I love love love This_American_Life. It's at the top of my podcast list (along with Studio_360 and Radio_Lab). The 3.28.08 episode, "The audacity of government" is particularly interesting from a govt information viewpoint. Ira Glass once again takes the strange but true anomaly, tells it in the first-person humanly and humanely to show the absurdity of, in this case, bureaucracy and governments. You can download it to your favorite audio player or listen online.

Act One. The Prez vs. The Commish.
Ira Glass tells the story of a little-known treaty dispute with far-reaching ramifications for our understanding of executive power. The dispute is between the President and one of his appointees...to the International Boundary Commission with Canada.

Act Two. This American Wife.
This American Life contributor Jack Hitt uncovers a strange practice within the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. If a foreign national marries a U.S. citizen and schedules an interview for a green card, but the U.S. citizen dies before the interview takes place, the foreign national is scheduled for deportation with no appeal—even if the couple has children who are U.S. citizens.

Act Three. 44.
Ira Glass interviews Charlie Savage, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Boston Globe, who's written a book called Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy about the ways the Bush Administration claims executive powers that other presidents haven't claimed.

Last month we posted about OMB Watch's survey to choose 5 (and only 5) favorite questions on government openness and transparency for congressional and presidential candidates. Last week, OMBWatch released their report (PDF) of the survey. Given the way things have been going over the last 30 years -- but especially over the last 8 years of the imperial presidency! -- it's no wonder that those surveyed feel that presidents should be more accountable, the public should have increased access to administrative information from both the legislative and executive branches (especially health, safety, and environmental information), and that those within the government should have increased legal protections when they report on government wrong-doing.

I think PublicMarkup's first effort at drafting openness legislation -- the Transparency in Government Act 2008 -- jibes perfectly with this effort.

Five questions to ask the presidential candidates to gauge where the candidates fall on the openness-secrecy spectrum:

1. Manipulation of Facts: "Do you support disclosure of all communications between the White House (including the Office of Management and Budget and other executive offices) and agencies regarding administrative decision-making and information disclosure?"
2. Executive Privilege: "What do you believe are the appropriate limits of executive privilege in the disclosure of information to Congress and the public?"
3. Whistleblowers: "In order to strengthen accountability against corporate crimes, would you support pending legislation that expands whistleblower protection rights to private sector workers who report violations of any federal public health and safety laws?"
4. Presidential Records: "Do you commit to reversing Executive Order 13233 to restore public access to presidential records after twelve years?"
5. Health, Safety & Environment: "Given the importance of health and safety information, how would you ensure that the public has easy access to understandable information about the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the products they use?"

The National Security Archive published Mixed Signals, Mixed Results: How President Bush's Executive Order on FOIA Failed to Deliver. The briefing claims that two years later, the FOI Executive Order still hasn't produced all that is promised. The FOI system did improve customer service at federal agencies, but has failed to make progress on backlogs and improved compliance with electronic FOIA requirements.

"Many of the same old scofflaw agencies are still shirking their responsibilities to the public," said Tom Blanton, director of the Archive. "I'm reminded of how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb — only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change."

Monday, March 17: American University's Washington College of Law's Collaboration on Government Secrecy hosted its first Freedom of Information Day, featuring panels and speakers addressing new FOIA legislation, the state secrets privilege, and transparency. They also presented the first "Robert Vaughn FOIA Legend Award" to Thomas M. Susman, a government openness advocate and initial drafter of the 1974 FOIA Amendments.

Tuesday, March 18: Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley discussed Freedom of Information and other open government issues during a Sunshine Week dinner event at The National Press Club. The speech looked ahead to priorities in the new administration, an update to Curley's 2004 Hays-Enterprise Lecture, which many view as a defining moment in moving forward efforts to preserve and protect access to information. The full text of Curley's speech can be found at the Sunshine Week website.

