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Investors.com
Is The Obama
EPA Running Its Own Black-Ops Program?
11/19/2012
Clandestine Government: During his first full day in the White House,
Barack Obama promised he'd brought with him "a new era of open
government." Yet again, we have a promise that hasn't been kept.
Among the administration's many violations of public trust to recently
become public is the Environmental Protection Agency's apparent attempt
to keep some of its correspondence hidden from the light of day through
the use of aliases.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, for instance, has reportedly used the
name "Richard Windsor" to cover her tracks in private emails.
Federal law prohibits the government from using private emails for
official communications unless they are appropriately stored and can be
tracked. Because things look suspicious at the EPA, the House Science
Committee is investigating the possibility that the agency has
conducted business it doesn't want the public to see.
On Friday, the committee delivered letters to the EPA and "various
agency inspectors general" seeking to find out if "senior personnel
have been conducting official business through secretive means such as
aliases and private email accounts."
The letters, sent by committee Republican members, express concern that
"senior Obama Administration appointees" might be violating the Federal
Records Act, Freedom of Information Act, the Presidential Records Act,
and "other statutes designed to facilitate transparency and oversight."
Nearly two months ago, the Competitive Enterprise Institute sued the
EPA over its refusal to produce information about the creation and use
of secondary email accounts set up for the agency's top level officials.
On Oct. 1, CEI said it "first learned of these non-public accounts from
a previous Freedom of Information Act request that it filed earlier in
the year after reading of it in a report by the Government
Accountability Office."
Read the rest of the article at Investors.com
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