Author Horner: Liberals Waging War on Transparency

As far as liberals are concerned, transparency in government is a great idea as long as it’s not applied to them, bestselling author Christopher Horner tells Newsmax.TV.

Horner is a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the author of the new book, “The Liberal War on Transparency.” He said now that liberals control the levers of power they’ve adopted the tactics of stonewalling on record release, moving data onto private computers, and fighting record release in court.

“Transparency was a great idea when it was about the other guy,” he said. “It was Louis Brandeis, liberal hall of famer, who said that sunshine or sunlight is the best disinfectant; electric light is the most efficient police man. Woodrow Wilson waxed on about transparency in government. It was a liberal achievement. It was written by them, in their minds, for them.

Watch the exclusive interview here.



“Recently, with other people using these laws, they’ve decided that these institutions of government, this governmental power and use of taxpayer money that they so feared would be abused and therefore demanded transparency, well they’re now in control of these institutions of government and publicly funded academia so there’s no more need for transparency.”

Horner said in the Obama administration there is an organized, top-to-bottom campaign to move public duties onto private computers designed to sidestep the Presidential Records Act, the Federal Records Act, and access under the Freedom of Information Act. He added that the system is designed to delete material.

“So we’ve got cyber bonfires going on,” he explained. “They’re destroying records and I don’t think there’s a whole lot of difference between that and moving official business onto private email accounts that, for all we know, they’re being deleted. We know their emails are not being turned over so since they weren’t under anyone’s control but the individual who chose to go around the provided accounts, it’s a fair guess that since they’re not turning them over, these have been destroyed too.”

Horner said the secrecy can be combatted and provides a step-by-step plan in his book.

“The last two chapters of the book are actually a how-to,” he said. “They’re drier, they’re less fun, maybe, but they’re a walk through how to ask, what to ask for, the ways to ask, what to expect, how to avoid these tricks and, if you get them, how to respond, the authorities to cite, the way to proceed, the calendar and so on.