DHS, What DHS?

By Jessica Vaughan, 



The White House web site says "President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history", but DHS still hasn't gotten the memo.

A reporter from FederalTimes.com, Andrew Medici, recently became frustrated at how notoriously difficult it is to reach the DHS public affairs personnel. You know, the federal government employees who get paid by us taxpayers to answer inquiries from the public. As reported in his story, "Don't call us, we'll call you",

Medici filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain the names, office phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of all the DHS public affairs staff. The response: 58 pages of the names of the many public affairs personnel – with all contact information blacked out. The DHS FOIA officer said that it would be "an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" to release their office contact information.

Center For Immigration Studies