U.S. Workers' Names Withheld (Bush secrecy on gov's civilian employyees?)

[papau]

Bush Administration's secrecy extends to the names of 900,000 of its civilian workers — WHY? -a new lawsuit is trying to change.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301646_pf.html

U.S. Workers' Names Withheld
Greater Secrecy Surrounds Civilian Employees, Suit Says
By Michael J. Sniffen
Associated Press
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A27

Breaking a tradition of openness that began in 1816, the Bush administration has without explanation withheld the names and work locations of about 900,000 of its civilian workers, according to a lawsuit filed last week .

"Citizens have a right to know who is working for the government," said Adina Rosenbaum, attorney for the co-directors of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group at Syracuse University, which sued under the Freedom of Information Act to get the data.
Since 1989, TRAC has posted a database on the Internet with the name, work location, salary and job category of all 2.7 million federal civilian workers except those in some law enforcement agencies. The data are often used by reporters and government watchdog groups to monitor policies and detect waste or abuse.

Recently, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility used the database to identify and locate U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists for a survey. Many of the scientists complained of political intervention into their research.

TRAC used the data to monitor the Bush administration's promise to increase security along the Canadian border after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Six months later, TRAC found Border Patrol agents on that border were up from 331 to just 346. A year later, the number had reached 515, but not one was assigned to the Canada-Alaska border despite Alaska's potential strategic targets.<snip>

In the spring, Lukowski forwarded the 2004 discs and noted that the "major change affecting your request is that individual records for the Department of Defense are excluded from the file provided." He told TRAC it would have to request the records from the Pentagon directly.
The lawsuit said that, in violation of the FOIA, OPM did not even mention that another 150,000 names and workplaces had been deleted or why, and that OPM has not responded to requests for an explanation of its new policy.

[DBoon]

1. So that way we will never know how many are underqualified

republican hacks?

Or is this a way to hide potential whistle-blowers?

[papau]

2. both?

:-(