A chief counselor for the White House’s Open Government Partnership spoke at a Sunshine Week event on Monday and declared, “President Obama understands our government’s obligation to serve the American people to the best of our ability. He has made clear that citizens deserve accountability, and the opportunity to participate in their government – and that this will make our government better.”
The statement from Lisa Ellman came during a week where the press, civil society organizations and United States citizens are celebrating open government and the public’s right to know. It stood in sharp contrast to what was outlined by human rights and counterterrorism investigator, United Nations Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson. In a recent report, he mentioned the US government has adopted an “unjustifiably broad interpretation of the state secrets privilege” in US courts. The CIA’s secret detention, rendition and torture program of the Bush-era CIA, according to the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR) has adopted a concept of state secrets that “has often been invoked to obstruct the search for the truth.”
Obama Administration Excludes National Security Policies from Commitment to Transparency
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