Wednesday, March 19: OpenTheGovernment.org, among others, sponsored the 3rd annual Sunshine Week National Dialogue on Open Government and Secrecy. This year's panel discussions focused on "Government Secrecy: Censoring Your Right to Know". The webcast is archived and will also be available soon at OpenTheGovernment.org and the event will be on a DVD available for purchase. They also compiled a list of legislation and resources about government secrecy and related issues.

The National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) will hold a national conference, entitled, "2008 FOI Summit", May 9-10, 2008 in Philadelphia, PA.

Here are some of the panels:

FOI Reform Efforts: Rewriting your state's laws?
FOI 2.0: Wikis and podcasts and blogs, oh my!
Sunshine Week Roundtable
Coalition Care and Feeding

Kicking off Sunshine Week, Senator Clinton answered the Sunshine Campaign Survey on open government.

And according to the 2008 Sunshine Week survey, 3/4 of American Adults view the federal government as secretive.

Did anyone happen to attend National FOI Day on Friday? I'll have to check back on their website for a summary of what occurred. Speakers included J. William Leonard and Tom Blanton.

If you are in the D.C. area on Monday, March 17th, NARA is hosting a public meeting held by the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) to solicit public reaction to its recent Report, "Improving Declassification".

Here is a great example of "Government Documents 2.0" in action: OpenCongress.org offers several Web 2.0 tools such as the OpenCongress Facebook application, where you can put bills that interest you on your Facebook profile. You can show your support or opposition to each bill, or simply remain neutral by selecting the "just following" option. Each bill links back to OpenCongress, so your patrons or friends can get all the information they need in order to understand and become involved with the issues themselves.

One of their Web 2.0 tools that I use for my GovGuides Wiki (a work in progress, mind you!), is the "Bill by Issue Widget". I created one for the Environmental Law GovGuides Wiki page I'm working on. It displays the latest bills introduced in Congress on anything to do with environmental law enforcement.

If you are not familiar with OpenCongress, it's a free, open-source, non-profit, and non-partisan web resource "with a mission to help make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement". OpenCongress is a joint project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation. It uses data provided by GovTrack.us, which collects data from official government websites, such as Thomas. For more info, see previous FGI posts about OpenCongress: My OpenCongress, Congress Remix, and FGI's "Remixes page".

OpenCongress makes it easy to understand each bill by giving a brief summary, who sponsored it, its status, and related bills. And yes, there are links to the full text of the bill and its voting history from Thomas. However, I do encourage students in my instruction classes to cite the original sources that OpenCongress leads them to, such as the full text of the bill from Thomas, congressional record references, or the homepages that OpenCongress links to for various committees and congressmen, etc. And of course I remind them that not everything is online, especially older government information, so they must turn to the print sources that I show them how to locate and use. By that time, the students are much more apt to pay attention and understand the importance of the exotic experience of handling/using the 1945 volume of the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications or a Congressional Record volume from 1918. ;-)

I find OpenCongress to be a very user friendly and a convenient "one stop shop" for learning about legislation. Students in my library instruction classes seem to love using it, so if it gets them excited about government information, then I love it too!

As noted here previously, Sunshine Week is coming up March 16-22. More events around it:

Gabriela notified us of a a press briefing featuring Lawrence Lessig that will be webcast.

Secrecy News lists several events, including:

National Freedom of Information Act day will be observed on March 14 with a day-long conference sponsored by the First Amendment Center. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/press/information/topic.aspx?topic=F...

Collaboration on Government Secrecy at the American University’s Washington College of Law will hold a conference on Monday March 17. http://www.wcl.american.edu/secle/founders/2008/031708.cfm

OpenTheGovernment.org will hold a webcast conference on Government Secrecy at the National Press Club on March 19 and lists a Calendar of Sunshine Week Events http://www.openthegovernment.org/article/subarchive/109

Sunshine Week has been mentioned in previous posts but it certainly deserves its own blog post too. This national initiative is set to take place March 16th through the 22nd. Its purpose is to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Anyone can take part, as long as you do something to engage discussion about open government. For example, you could write a letter to your local newspaper, host a panel discussion at your library, hold a debate on the FOIA in your political science class, etc.

