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I'm not American, so I'm not well informed on US political matters. Are there any acts in place ensuring that information or decisions made by the president that affect the public, etc. are not being concealed by the government - other than accidental leaks to the media? Are there any constantly-active investigation-bodies tasked with ensuring politics remain constitutional?

2007-03-13 11:08:40 · 4 answers · asked by the answer chancer 2 in Politics & Government Law & Ethics

4 answers

Prior to the sitting President there was a law called the Freedom of Information Act---- one of this man's first--Absolute first actions upon taking the office-- was to enact edicts and measures to thwart this law and move tons of records and information into a No Access Zone by way of declaring "national security" measures around them (and THIS was a full SEVEN MONTHS PRIOR TO 9 / 11 !!!!!!!!!

And, VERY rapidly After 9 / 11 the Hastily produced and rapidly signed and enacted PATRIOT ACT (which even though it was "rapidly produced" had some extremely intricate and Very well researched and carefully worded content (many say had to have been being worked on in some form or other for a least 6 to 8 months prior to its introduction--- which would have made THAT at least 4 months before 9 / 11) --- and that document being past into law (many who voted to pass it into law admitted later as to have never even read in it's entirity and past it simply out of "compliance" with the "suggestions" of the white house in a "time of war" ) very quickly----sealed the deal on ANY information on ANY THING ever being received by ANY BODY at any time !!!! All for the National Security !!

There are a good number of US however that feel that the TRUE SECURITY of this nation has a lot to do with what is being done in secrecy Under the Cloak OF "security" !!!!

At present---absolutely everything is in total 'lockout" mode and everything in DC is considered private information and a "national security" item no matter what that item is !! If you actually had a list of the things that they have actually listed as "national security" items on the manifests in DC you would literally fall in the floor with laughter--- point is though-- this is LONG way away from being a laughing matter----
THE ONE NATION THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE BEACON OF OPENNESS IN THE WORLD IS NOW BEING RAN COMPLETELY IN SECRET AND IN STEALTH MODE

Pretty scarey stuff here !!!!!

2007-03-13 11:41:25 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1 0

I'm not sure, but in Australia, we have the Freedom of Information Act. Freedom of Information (FOI) is designed to promote and enable transperancy in governmental departments. For instance, you could put in a FOI request for information regarding government emails.

These requests can only be refused if they are deemed to be "not in the public interest" or to the contrary of national security measures. However, the problem with this, is requests are often deemed to be not in the public interest so to actually get any information, you will often need to contest it all the way to the high court.

In theory it's a good idea, however it's prone to misuse. Often politicians are aware of FOI so will classify documents to a higher security than neccessary to stop the requests or else they'll regularly destroy diaries and other paper work.

We also have Ombudsman and Anti-Corruption task forces working in all government departments. Just recently a number of ministers had to resign from WA Government due to corruption which was exposed by such mechanisms.

2007-03-13 11:20:05 · answer #2 · answered by xxalmostfamous1987xx 5 · 0 0

There are several. Most documents are sealed for a time, so that our leaders can make difficult decisions in necessary without being crucified. Information considered dangerous to National Security is also sealed from the public, usually for about 20 years.

2007-03-13 11:11:41 · answer #3 · answered by Beardog 7 · 0 0

No, the President is able to hide behind 'executive privilege' in the US. Papers related to a President's decisions are supposed to be made public, but aren't always. For example, George Bush refused to allow his father's papers to be made public although they would normally have been published 13 years after he left office. The current president claimed this was on grounds of national security... yeah, right!

2007-03-13 11:12:38 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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