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White House does welcome FOIA about-face / Judge gives web-only newsletter media status under FOIA.

By Marks & Katz, LLC

Curiously, the federal Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") was not spawned by Watergate, but instead was passed in 1966, eight years before Nixon left the White House for good. Then again, I loved to hate Richard Nixon for surreptitiously taping conversations, but then learned that Lyndon Johnson showed Nixon how to use the already tape-rigged White House recording system.  HOLDER'S FOIA MEMO IS A CRITICAL ABOUT-FACE FROM JOHN ASHCROFT'S FOIA DIRECTIVE. Thanks to a fellow listserv member and the FOIA blog for covering U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's March 19, 2009, FOIA memo, which directs federal agencies to act with a presumption that requested information be disclosed.  The day after being sworn in, President Obama issued a memorandum providing that: "All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government...continue to full post

Full post as published by Underdog on March 20, 2009 (boomark / email).