Visit the Sunshine Week website for more information on events and resources and ideas to help spread the word. Updates will be posted on the Sunshine Week blog.

So...what will you be planning to do that week or maybe for next years Sunshine Week? Care to share your ideas? (Because I'm looking for some!) I think this year I will create a daily post on my depository's blog about open government and freedom of information resources, but next year I'd like to do something more interactive and on a larger scale with the community.

The Sunshine Week website created a page entitled: "What the Candidates Are Saying About Open Government and FOI" based on the the Sunshine Week survey responses and analysis of articles, speeches, and debate transcripts that give insight into the candidates' thoughts on government access to information.

They state: "Only New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards responded, and only Richardson answered all the questions. The remaining four leading major party candidates were re-surveyed following Super Tuesday in February. To date, none has replied".

They mention Obama's Senate co-sponsorship of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which went into effect on New Years Day '08 with the launch of USAspending.gov, a site that "gives people access to information on government contracts, grants and other awards".

Speaking of which, USAspending.gov is based on the software that runs Fedspending.org. I'm going to examine both these sites and see how the differ, but so far, the only difference I'm seeing is that USAspending.gov has a lengthy privacy policy which dotgovwatch.com claims is different from their previous warning!

The Association of Government Accountants published a report entitled "Public Attitudes Toward Government Accountability and Transparency 2008", based on their first annual survey of public attitudes toward government financial information transparency and accountability.

It is a part of AGI's "Advancing Government Accountability" campaign, which they hope will educate the government and the public on the benefits of government transparency, particularly in reporting government financial information. Not a big surprise here...the survey findings show that people are deeply dissatisfied with the availability of government financial information and how it is delivered to the public:

"...among those who do receive information about governments’ generation and spending of money, there is a strong dissatisfaction with the information that they receive. The strongest dissatisfaction is with the information about the federal government’s financial management (Federal, 60%; State, 46%; Local, 38%). Only 5% are satisfied with what they receive from the federal government".

To view more of the survey's findings, view or download the PowerPoint file.

Librarians can learn from this...know where to retrieve government financial information and make this known to your patrons and your community!

An issue that is near and dear to my heart, considering that I live in Louisiana, is that of recent government ethics reform initiatives from Governor Bobby Jindal. He was the focus of a recent New York Times article mentioning the "extensive package of ethics bills" passed recently.

One such bill includes House Bill 1 which "Enacts personal financial disclosures for the vast majority of elected and appointed officials in state and local government for the first time in Louisiana’s history".

Not everyone is happy about these changes. My favorite quote in the New York Times article:

"The volume of grumbling suggested real change was afoot.

'This is huge,' said D. W. Hunt, a veteran lobbyist at the Capitol. 'This is a sea change. This will seriously, dramatically change things. The meta-theme is the transparency.' "

Can you see the sweat on his forehead?

Louisiana is considered to rank low nationally on state ethics, but according to a statement issued by The Center for Public Integrity, these bills may put Louisiana in the top tier of states with tough ethics rules. Hopefully this will be the case, but we shall have to wait and see...

