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“The December 2009 United Nations ‘climate change’ conference in Copenhagen must have been embarrassing for global warming activists and their associates in Washington. The Conference not only failed to enact worldwide ‘climate’ action, but the airlift of President Obama and other government officials must have resulted in huge, wasteful costs for the American people.”

The drama and fantasy of the "sky is falling" crowd wasted more energy, food, money and natural resources than it was worth, say critics. It also provided the world's elite with a free Christmas holiday in Copenhagen. Credit: United Nations

While most denizens of American newsrooms continue to protect the Obama Administration from unfavorable press coverage, the alternative news media — Internet journalists and bloggers, radio talk show hosts and newsmagazines — are uncovering one suspicious incident after another within “the most transparent White House in U.S. history.”

In the latest incident that deserves probing,  Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced Monday that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of OSM Media LLC (d/b/a Pajamas Media (PJM)), against the Department of Defense (DOD) seeking records related to the transportation of all United States government officials, congressional elected officials, staff, families and guests to Copenhagen, Denmark, for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2009.

On December 23, 2009, Pajamas Media sent a FOIA request to the Air Force. On June 28, 2010, the Air Force notified Pajamas Media that part of their FOIA request had been forwarded to the Office of the Secretary. Nearly one year later, on May 17, 2011, the Office of the Secretary produced four pages of almost entirely redacted material and informed Pajamas Media that it referred the withheld material to the U.S. Secret Service.

To date, the Air Force has failed to produce any records responsive to Pajamas Media’s FOIA request or demonstrate that the withheld material is legally exempt from production. The Air Force has not indicated whether or when it will produce or identify the requested records.

“What happened to the transparency that candidate Obama promised? It has taken almost a year for this administration to turn over a flight manifest and then that document was heavily redacted. The Obama administration has proven itself to be one of the most secretive administrations in history,” stated Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon.

On behalf of its client, Judicial Watch is asking the court to:

* Order the Air Force to conduct a search for “any and all responsive records;”

* Set a specific date that Pajamas Media is to receive the requested documents;

* Provide OSM Media with a Vaughn index describing the records that are being withheld under claims of exemption.

“The December 2009 United Nations ‘climate change’ conference in Copenhagen must have been embarrassing for global warming activists and their associates in Washington. The Conference not only failed to enact worldwide ‘climate’ action, but the airlift of President Obama and other government officials must have resulted in huge, wasteful costs for the American people.

Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. – Ayn Rand

President Barack Obama promised the most transparent administration in history. And yet, several departments all but ignore legal requests for information. Photo: NewswithViews

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has scheduled a public hearing this week with ranking members of the Department of Homeland Security to discuss the agency’s handling of its FOIA responsibilities.

Several news organizations and public-interest groups have complained that DHS allows political appointees to play a pivotal role in prioritizing or censoring information it is required to release under the agency’s Freedom of information Act (FOIA) guidelines.

Even lawmakers have complained about the DHS’s handling of FOIA requests. After Rep.  Issa began chairing the committee in January, his first act was to request that DHS officials submit to his office thousands of pages of records, memoranda, and emails between agency officials.

However, Issa claimed DHS’s submission of documents was too slow, and in February he forced two of the department’s employees to submit to transcribed interviews before his committee.

DHS officials repeatedly claim they will cooperate with Issa and his committee’s and they pointed to the thousands of documents the department had turned over to the committee already. They also claimed that it has taken more than 20 staff members, most of whom are attorneys, to work exclusively on Issa’s committee FOIA requests.

However, according to Issa’s office, a whistleblower from within the agency has come forward with information that contradicts what DHS officials and documents are telling him.

This Thursday, Issa will finally get his chance to publicly address his concerns with Mary Ellen Callahan, the department’s chief privacy officer, and Ivan Fong, the DHS’s general counsel. Both Callahan and Fong are political appointees by the Obama White House.

Issa’s probe of political officers at DHS and the role they play in the FOIA process is a result of an AP news report in July – a time in which the House was still dominated by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.

The AP report stated that top DHS officials had instructed career employees to turn over sensitive FOIA requests to President Obama’s political advisers first before releasing them to anyone outside of the Administration.