From the Department of Glaringly Obvious Headlines

"Promises, Promises: Little transparency progress"

Two years into Dear Leader's term of office and the Associated Press isn't particularly impressed with his administration's oft-stated vow of "transparency", particularly when it comes to Freedom of Information Act requests. 

Oddly enough, the AP reports that one of the hardest challenges is simply trying to take a gander at the very process of supposedly opening up the government to its own citizens:

"The Obama administration censored 194 pages of internal e-mails about its Open Government Directive that the AP requested more than one year ago. The December 2009 directive requires every agency to take immediate, specific steps to open their operations up to the public. But the White House Office of Management and Budget blacked-out entire pages of some e-mails between federal employees discussing how to apply the new openness rules, and it blacked-out one e-mail discussing how to respond to AP's request for information about the transparency directive."

The worst offender for invoking the "deliberative process" exemption was, naturally enough, the Homeland Security Department.  That office accounted for over 80% of such uses government-wide, despite Obama ordering agencies to only use that excuse when absolutely necessary.


Just imagine how maddening the process must be for the information they don't want getting out in circulation.