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PROJECT CENSORED News IGNORED BY THE CORPORATE MEDIA CENSORED PROJECT News IGNORED BY THE CORPORATE MEDIA These are the top 25 news stories of 2004-2005, as judged by Sonoma State University’s Project Censored team, that received little or no coverage in the mainstream media in the USA. ach year, the Project Censored team from Sonoma State University, California, selects and evaluates thousands of published news stories by journalists working in the national and international mainstream as well as alternative press. Students, faculty staff and community experts participate in this process, which ultimately decides on the top 25 stories that were the most underreported by the US cor- porate media. Following is an edited summary of Project Censored's selection for 2004-2005. To see the full report with references and updates, visit the web page http://www. projectcensored.org/censored_2006/index.htm. DAitan — Editor 1. Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government hroughout the 1980s, Project Censored highlighted a number of alarming reductions to government access and accountability. It tracked the small but systematic changes made to existing laws and the executive orders introduced. It now appears that these actions may have been little more than a prelude to the virtual lock-box against access that is being con- structed around the current administration. Changes are being made to laws that provide public access to USFederal records. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) gives citizens the ability to file a request for specific information from a government agency and provides recourse in Federal Court if that agency fails to comply with FOIA requirements. Over the last two decades, beginning with President Reagan, this law has become increasingly diluted and circumvented by each succeeding administration. Under the Bush Administration, agencies make extensive and arbitrary use of FOIA exemp- tions (such as those for classified information, privileged attorney-client documents and certain information compiled for law enforcement purposes) often inappropriately or with inadequate justification. Recent evidence shows agencies making frivolous (and sometimes ludicrous) exemption claims, abusing the deliberative process privilege, abusing the law enforcement exemption and withholding data on telephone service outages. Quite commonly, the Bush Administration simply fails to respond to FOIA requests at all. Whether this is simply an inordinate delay or an unstated final refusal to respond to the request, the requesting party is never told. But the effect is the same: the public is denied access to the information. The Bush Administration also engages in an aggressive policy of questioning, challenging and denying FOIA requesters’ eligibility for fee waivers, using a variety of tactics. Measures include narrowing the definition of "representative of news media", claiming that information would not contribute to public understanding. The Presidential Records Act ensures that after a president leaves office, the public will have full access to White House documents used to develop public policy. Under the law and an executive order by Reagan, the presumption has been that most documents would be released. However, President Bush issued an executive order that establishes a process that generally blocks the release of presidential papers. The Bush Administration has dramatically increased the volume of government information concealed from public view. In a March 2003 executive order, President Bush expanded the use of the national security classification. The order eliminated the presumption of disclosure, postponed or avoided automatic declassification, protected foreign government information, reclassified some information, weakened the panel that decides to exempt documents from declassification and adjudicates classification challenges, and exempted vice presidential Compiled by Project Censored © 2004-2005 Sonoma State University 1801 East Cotati Avenue Rohnert Park, CA 94928, USA Telephone: +1 (707) 664 2500 Email: censored@sonoma.edu Website: http://www.projectcensored.org Sonoma State University 1801 East Cotati Avenue Rohnert Park, CA 94928, USA Telephone: +1 (707) 664 2500 Email: censored@sonoma.edu Website: http://www.projectcensored.org NEXUS = 11 DECEMBER 2005 — JANUARY 2006 www.nexusmagazine.com