OMB Watch is asking for help picking the five best Open Government questions to ask the Presidential candidates. They've developed a survey on Zoomerang called The Open Government: What We Need To Know Survey. By taking the survey  you can pick your five favorite questions on the issue of government transparency and openness from a list prepared by OMB Watch and add your own questions too. 
 The topics and questions that OMB Watch has prepared are: 
Corporate Disclosure - Do you support increased corporate financial disclosure (e.g., release of corporate federal tax filings, a database of claimed corporate tax subsidies), and, if so, how would you achieve it?
Worst Abuse of Secrecy  - What is government’s worst abuse of secrecy in the last ten years and how would you have handled it? 
Whistleblowers -  Under the Sarbanes Oxley law, only corporate whistleblowers revealing financial abuses are protected. In order to strengthen accountability against corporate crimes, would you support pending legislation that expands whistleblower protection rights to private sector workers who report violations of any federal public health and safety laws? 
Improving Transparency - How should the federal government be more transparent? Suggestions: create a chief counselor for transparency in the White House; more interactive government websites (e.g. wikis and blogs); increased resources for transparency programs; greater openness of government meetings, including task forces and advisory committees. 
Pseudo-Classifications - With little or no statutory authority, agencies have created more than one hundred pseudo-classification categories, which often preclude public access to environment, health and safety information. How would you reform these information categories to ensure sufficient public access? 
Health, Safety & Environment - Given the importance of health and safety information, how would you ensure that the public has easy access to understandable information about the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the products they use? 
Ashcroft Memo - Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a Freedom of Information Act memo urging greater caution in disclosure and establishing a presumption of withholding information. Access experts believe that this significantly reduced the release of information. Would you reverse the Ashcroft memo and reinstate a presumption of openness for government records? 
Executive Privilege - What do you believe are the appropriate limits of executive privilege in the disclosure of information to Congress and the public? 
Earmarks - Do you support the online disclosure of all earmarks and their sponsors before they become law? 
Manipulation of Facts - Concerns have been raised about possible manipulation of information produced by agencies and the influence of the White House over agency decisions. Do you support disclosure of all communications between the White House (including the Office of Management and Budget and other executive offices) and agencies regarding administrative decision-making and information disclosure? 
Requiring Full Disclosure - Government is often passive and limiting in disclosure, waiting for requests for documents and then only releasing information to requesters. Do you support reversing this dynamic and requiring that all releasable documents be proactively published online for everyone, thereby negating the need for many Freedom of Information Act requests? 
Presidential Records - Executive Order 13233 limits access to presidential records under the Presidential Records Act by giving former presidents the power to effectively veto the release of their records. Do you commit to reversing Executive Order 13233 to restore public access to presidential records after twelve years? 
And Finally: If you think any important questions were missing from the list, please suggest additional questions you would like to see included.
OMB Watch is a nonprofit government watchdog organization whose mission is to promote open government, accountability and citizen participation.
It'll only take a few minutes to take the survey and help select the best questions to ask the Presidential candidates on the issue of government transparency and openness.

There's a new, updated “Save the Date” announcement for the Third National Dialogue on Open Government and Secrecy, that will take place on March 19, 2008 from 1 - 2:30 PM (EST) on the Open the Government website. The topic is "Government Secrecy: Censoring Your Right to Know" You can participate in person at the National Press Club in Washington DC, or join the conversation online anywhere.

The scheduled discussions are:

The Secret Executive -- What Can Congress and the Public Do?

Confirmed Speakers: Mickey Edwards, Director of the Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership and former Republican member of Congress from Oklahoma for 16 years (1977-92), Ann Beeson, Director of U.S. Programs at the Open Society Institute and previously Associate Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, and John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for American Progress, Chief of Staff to President William J. Clinton from October 1998 until January 2001, and formerly in senior staff positions in Congress, will discuss executive branch power and secrecy, congressional rights and responsibilities, and the role of the press in combating government secrecy. Patrice McDermott, Director of OpenTheGovernment.org, will moderate the discussion.

Citizen Self-Help: Finding the Information You Need

We will be visiting and talking with creators of web sites that help the public avoid having to file official requests or go to offices and meetings to learn what our government is doing. These sites make hard-to-find government information -- federal, state and local -- easy for the public to find and use and may inspire you to do likewise. A quick report will be given, as well, on an initiative to develop a 21st Century Right-to-Know agenda and recommendations for the next President and Congress.

In each segment, opportunities will be available for audience questions from all participants.

There's lots more information on the Open the Government dot org website. The Sunshine Week website has information about activities for Sunshine Week, March 16 - 22, 2008.

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