That headline is from this article in The Atlantic. Below is from Globalwarming.org
What EPA Transparency Looks Like in Most Open, Honest Administration Ever
This time, we got actual emails … that revealed a lot … about the fine art of redaction. Remember, this is the production of the most powerful regulatory agency of the most transparent administration in history. “We have nothing to hide,” the EPA has told us. Sure doesn’t seem that way to us:
BTW, note the date.
The date of 8/15/2009 is pre-climategate. I had thought that this need by the EPA administrator Lisa Jackson’s secondhand email account was a response to the leaked emails Climategate and the FOIA attempts.
Apparently they just planned this deception from the get-go.
Read more at: http://www.globalwarming.org/2013/02/22/what-epa-transparency-looks-like-in-most-open-honest-administration-ever/
End the EPA and all the rest of the alphabet agencies by just doing this – one fight and we can have our States rights and powers back . . http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/
Maybe the EPA can get away with doing this to the public, although gods I hope not. Could Vitter and/or Issa force the EPA to show them the actual contents of these?
The House and Senate has committees that these agencies must answer to – they can force the issue – there is no national security risk that Obama can hide behind Executive privilege will not fly either.
We the People must force congress to just do their jobs . . CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS – TAKE HOLDER TO THE COURTS NOW . . THEN ALL OTHER AGENCY HEADS.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/
Obama lied.
i wonder if they have examined the law of privilege at all
Redact everything and we will still have data via transaction analysis.
The real irony here, is when the climate starts showing a legitimate cooling trend that can’t be denied, which will be a number of years down the road, the AGW crowd will take the credit. They have no shame, only spin……and boy oh boy do they spin.
I don’t think there can be privilege when the CC individual is not represented by the attorney. How can it be verified that Diane Thompson is represented by Scott Fulton? Perhaps Diane’s emails can be requested as well…
Is this blackmail? lol
An email to the psuedo Richard Windsor which begins with, “Hi Lisa…” And they didn’t redact that most incriminating part. LOL!
Time to freeze Richard’s/Lisa’s bank accounts and passport?
Did they actually do the redactions right so that it isn’t merely a black rectangle over the original text?
What a joke.
Also very typical of government.
Oh I’m sure they’re experts at redaction.
Environmental policy? That’s another story.
Quote doctoring, I guess that’s like temperature adjustments. Perhaps the next time someone promises tranperency, we’ll know to ask if it’s transperency to reality or transperency to wishfull thinking.
This is another broad problem in gov, on both sides of the aisle. Bush used private email accounts broadly which are less secure and easily deleted. Obama continues but with aliases instead.
This is bad.
The rule of law… the weed must have destroyed his brain…
Good point. if they were negligent in their redacting methodology, then there are techniques that allow the email to be read.
Surely such massive redactions must undermine the judges ruling and effectively puts two fingers up to him having ruled that the emails are to be released to public scrutiny. Has the judge been made aware of the manner in which they are undermining his ruling?
When I look at these I get “pretzel logic deja-vu”. meaning that how in the sane world does one redact anything from illegal emails period.
We have the General Council of the EPA participating in an illegalities. Can we gotry to get him disbarred or at least reprimanded. Does his new law firm of Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.know that he was a assisting in this illegal activity.
Diane Thompson is another attorney aware of the illegal activities at the EPA — another lawyer to be brought before the barf
oops before the bar — however appropriate barf is to the EPA
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
Opaque is transparent.
Is there a Nobel Transparency Prize?
We have a winner.
The core truth, as many have said or alluded to here in different ways, is that there is a class of people who seek control over the great majority of the population.
One of the great conceits and delusions born of the narcissism and primacy of self gratification of the generation “liberated” from responsibility in the the 60’s is that they represented in substance the apex of human development. And that therefore all things – at least effecting them – would be benign.
The nature of humans individually and collectively has not changed. There is an element that will always seek domination over others. This is now manifest in a class of people who have placed themselves in a structurally strong and remote position.
This is Politics on a primaeval level rather them “politics” in the degraded form of jostling that has been the character of public life for decades.
Properly constituted thought must continue to be advanced whether in science or any other area.
But as an increasing number of people seem to be realizing, this will not be enough.
