Federal Government – Page 9 – National Freedom of Information Coalition

Op-Ed: Delay and deny: Obama’s two-face on Freedom of Information

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Upon entering office in January of 2009, President Obama promised us an era of openness and transparency in the federal government.

He set a policy in place mandating that federal records be released when requested by the public, on the premise that "sun-light is said to be the best of disinfectants." He instructed the executive departments and agencies to operate with a presumption towards disclosure when handling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. On this point he stated as follows:

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Hybrid records management can enable open government

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In his first day in office, President Obama signed the memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, calling for a new era of open and accountable government.

“My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.” — President Obama, Jan. 21, 2009

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Sikhs ask US to reveal official use of slurs

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A Sikh group today asked US authorities to reveal their use of ethnic slurs after a document leaked by Edward Snowden showed intelligence agents using an anti-Muslim epithet.

The Sikh Coalition filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act seeking all emails since the September 11, 2001 attacks by employees of the FBI and the National Security Agency that use slurs.

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Judge takes IRS to task, sets email deadline

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Judicial Watch, a public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, says federal Judge Emmitt Sullivan has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to produce documents of sworn testimonies describing what happened to emails of former IRS official Lois Lerner and others – and what steps have been taken to try to recover those records.

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Coalition Seeks Open Government

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President Barack Obama promised to create “a new era of openness” on the first day of his first term. It’s a sad irony that his administration has continued the 20-year trend of being less and less open to journalists. It has prosecuted leaks and leakers, threatened journalists with jail, denied credentials, and established policies that restrict federal officials from talking to reporters.

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Blog: Leahy-Cornyn Bipartisan FOIA Reform Doesn’t Go Far Enough; Congress Should Exempt EPA from FOIA b(5)

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Regulating is an inherently legislative exercise, in that it entails the promulgation of rules that control private behavior. Indeed, most policy now is rendered via regulation, thanks to the geometric growth of the executive branch during the post-war years.*

However, unlike legislators in congress, executive agency bureaucrats are unaccountable to the electorate. As a result, there’s a danger that executive agencies are effectuating policy absent a popular mandate and away from the public eye.

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Blog: Openness Effort Trumps Partisan Gridlock in Congress

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You can probably count on the fingers of one hand the issues on which there is bipartisan agreement in Congress. Fortunately, strengthening Freedom of Information (FOIA) is one of them.

Earlier this year, the House unanimously approved a FOIA reform bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa (CA), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Democrats, Elijah Cummings (MD), the committee’s ranking member, and Mike Quigley (IL).

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OpEd: How the FOIA Improvement Act of 2014 Would Help Ordinary Requesters

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Earlier this year, the U.S. Veterans Affairs Administration denied the Tampa Tribune’s Freedom of Information Act request for the names of VA hospitals where veterans died because of delays in medical screenings.

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Here’s What Happens When You Challenge the CIA Through “Proper Channels”

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One of the standard criticisms of Edward Snowden is that he should have tried harder to air his concerns via proper channels. This is fairly laughable on its face, since even now the NSA insists that all its programs were legal and it continues to fight efforts to change them or release any information about them. Still, maybe Snowden should have tried. What harm could it have done?

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US National Archives To Upload All Holdings To Wikimedia Commons

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Ever since the National Archives and Record Administration launched the Open Government Plan in 2010, it has increasingly been uploading content to Wikipedia to digitize and gain a wider reach for its holdings. But all this time, uploading its digitized holdings to the Wikimedia Commons was a side project. Now, as mentioned in the 2014 Open Government Plan published earlier this month, the project is a core part of the NARA, according to The Signpost.

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