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Studies compare policy and practice of transparency and open government around the world
Our friends at OMBWatch just published an interesting post highlighting several studies that compare and contrast the policy and practice of transparency of the US and other countries based on comparative analysis of FOIA, foreign aid, and budgets and revenues. The post, entitled "Global Studies Highlight U.S. Transparency Strengths, Weaknesses" "...provide[s] useful measures of U.S. openness relative to real-world conditions, in addition to highlighting global best practices and alternative approaches." It also references a group created in September 2011 called the Open Government Partnership (OGP) and highlights the US' role in the group and their joint Open Government Declaration signed by the US and 7 other countries -- with 38 more countries signing in March 2012. Read the rest of the post to find out where the US ranks among the countries of the world in terms of transparency and open government. Here's the list of studies cited by OMBwatch:
- audit of FOIA laws in 105 countries and the European Union by the Associated Press (AP)
- Global Right to Information Rating released by Access Info Europe and the Centre for Law and Democracy
- Quality of Official Development Assistance report, published Nov. 14 by the Brookings Institution and the Center for Global Development
- "The Money Trail: Ranking Donor Transparency in Foreign Aid" by Anirban Ghosh and Homi Kharas, published in the November issue of the journal World Development (available to subscribers only :-( )
- Aid Transparency Index 2011 by the organization Publish What You Fund
Budget woes at GPO: GPO to offer employees buyouts/early outs
According to a press release this morning (PDF), GPO management will soon be reducing their personnel by 15% (a reduction of 330 positions out of 2,200) including a reduction of 25% in management and supervisory levels. This is one more grim announcement on top of drastic budget cuts to govt information services and govt transparency efforts across the federal government. Stay tuned for more as we learn more about these reductions.
In response to overall Government cutbacks and projected reductions in appropriated funding, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) informed employees today of its plan to send a request to Congress and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for authority to offer buyouts and early outs to the agency’s 2,200 employees. GPO’s goal is to achieve a personnel reduction of 15% (or 330 positions), including a reduction in management and supervisory levels of 25%. Once GPO is given authority, employees can be offered lump-sum payments up to $25,000 as an incentive to voluntarily separate from the agency. The actual amount of the payout is based on a formula. GPO will use current funds to conduct this program, which needs to be concluded by the end of the first quarter of FY 2012 to achieve the needed savings for the coming year. In combination with a careful workforce restructuring plan, GPO management believes these reductions in personnel can be achieved without compromising the agency’s ability to carry out mission critical operations. “GPO has restructured and reinvented itself numerous times throughout the last 150 years to carry out the critical mission of meeting the dissemination and information needs of the U.S. Congress and Federal agencies,” said Public Printer Bill Boarman. “These challenging economic times have no boundaries and are forcing many Federal agencies to seek ways to survive. GPO is open for business. We are an agency with a dedicated workforce that will continue to reengineer itself in the 21st century to serve as the digital information platform for the Federal Government.”Continue reading
how many G-20 countries make CRS-like reports available to the public?
The United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) recently released the World e-Parliament Report 2010. The Report, prepared by the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament, is based on the results of the Global Survey of ICT in Parliaments conducted by the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament between July and November 2009, to which 134 parliamentary assemblies responded. The 134 parliaments were surveyed on a number of issues, including whether or not they make the work of their parliamentary research services available to the public. Daniel Schuman, Policy Counsel for the Sunlight Foundation, contacted one of the report's authors, and asked for the underlying data on which countries make their CRS-like reports publicly available. Although they could not share that specific data, they told Daniel how many countries made those reports available. Answers to Daniel's questions were provided in an email from the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament, for which Daniel had permission to make public. Here are the highlights:
With regard to parliamentary chambers within members of the G-20:Thought this might be interesting and helpful. Thanks Daniel for sharing this information. Continue reading
- Parliamentary chambers in 16 of the 20 members of the G-20 responded to the 2009 survey. Because the European Union is a member of the G-20, the European Parliament is included in this group of 16. The names of all parliaments and chambers that participated in the 2009 survey can be found on page 5 of the Report.
- Parliamentary chambers in 4 of the G-20 members did not participate in the survey.
- Parliamentary chambers in 13 of the 16 G-20 members who responded to the survey reported that they did have subject matter experts on public policy issues who provide research and analysis for members and committees.
- Parliamentary chambers in 3 of the G-20 members reported that they did not have subject matter experts on public policy issues who provide research and analysis for members and committees.
