Issue Of The Week: Opining On Openness
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for a new "Issue of the Week." Here's a taste:
When President Barack Obama issued "Day One" memos instructing members of his administration to operate under principles of openness, transparency and citizen engagement, government watchdogs cheered. They hailed the early presidential directive as unprecedented and said it was a welcome change from the past eight years. But in the days since Obama's issuance, open government enthusiasts have turned their attention to making sure words become deeds.
Obama's memo stipulated that the heads of OMB and the General Services Administration, as well as his yet-to-be-named chief technology officer, craft an open government directive by May 21 that laid out actions to support his principles. The guidance also stated that all agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure in Freedom of Information Act decisions, which means making information public in a timely fashion and not waiting for specific requests from the public.
"This is a wonderful window of opportunity for those who care about open government," said Dan Metcalfe, a former Justice Department attorney and head of the Washington College of Law's Collaboration on Government Secrecy. Metcalfe assembled a group of information policy experts last week to draft transparency blueprints for the new administration. "It's been a long time since an administration has come into power with so many competing priorities," Metcalfe said, noting that his community needs to be strategic about what it believes should be addressed first Obama's team.
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