[Ninong]

I wonder why "paper shredding" skyrocketed during the Cheney-Bush administration?

Federal spending on paper shredding has increased more than 600 percent since George W. Bush took office:


2000 --- $452,807
2001 --- $456,235
2002 --- $756,086
2003 - $1,033,910
2004 - $2,329,466
2005 - $2,874,185
2006 - $2,902,855
2007 2Q * $2,274,143 *Note: FY 2007 only includes up through second and part of third quarter.


You can learn a lot of amazing stuff from the government's new website USA Spending.gov

Welcome to USASpending.gov, Where Americans Can See Where Their Money Goes

Have you ever wanted to find more information on government spending? Have you ever wondered where federal contracting dollars and grant awards go? Or perhaps you would just like to know, as a citizen, what the government is really doing with your money. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Transparency Act) requires a single searchable website, accessible by the public for free that includes for each Federal award:

1. The name of the entity receiving the award;
2. The amount of the award;
3. Information on the award including transaction type, funding agency, etc;
4. The location of the entity receiving the award;
5. A unique identifier of the entity receiving the award.


P.S. -- I looked but I was unable to find a breakdown to tell me how much of the paper shredding was attributable to the Office of the Vice President.


Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services truck making its way up to the Cheney compound at the Naval Observatory in October 2006. Mid-Atlantic was hired by the Secret Service to assist the Vice President in his record-not-keeping needs. That was right about the time that Cheney ordered the Secret Service to destroy all logs and records pertaining to his contacts.

[Ninong]

Judge: White House Logs Are Public

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House visitor logs are public documents, a federal judge ruled Monday, rejecting a legal strategy that the Bush administration had hoped would get around public records laws.

The ruling is a blow to the Bush administration, which is fighting the release of records showing visits by lobbyist Jack Abramoff and prominent religious conservatives.

The records are created by the Secret Service, which is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. But the Bush administration has ordered the data turned over to the White House, where they are treated as presidential records outside the scope of the public records law.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said logs from the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence are subject to public records request.

P.S. -- Lots of luck finding the Secret Service logs of visitors to Cheney's residence at the Naval Observatory. They probably have a better shot at retrieving the 10 million White House emails Karl Rove ordered destroyed.

I googled Judge Royce C. Lamberth: Graduate of University of Texas and University of Texas Law School, appointed to the bench in 1987 by Pres. Ronald Reagan. The Republicans like to rant and rave about "activist federal judges" but the majority of federal judges on the bench right now are Republican appointees. Seven of the nine Supreme Court justices are Republican appointees.