Home » Posts tagged 'secrecy' (Page 11)
Tag Archives: secrecy
Government Secrecy: Decisions Without Democracy
Government Secrecy: Decisions Without Democracy By David Banisar. Preface by Bob Barr and John Podesta. OpenTheGovernment.org and People for the American Way Govinfo News says: "OpenTheGovernment.org and People for the American Way have issued an updated version of the 1987 primer on the expansion of executive power and government secrecy. The 1987 version documented the rise at the height of the Cold War; 20 years later, we face the same problems. The book also looks at the opportunities and challenges provided by the advent of digital government." In the forward, Gary D. Bass of OMB Watch, Thomas S. Blanton of the National Security Archive and Ralph G. Neas of People for the American Way say:
Our three organizations are part of OpenTheGovernment.org, a broad-based coalition that brings together journalists, librarians, academics, individual citizens, advocacy groups, and professional associations committed to strengthening and protecting our right to know. This primer is just one step in engaging the public in a campaign to make our government more transparent and accountable to the public. “We the people†must exercise our rights to strengthen, if not preserve, democracy. We encourage you to get involved by visiting the website (www.openthegovernment.org) to learn what you can do.Continue reading
Secret Senate Block of Senate Transparency Bill
The Senate Campaign Disparity Act (S. 223), which would require senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically, has been blocked twice by an anonymous Republican senator. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is hiding the identity of that senator.
The Sunlight Foundation has launched a campaign to reveal which senator is blocking passage of the bill. See:
- What’s McConnell Hiding? by Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight Foundation, June 1, 2007.
The website for the campaign is: What’s McConnell Hiding?
The irony in this situation is that there is a secret objection to legislation that would generate more transparency for senators. Now is your chance to put the pressure on to move the transparency bill forward.Continue reading
CRS Director Moves to Restrict Analysts’ Media Contacts
The FAS (Federation of American Scientists) blog on government secrecy posted an interesting article today on additional restrictions on CRS analysts' contact with media representatives. Supposedly, the new policy is being driven by CRS management fearing "that the agency may come to be perceived as having an institutional agenda of its own or that its impartiality will be questioned by members of Congress". That's a legitimate concern, perhaps driven from wanting to manage their reputation and the quality of their work. But, the author of the FAS blog entry suggests the new policy may have a negative effect on the employees --which may affect the quality of their work after all. Continue reading
White House visitor records closed
White House visitor records closed, by Pete Yost, Associated Press Writer, Yahoo! News, Jan 5, 2007
The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House are not open to the public.Continue reading
U.S. to Declassify Secrets at Age 25
I'm travelling for a few weeks so haven't been in touch much. However, I got a chance today to glance at the NYT and was greeted with this very favorable item by Scott Shane (NY Times 12/21/06). An executive order passed by the Clinton administration calls for documents to be automatically declassified after 25 years. The law reversed the traditional practice of releasing just what scholars requested via FOIA requests. "Several hundred million pages will be declassified at midnight on Dec. 31, including 270 million pages at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has lagged behind most agencies in reviews." This is really great news for historians and advocates of open government. I hope someone from the CA Digital Library's Web at risk project -- or others who are harvesting web sites and documents -- is reading this and will set their harvesting tools to scoop this boon up!
At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many F.B.I. cold war files on investigations of people suspected of being Communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government’s first automatic declassification of records. Secret documents 25 years old or older will lose their classified status without so much as the stroke of a pen, unless agencies have sought exemptions on the ground that the material remains secret.Continue reading
Latest Comments