Pajamas Media Sues Pentagon for Details on Travel to “Climate Change Conference”

It’s a simple request. OSM Media (Or Pajamas Media/PJM, as it is commonly known) just wants to know how much money the United States Air Force spent to transport United States government officials, congressional elected officials, staff, families and guests to Copenhagen, Denmark, for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2009.
So why has the Obama administration failed to release the documents now, more than one year after they were first requested? That’s what we’d like to know. And so last week we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of PJM against the Department of Defense (DOD) seeking records (and an explanation).
Our client 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; and provide OSM Media with a Vaughn index describing the records that are being withheld under claims of exemption.
Now, here’s a bit of the back-story. (For a full review, click here to read a report on PJM. It is a perfect example of what JW goes through on a daily basis as the Obama administration stonewalls our every request for information.)
On December 23, 2009, Pajamas Media sent a FOIA request to the Air Force. On June 28, 2010, the Air Force notified PJM 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.
That’s fifteen months and four blacked-out pages.
Obviously, the Air Force has failed to adequately respond to this request. The Air Force has also failed to demonstrate that the withheld material is legally exempt from production or even say whether or when it will produce or identify the requested records.
Here’s Pajamas Media CEO Roger Simon’s response to this obfuscation: “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.”
Indeed, the Obama administration consistently refuses to release any documents that are potentially incriminating — or embarrassing. And perhaps that is why these documents are being held so tightly.
No wonder PJM can’t get anything out of the administration about that disastrous conference. The December 2009 United Nations “climate change” conference in Copenhagen was a complete embarrassment 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.