Submitted by Judith Siers-Poisson on
A coalition of "consumer and good government groups, librarians, environmentalists, labor leaders, journalists, and others," OpenTheGovernment.org, has found that secrecy by the Bush administration continues to expand. The top twenty-five government departments in terms of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests all continued to carry serious backlogs. In 2007 there was a two percent increase in FOIA requests over 2006, as well as a decrease in the number of documents declassified. "These trends indicate that citizens will have to wait even longer to know what their government is doing," said Patrice McDermott, Director of OpenTheGovernment.org. Government secrecy is also expensive for taxpayers. "The report estimated the government spent almost $200 to maintain secrets for every dollar the government spent declassifying documents, a five percent increase over the 2006 ratio." McDermott added, "The current administration continues to refuse to be held accountable to the public. In recent years, polls have shown that a growing number of Americans believe the federal government is secretive -- terrible news for our democracy. Until we restore openness and accountability to the federal government, it will be impossible to win back the public's trust."
Printer-friendly version
Comments
tlapis replied on Permalink
Start by making the language of the Wall St. Bail Out specific
The Wall St. Rescue package called the "LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS" attempts to wrap the flag around the problems, hoping that no one will look closely or ask hard questions. The USA pioneered "flags of convenience" before WWII to prevent an sunken American ship from dragging the US into war prematurely.
The Secretary of the Treasury will be granted extraordinary powers for a period exceeding his term of office. It seems that the Secretary may have selected a contractor for evaluating The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) intends to issue a purchase order to Vero Capital Management for support services related to risk assessment and valuation of mortgage-related assets for a fifteen (15) month period. Vero Capital Management will provide their proprietary model used to assess the characteristics and risks of structured mortgage products as well as services related to risk assessment and valuation of mortgage related assets. This proposed purchase order is for services for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under the authority of FAR 6.302.
9/19/2008 Solicitation Number -- TOTS-D-08-Q-00113
Contracting Office -- Department of the Treasury, Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), Procurement and Administrative Services, 1700 G Street, N.W., 3rd Floor, Washington, District of Columbia, 20552
Contracting Office -- Department of the Treasury, Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), Procurement and Administrative Services, 1700 G Street, N.W., 3rd Floor, Washington, District of Columbia, 20552