, Dimocrap (hey, two for one!), Shrub, Odumba. The real problem is people who convince themselves that their obvious lies are real, or who know and continue anyway.

        In short, the real probem is people who want to beat the enemy at all costs, who would ride the back of our nation straight down to the fires of hell if they could blame the other 50% of libtards or repukes for it.

        Mr. Bryant - there is a word for you and those like you.

        It is not 'patriot'.

        1. Figgus

          "In short, the real probem is people who want to beat the enemy at all costs, who would ride the back of our nation straight down to the fires of hell if they could blame the other 50% of libtards or repukes for it."

          I dunno, I'm not cheerleading that the congressional gridlock is making Obama look bad. I'm actually glad that the republicans are doing the right thing and stopping more harmful policies from being enacted.

          I don't care if the Dems fail, but I certainly don't think their success would be in everyone's best interests.

          Gridlock is a good thing right now!

          (Just another take on the current debacle. Clearly I'm not one of the masses crying because we can't all just compromise.)

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          So you're saying what Has been clear since the Reagan regime: you can be a Republican or you can be an American, but not both.

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Dummicrats and Republitards.

        Americans complain that the rest of the world hates them.

        The trouble is that Americans obviously hate each other so much that the most of the world stopped hating them a long time ago and now just looks on in dumbfounded despair and pity.

        America needs a damn good kick up the arse as they will accomplish nothing while they're squabbling like nasty, spiteful children.

    2. Figgus

      Re: A Republican pro "free speech"?

      Well, the Republicans espouse a smaller, less powerful central government. From that point of view, it makes perfect sense to reign in the government's ability to muddy the waters.

      If anything, the Dems are more likely to want to cover up government operations now, considering all their current "green energy" scandals.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        So, it doesn't sound to me like you're part of the problem. You have a policy disagreement with the administration. But it sounds like it's a -policy- disagreement, not a damn-the-consequences-beat-the-enemy attitude, as had those who would have defaulted and plunged the world into a massive depression rather than eliminate a tax loophole. There was never any debate among nonpolitical types about the consequences of a US default, but 50 freshmen Congressmen were ready to put the gun to our heads rather than let Democrats win. -Worldwide economic catastrophe was better than the slightest compromise-.

        You don't strike me as one who would blow a huge hole in the side of the ship and drown the crew because you opposed using the credit card to fix the leak. That's he thing I'm talking about; that, and the rabid, hateful shrieking among normal citizens that makes Jerry Springer look like Charlie Rose.

        I'm not sure what will happen if it continues, or gets worse, and I don't particularly want to think about it.

      2. Goat Jam

        "Well, the Republicans espouse a smaller, less powerful central government"

        Is that what happened under Bush 2.0?

        The (big L) Liberals over here in Australia espouse similar things but in truth it hardly ever turns out that way.

        To be honest though, the Labor party do appear to be much more adept at growing the size of government than the Libs when it is their turn at the trough.

        All this wrangling between left and right politics serves to do is hide from people the truth, which is that left and right are different sides of the same coin and both of them do the bidding of people higher up the food chain.

  5. john devoy

    It's a sad sign of how the USA is progressing that they even tried to implement such a law.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      no, the sad part is....

      That they think we believe them.

  6. anon10293
    Boffin

    Context

    Full excerpt from linked document (with regards to any and all denials of information): "Adverse determinations, or denials of requests, include decisions that: the requested record is exempt, in whole or in part; the request does not reasonably describe the records sought; the information requested is not a record subject to the FOIA; the requested record does not exist, cannot be located, or has been destroyed; or the requested record is not readily reproducible in the form or format sought by the requester."

    While I'm not saying that there may not be (and there certainly have and continue to be) abuses of this power, to state that every and all request is given an explicit deny due to the record being "non-existent" is a misleading conclusion to draw.

  7. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Yes minister - true as ever

    Jim: [reading] This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, a few others lost in the flood of 1967.

    [to Humphrey] Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?

    Sir Humphrey: No a marvellous winter, we lost no end of embarrassing files.

    Jim: [reading] Some records which went astray in the move to London, and others when the War Office was incorporated in the Ministry of Defence, and the normal withdrawal of papers whose publication could give grounds for an action for liable or breach of confidence, or cause embarrassment to friendly governments.

    [to Humphrey] Well that's pretty comprehensive. How many does that normally leave for them to look at? [Humphrey says nothing] How many does

    that actually leave? About a hundred? Fifty? Ten? Five? Four? Three? Two? One? Zero?

    Sir Humphrey: Yes Minister.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's too late the damage is done

    The people already don't trust a thing out of the DOJ.

    Eric Holder is already in breech of contract with We The People. Attaching medical cannabis dispensary's while letting the banksters continue on.

    So was the initial person who suggested this sent to FT Leavenworth? No. Then who is to say they aren't just saying what you want to hear? Does anyone ever go to jail for breaking their OATH?

    Until the situation is rectified, I would argue the current rule of law is no rule at all, but a rule of fascism, which means there are no rules, which means when the people learn this, they won't follow the law, and why would they tell the DOJ the truth anymore? Why would any adult obey these BS laws without the US Constitution restored.

    Either the US Constitution gets restored, or watch as things unravel faster and faster in the US.

    The DOJ are domestic terrorists.

  9. Bernard M. Orwell
    Big Brother

    And.....

    ....as ever, there are NO CONSPIRACIES.

    Everyone go back to your normal lives, there is nothing worthy to see here.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Logic

      "Since someone taken in by the conspiracy would not acknowledge it, anyone denying the existence of a conspiracy is further proof of its existence."

      Brilliant logic, really - I mean, there's really no arguing it.

  10. Glenn Charles
    Devil

    National Security Act

    Read the provisions.

    Freedom of Information Act my eye.

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