This is a matter of fight or die.
Nothing to hide……lol. This is such transparently a coverup.
This is real Hitchhikker’s Guide to the Galaxy stuff i.e. if you read them in a sealed room with no windows and no lights at the bottom of a broken set of stairs on the other side of a door marked “beware of the tiger” these e-mails are completely transparent.
Congress (The House of Representatives) must take all deliberate speed to defund this reckless and out of control agency. An agency like this cannot survive without finding. Defund the EPA now!
Sure would like to get a ‘cite’ on that one, brad!
(I must have missed the special by Pat Maddow with his show on MSNBC on this one …)
.
Lawrence Todd says:
February 22, 2013 at 3:22 pm
“oops before the bar — however appropriate barf is to the EPA”
Gotta be one of the best digital Freudian slips so far this year 🙂
The crooked Obama administration is mocking the public with their lies about transparency. They all belong behind bars.
The American press demands that Republicans be transparent but don’t seem to care at all when Democrats aren’t (unless it has to do with Obama secretly playing golf with Tiger Woods). Hansen had a hissy fit about being muzzled by the Bush administration even though it turns out he gave hundreds of interviews and outside speeches during the Bush years. Mike Fayette, an engineer at the New York State Transportation Department, gives one interview without prior permission and he is forced to retire under threat of being fired. Apparently, free speech only applies to certain special government employees like Hansen.
The funny thing is, when a news article was published about what happened to Mr. Fayette, the Cuomo administration took to the airwaves and read aloud Mr. Fayette’s disciplinary history. They described him as a troubled employee who had previously been penalized for having an improper relationship with a subordinate, misusing his work e-mail to send sexually explicit messages and using his state-assigned vehicle for personal errands. So they not only punished Mr. Fayette for exercising his free speech rights, they violated his right to privacy. Can you imagine what would have happened if George Bush or any other Republican had done the exact same thing to a government worker?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/nyregion/top-aide-to-cuomo-rebukes-state-worker-who-talked-to-the-press.html?_r=0
They shouldn’t be allowed to redact “private” emails
For some, ‘transparent’ means ‘invisible’. And for one in particular, his records have even been sealed from view.
These people work for us.
We do not need to get on bended knee to request full disclosure of the “secret” EPA documents. The issue is specifically what is the EPA trying to hide?
If there is nothing to hide there were be do no need to black out documents. The EPA is blacking out documents.
The EPA is not the CIA.
What is the EPA hiding?
Stay thirsty my friends. We have made some progress.
(1) EPA has owned up to the fact that Richard Windsor = Lisa Jackson — a fact that they were trying to deny just a few short weeks ago.
(2) It now appears that the entire executive leadership team at EPA not only knew about the unlawful email account, but actively participated in the scheme. For the first time in US History, the entire leadership team of a Federal Agency is going to get wiped out by a scandal.
As to the exemptions — they only apply to lawful communication. Because this would appear to be unlawful communication, I think EPA is going to have a very hard time claiming exemptions.
And finally, will need to be a confirmation hearing for the new EPA administrator. This will give congress the opening to probe every aspect of the scandal. I suspect that the Administration with avoid nominating a new EPA administrator to avoid this.
_Jim says:
February 22, 2013 at 3:49 pm
>brad says February 22, 2013 at 2:45 pm
>This is another broad problem in gov, on both sides of the >aisle. Bush used private email accounts broadly which are less >secure and easily deleted. …
Sure would like to get a ‘cite’ on that one, brad!”
From the Congressional committee report:
“White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts.
The RNC has preserved 140,216 e-mails sent or received by Karl Rove. Over half of these e-mails (75,374) were sent to or received from individuals using official “.gov” e-mail accounts. Other heavy users of RNC e-mail accounts include former White House Director of Political Affairs Sara Taylor (66,018 e-mails) and Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings (35,198 e-mails).
There has been extensive destruction of the e-mails of White House officials by the RNC.
Of the 88 White House officials who received RNC e-mail accounts, the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials. In a deposition, Susan Ralston, Mr. Rove’s former executive assistant, testified that many of the White House officials for whom the RNC has no e-mail records were regular users of their RNC e-mail accounts.
