Obama's Mad Science Czar, a Forced-abortion Advocate, Hides E-mails
As if the embattled “most-transparent-in-history” White House needed more e-mail scandals, the Obama administration's “science czar,” John Holdren, an advocate of coercive population control and a one-time global-cooling alarmist, is facing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to access public information that he has been apparently seeking to hide by using a private e-mail account. In the case, the non-partisan Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a federal appeal aiming to pry loose Holdren's e-mails from his account after a federal judge sided with Holdren, protecting his e-mails from public scrutiny.
Critics, while praising the lawsuit, say it is time for an even broader examination of Obama's “czar,” his dangerous views, and how his extremism has impacted White House policy.
The latest shoe to drop in the ongoing saga surrounding Holdren's secret e-mails came this month, when the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. “There are a growing number of scandals concerning the use of private email accounts by top Obama administration officials,” said Sam Kazman, CEI general counsel, in a statement posted on the organization's website. “The court ruling that we are appealing will only add to those scandals, because it legitimizes private email accounts as way to evade FOIA. While President Obama claims his administration is the most transparent in history, his officers seem to confuse being transparent with being invisible.”
The CEI describes itself as a “non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty.” In this case, the D.C.-based organization filed its original FOIA request against Holdren in October of 2013. It sought access to all “policy-related e-mails” that Holdren was keeping on his private e-mail account. The “science” bureaucracy Holdren leads, formally titled the “White House Office of Science and Technology Policy,” refused to comply with the demand. It argued that Holdren's private e-mail account was outside of its control, and therefore, beyond the reach of citizens and FOIA requirements.
U.S. judge Gladys Kessler, a far-left Bill Clinton appointee, sided with Holdren's bureaucracy in a March ruling — essentially giving any bureaucrat or official a green-light to evade government transparency laws by using private e-mail accounts. CEI, though, vowed to fight back against what it called the “plainly incorrect” ruling shielding Holdren's secret e-mails. In its opening 72-page brief in the appeal, the group noted that just because e-mails are in a personal account does not exempt them from FOIA requirements or place them beyond an agency's “actual control” for FOIA purposes. In fact, the brief says, federal agencies frequently search the personal e-mails of employees for work-related records, showing that agencies do have actual control over the accounts.
“It makes little sense to claim that an agency is not ‘withholding’ documents when it refuses to produce documents held by its own chief executive that relate to ‘agency business,’” continued the CEI in its initial brief. “Even if OSTP had demonstrated that these emails were not within its actual control — which it did not — its failure to search its director’s personal account would still violate FOIA because any agency records in that account fall within the agency’s ‘constructive control.’” Indeed, the CEI said that FOIA applies to work-related records of agency employees, “regardless of where they are stored.” Yet, according to a statement released by CEI, “Holdren has placed himself above the law and spirit of transparency that Obama fraudulently vowed to uphold.”
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http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/21499-obama-s-forced-abortion-touting-science-czar-hiding-e-mails