- Parliamentary chambers in 11 of the 13 G-20 members who reported that they did have subject matter experts on public policy issues also reported that they make the results of that research and analysis available to the public. This represents 85% of the G-20 members whose chambers have subject matter experts (11/13).
- A number of the parliaments among the 13 who have subject matter experts are bi-cameral. These 13 therefore include a total of 19 separate chambers. Of these, 16 (84%) have subject matter experts whose work is made available to the public (16/19).
- NOTE: the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament has assured all participants of the confidentiality of their responses to the survey and that the names of individual chambers have not been provided in this correspondence.
Open government audit: agencies straddle the Mendoza line in meeting OGD goals
On January 21, 2009, as one of his first acts as President, President Obama released his Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government. The memorandum instructed that government should be transparent, government should be participatory, government should be collaborative. On December 8, 2009, Peter Orzag, the head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the Open Government Directive (PDF) establishing deadlines for application of those three principles of open government -- readers will remember that Federal CIOs were only lukewarm about the administration's transparency goals. The memorandum requires executive departments and agencies to take the following steps toward the goal of creating a more open government:
- Publish Government Information Online
- Improve the Quality of Government Information
- Create and Institutionalize a Culture of Open Government
- Create an Enabling Policy Framework for Open Government
We commend the President for his commitment to openness and for providing detailed elements in the OGD that can be used to hold federal agencies accountable. Many of the federal agencies have approached implementation of the OGD requirements with energy and enthusiasm and some have taken innovative steps in their plans. If implemented with spirit, vigor, and innovation, the Open Government Plans can serve as a vehicle for fundamentally changing the way the federal government interacts with the public. This, in turn, may prove to be a catalyst for shifting public trust in government. At the same time, many of the agency plans as unveiled on April 7 have a long way to go to create this transformational potential. As this audit demonstrates, there is wide variation in the agency plans. Some are exceptional; others are quite weak. Most are somewhere in between. Many of the plans that currently do not meet the minimal requirements identified in the OGD can do so with only modest improvements, such as providing more specificity on deadlines or identifying where certain items mentioned in the plans can be found. An overview of what we found is below.Continue reading
Leaked CIA document and the war on Wikileaks
Glenn Greenwald has just published a subtle article about a leaked CIA document and the increasingly aggressive war being waged on Wikileaks, the site that anonymously publishes leaked sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational, and religious documents. The first part of the article deals with the leaked document, entitled "CIA Red Cell Special Memorandum; Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission. Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough. (PDF)" (and also uploaded to the Internet Archive for the IAdeposit project). This hubristic document announces "Public Apathy Enables Leaders to Ignore Voters" and describes PR strategies for shoring up public support for the continued war in Afghanistan. But the more interesting and disturbing part of Greenwald's story concerns Wikileaks. Greenwald interviewed Julian Assange, the Australian citizen who is WikiLeaks' Editor. The interview shed light on Wikileaks' work in exposing the secret activities of governments and corporations and also how the US and other governments are targeting Wikileaks as an enemy of the state and trying to destroy the organization -- for more see last week's NY Times article "Pentagon Sees a Threat From Online Muckrakers" and Wikileaks own editorial on the subject.
...In 2008, the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center prepared a secret report -- obtained and posted by WikiLeaks -- devoted to this website and detailing, in a section entitled "Is it Free Speech or Illegal Speech?", ways it would seek to destroy the organization. It discusses the possibility that, for some governments, not merely contributing to WikiLeaks, but "even accessing the website itself is a crime," and outlines its proposal for WikiLeaks' destruction. Greenwald also points out the proposed law in Iceland which would provide meaningful whistle blower protection to groups like Wikileaks. As the Pentagon report put it: "the governments of China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam and Zimbabwe" have all sought to block access to or otherwise impede the operations of WikiLeaks, and the U.S. Government now joins that illustrious list of transparency-loving countries in targeting them. ...The need for independent leaks and whistle-blowing exposures is particularly acute now because, at exactly the same time that investigative journalism has collapsed, public and private efforts to manipulate public opinion have proliferated. This is exemplified by the type of public opinion management campaign detailed by the above-referenced CIA Report, the Pentagon's TV propaganda program exposed in 2008, and the ways in which private interests covertly pay and control supposedly "independent political commentators" to participate in our public debates and shape public opinion.I highly recommend reading Greenwald's article. It's eye-opening on so many levels. The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters. Glenn Greenwald. Salon.com. March 27, 2010. [HT @JeremyScahill!] Continue reading
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