“
Nick Stokes,
May I translate your comment? Thank you:
Look over there! A squirrel!
See, this is about a current FOI request, not the Bush boogeyman.
Someone asked for a citation. Nick provided one, without further comment. I think in the circumstances that is hardly worthy of scorn.
There are, after all, rather a lot of visitors to this site who are so anti-Democrat that they fall into the trap of believing the Republicans would do things differently. History says otherwise.
“Most Open, Honest Administration Ever”
HAHAHA that is funny!
“Most Morally Bankrupt Administration Ever” is more like it
Charlie A,
What is it about this that is so hard to understand? Universal alarmist predictions were regularly made saying that global warming was increasing. But every prediction turned out to be flat wrong. Every last one of them.
So answer this question, if you can: what would it take, exactly, to falsify the AGW conjecture? Provide specific numbers, please. At what point would you finally admit that your AGW belief is wrong?
DBS,
“See, this is about a current FOI request, not the Bush boogeyman.”
Well, the headline says it’s about presidential standards of transparency.
But a cite was requested – I provided.
Go after the e-mail recipients with a FOI request.
Nick, MooLoo(?): You can’t see the difference?. When executive branch people use private e-mails to discuss personal or policy subjects, it is far, far different for regulatory agencies to do so when it involves regulating – i.e. controlling us through the force of law. Think about it.
There a difference of intent between karl.rove@whitehouse.gov | karl.rove@rnc.com and lisa.jackson@epa.gov | richard.windsor@epa.gov
eck says: February 22, 2013 at 7:18 pm
“Nick, MooLoo(?): You can’t see the difference?. When executive branch people use private e-mails to discuss personal or policy subjects, it is far, far different for regulatory agencies to do so when it involves regulating – i.e. controlling us through the force of law. Think about it.”
Well, the controversy cited was about the dismissal of US Attorneys. The email trail got lost in the RNC. That sounds pretty much related to controlling through force of law.
The first Christmas this administration was in the White House, there was a decorative ball on one of the trees with Mao Zedong’s image on it.
Do we really need to ask any further questions?
Most of the people in this administration are academics and socialists.
Socialists always appeal to the lower classes as long as it serves their need.
Nuff said.
Has anyone tried copying the redacted text to a different document file?
If they havn’t done it properly, this can reveal the redacted text.
This happenned in NZ recently revealing sensitive information.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/8331505/Police-blunder-unmasks-secret-files
“Read my lips: I did not have an alternative private secret email address!”,
Richard Winds … err… Lisa Jackson.
As I recall, a touchstone is used to check the quality/purity of precious metals. Drawing the metal across the stone leaves a trace line, the color of which tells you how pure the metal is.
Richard “Dick” Windsor’s lines are wall to wall black.
I guess if we want the unredacted version, we’ll have to ask the Chinese Army hackers. They seem to have better access to govt computers than we taxpayers do.
The Purchased Product Congress Critters and Purchased Presidents of the USA serve only one master.
It’s how the intelligence services got information on what the Axis forces were up to before they cracked their codes. You see who was talking to whom and when and where from, with this you could learn a lot of what was happening. the best one was the Fuhrers birthday when they all sent greetings.
James Bull
jorgekafkazar says:
February 22, 2013 at 1:40 pm
Obama lied.
There’s novel. :))
It would appear that the art of redaction is now more universal than FOI. This is the BBC’s version in relation to a paedophile operating on their premises with their knowledge. No one is to blame obviously. Perhaps a new definition of transparency is needed both sides of the pond.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2282667/So-BBC-transparency-90-pages-BBCs-Savile-report-blacked-DG-goes-ground–blamed-fiasco.html
Ivor Ward
Nick Stokes says:February 22, 2013 at 7:02 pm
>>DBS,
>>“See, this is about a current FOI request, not the Bush boogeyman.”
Well, the headline says it’s about presidential standards of transparency.
No, the headline is quote from and about a specific president and his ‘standards of transparency’.
Nick, I didn’t like Bush and I don’t like Obama, nor their respective administrations. Now that what appears to be your fish tactic has been nullified, what do you think of the redactions? If their discussions and decisions were based on “science”, and consensus science at that, why redact anything?
