More than 25% of all contracts awarded by the federal government are not competed. In 2007, 26.2 percent ($114.2 billion) of federal contracts' dollars were completely uncompeted; only a third of contract dollars were subject to full and open competition. On average since 2000, more than 25% of all contract funding was not competed and fully and openly competed contracts have dropped by almost 25%.
Investigations by Congress and independent government agencies of the war in Iraq have revealed billions of dollars in no-bid contracts, covering everything from delivering food and water to U.S. troops to providing armed security for U.S. officials and visiting dignitaries. There have been widespread allegations of waste, fraud and abuse by contractors. Several have been convicted and prosecutions of others are pending.
In 2007, government agencies received 7,827 new initial requests for Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR), of which 88% were processed, resulting in the declassification of information in 431,371 pages: 75% in full; 18% in part; 7% remained classified in their entirety after review. For 2007, almost 5,000 initial requests -- 42% -- were carried over into 2008.
During 2007, government-wide, 64% of meetings of The Federal Advisory Committee were closed to the public. Excluding groups advising three
agencies that historically have accounted for the majority of closed meetings, 15% of the remainder were closed -- a 24% increase over the number closed in 2006. These numbers do not reflect closed meetings of subcommittees and taskforces.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act was passed in 1972 to ensure that advice by the various advisory committees formed over the years is objective and accessible to the public.
In seven years, President Bush has issued at least 156 signing statements, challenging over 1000 provisions of laws. Eight were issued in 2007 alone.
The so-called "state secrets privilege" -- invoked only six times between 1953 and 1976 -- has been used by the Bush Administration a reported 45 times -- an average of 6.4 times per year in seven years. This is more than double the average (2.46) of the previous 24 years.
As you will recall, the "state secrets privilege" is a legal doctrine that contends that admission of certain information into court proceedings would endanger U.S. national security. The Bush Administration has frequently invoked the privilege to dismiss lawsuits that would be embarrassing to the government, and the courts have generally been deferential to the government's claims.
National Security Letter (NSL) requests continued to rise; the 2007mumbers are still classified, but the recently unclassified new number for 2006 shows a 4.7 per cent increase in requests over 2005. Since enactment of the USA Patriot Act in 2001, the number of NSLs issued has seen an astronomical increase. And an admission from FBI Director Robert Mueller that his agency has committed multiple abuses of its NSL power.
The NSL provision of the Patriot Act radically expanded the authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to demand personal customer records from Internet Service Providers, financial institutions and credit companies without prior court approval.
Through NSLs, the FBI is authorized to compile dossiers about innocent people and obtain sensitive information such as the web sites a person visits, a list of e-mail addresses with which a person has corresponded, or even unmask the identity of a person who has posted anonymous speech on a political website. The provision also allows the FBI to forbid or "gag" anyone who receives an NSL from telling anyone about the record demand.
All of which raises the question of what if anything our next president proposes to do to return our government to us, "the people."
And whatever happened to the serious discussion of these kinds of critical issues that Messrs. Obama and McCain promised us? Both have been virtually speechless on this one.
Too busy, I guess, putting lipstick on their pigs.
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