Obama's transparency push could lead to more official Web resources, blogs

In his first full day in office, President Barack Obama issued several broad directives that are being widely hailed by consumer-advocacy groups as important first steps toward making government more transparent. Even though implementation plans have yet to be drafted, some observers believe that the Web will begin to play a much larger role in disseminating information from government agencies.

The two memos and one executive order instruct government agencies to err on the side of making information public and not to look for reasons to legally withhold it, a return to more-open Clinton administration policies. The initiatives are also expected to force the government to become more Internet-savvy when responding to requests for non-classified records and information.

Spokespeople for several nonprofit organizations that support open government said they were elated.

In a telephone interview with The Standard, Marcia Hofmann, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the new directives would make it easier for people to gain access to information.

"On the whole, it's an incredibly positive development and in line with the guidelines we asked for," she said. 

Meredith Fuchs, general counsel for the National Security Archive, also had high praise, stating, "We're extremely excited and impressed that President Obama has made this a day-one initiative."

The National Security Archive is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at George Washington University that collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. FOIA was enacted in 1974 after the Watergate scandal to allow ordinary citizens to hold the government accountable by requesting and scrutinizing public documents.

Fuchs, whose organization sent a draft memo on openness signed by 60 other consumer organizations to the Obama transition team last November along with a request for quick action, said she expects Obama to push e-mail and require agencies to post more information on their sites, including blogs.

According to Public Citizen, currently about half of the 176 government agencies accept FOIA requests via e-mail or an on-site form. However, many do not reply by e-mail, said Fuchs. Instead, they mail back hard copies even if electronic documents were requested, unnecessarily slowing down the process.

"The law requires that they provide records in the form that you want, but not all will do this," she said. "They have lots of excuses, mostly relating to security, but there is no reason why they can't comply now using current technology. For instance, the old reason the State Department won't provide electronic forms is they say redacted words can be lifted from a PDF."

When the Standard posted this story, only one of Obama's new transparency directives was up on the Whitehouse website. We found copies of the remaining documents elsewhere. The Presidential Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government instructs three senior officials, including an as-yet-unnamed chief technology officer, to produce within 120 days an Open Government Directive detailing specific actions to implement open principles.
 
The Presidential Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act instructs the Attorney General to also issue new openness guidelines.  The new FOIA memo is seen as effectively reversing a memo issued by Attorney General Ashcroft in 2001 urging government agencies to withhold information from the public whenever legally possible.

Finally, the Executive Order on Presidential Records, posted on the White House site, fulfills a specific Obama campaign promise by ending the Bush administration's practice of allowing others besides the President to assert executive privilege to keep records sealed after an administration ends.

Scott Nelson, senior attorney for Public Citizen, whose lawsuit successfully dismantled parts of the Bush executive privilege rule last year, is hopeful the new administration will follow through on its good intentions.

"While the details remain to be seen, the Internet will be used to expand people's access to government. That's a very powerful thing for a president to do on his first day in office."

For a list of government agencies, their contact information, and a