Grrr! With my own particular focus on anti-skeptic enviro-activist people, I was curious to see if ████████████████████ or ██████████████████ or ████████████████ at ████████████████████████ were exchanging emails with ███████████████████████.
Nick and others,
Pamela Gray has it right. But she didn’t go far enough. Distrust all people who have the power to take the fruits of your labor at the point of a gun. Theft is always wrong. If it is not right for an individual, it should not be right for a crowd, a mob, or congress. Strong arm robbery might land you in jail if the District Attorney thinks you case will make big enough headlines. Far too seldom does the taking of property or money by the government get called to task because of the inequity of power of the individual v. the government.
The US system of government was crafted with the intent that we could keep an eye on the B#$%@s, hence FOI and other transparency means. That it failed with republican or democrat scumbags is much more a reflection of the character of our politicians than it is any particular party. They are nearly all crooked, and the ones who are not in all likelihood soon will be.
We need to get over the ‘my crook is better than your crook because he stole from the right people and gave it to me’ mentality and begin to realize that ALL those who have no honest means of earning money are trying to steal from all of us who do. Get over it quickly and watch your back and your family’s back and your neighbor’s back.
The sooner everyone understands the real rules of the political game, the more comfortable you can be with the process. Recognize politicians for what they are. Oh, and always look at every politician and political appointee the same way. Down!
pbh
Someone mentioned end the EPA &, as a former, small town mayor, I concur. They have totally abolished local government which is contrary to the U.S. Constitution. They are just evil
Every time Obama begins with “Let me say it as simply as I can” or something similar, you know that what follows will be a lie. (Stammering a lot is also a good “tell” for lying).
He’s an easy president to “read” and the worst in our nation’s long history.
From the story linked above:
Hmmm … eerily similar to the incompetence demonstrated in producing this .pdf document:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf
If any one care to open the above document, one will note a number of not-so-insignificant ‘elements’ (e.g. signatures, with portions overlapping the form’s lines) are separate, distinct ‘editable’ elements … it is NOT one uniform, picture-element (like a jpg) scanned from a paper document (WHICH is what/how it appears, and would purport to be!)
Strange … very strange … if I tried to pass this off as an official, supporting ‘document’ in the application for a job involving a security clearance I would be bounced back on my az -er- buttocks so quick I’d land in the middle of next week …
.
.
PS. I just checked the doc above and it’s still composed of a number of distinct, editable elements.
.
ALL this over a non-issue, eh Nikc? (Do you recall the issue Nikc?)
Do you recall that ALL the US Attorneys were fired by Xlinton, Bush only fired a few (8) …
Why did Bush receive effectively an ‘anal’ examine for only partially practicing a prerogative whereas when it was practiced en masse by Xlinton -er- Clinton nothing similar mushroomed out of proportion?
“Nets Ignored Clinton Firing 93 U.S. Attorneys, Fret Over Bush’s 8″
http://www.mrc.org/node/34099
Does this refresh your recollection, Nick?
.
Those heavily redacted mails look like the letters my mother used to get from my dad during WW2 when he wrote home from his prisoner of war stalag.
Let her introduce herself, she’s Mr. Richard Windsor.
==================
If they were indeed discussing personnel issues through an unofficial backchannel as the subject seems to suggest then that is very naughty of them. Attorney privilege is mentioned. Is it possible that they were discussing firing someone? through an unofficial back channel? Very very naughty!
The mention of attorneys hints at a case for unfair dismissal. Was such a case brought? If so then was this conveniently unofficial email address used to hide from discovery? That would be very very very very naughty. I can quite see why they want to black the entire thing.
During the period for public comment on the EPA’s proposed “endangerment” finding, I responded to the EPA with a comment. The comment was that underlying the IPCC’s climate models was no statistical population. Thus, I claimed, the scientific basis for the proposed endangerment finding was nonexistent. Subsequently, the EPA found CO2 emissions to be an endangerment and published a document that, according to the EPA, responded to each of the comments which the EPA had received. When I read this document, I found that it did not respond to my comment. I wrote to the EPA’s adminstrator, Lisa Jackson, to point out that the EPA had misrepresented the truth in claiming to have responded to each of the comments the EPA had received. Jackson did not reply.