Changing The Law For Political Convenience

USA Today posted an article today about White House plans to remove a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act.

The article reports:

The White House said the cleanup of FOIA regulations is consistent with court rulings that hold that the office is not subject to the transparency law. The office handles, among other things, White House record-keeping duties like the archiving of e-mails.

But the timing of the move raised eyebrows among transparency advocates, coming on National Freedom of Information Day and during a national debate over the preservation of Obama administration records. It’s also Sunshine Week, an effort by news organizations and watchdog groups to highlight issues of government transparency.

Amazing. Historically, the Office of Administration has responded to FOIA requests.

The article reports:

In 2009, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that the Office of Administration was not subject to the FOIA, “because it performs only operational and administrative tasks in support of the president and his staff and therefore, under our precedent, lacks substantial independent authority.”

The appeals court ruled that the White House was required to archive the e-mails, but not release them under the FOIA. Instead, White House e-mails must be released under the Presidential Records Act — but not until at least five years after the end of the administration.

In a notice to be published in Tuesday’s Federal Register, the White House says it’s removing regulations on how the Office of Administration complies with Freedom of Information Act Requests based on “well-settled legal interpretations.”

The White House has stated that there will be no 30-day comment period on this change, and thus the change will be final.

I understand that sometimes security needs require that information be kept from the public. However, we live in a representative republic. The government represents us. The American people have every right to know the details of what is going on in our government. We need more sunshine in our government–not more secrecy.