A New Era of Responsibility
One of our favorite rss feeds, docuticker, identifies an interesting gov doc in a recent update - Budget of the United States Government — Fiscal Year 2010: The Budget Documents, A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise (OMB). A New Era of Responsibility "... [p]rovides a description of the Obama Administration’s fiscal policies and major budgetary initiatives. This document is an overview of the full Fiscal Year 2010 Budget expected to be released this spring." It is comprehensible in the way a well written commercial outline can distill an impenetrable appellate decision. In it, the President's Message begins: "Throughout America’s history, there have been some years that appeared to roll into the next without much notice or fanfare. Budgets are proposed that offer some new programs or eliminate an initiative, but by and large continuity reigns. Then there are the years that come along once in a generation, when we look at where the country has been and recognize that we need a break from a troubled past, that the problems we face demand that we begin charting a new path. This is one of those years..." That's clear. Think of it as lyric prologue to prose recovery (I'm an optimist) -- The 2010 Budget joins its predecessors at GPO Access ... (and, some day, FDSys as well). Continue reading
Transboundary issues are needful things
There is an obvious transboundary need for free flowing, current foreign / international government information. This transboundary need reflects the nature of our most critical 21st Century challenges -- climate change, crime, trade, labour rights, poverty, hunger, etc. -- they know few hard geo-political boundaries. So how can we know what's going on in our extended community of nations, better known as the Western Hemisphere? Supra national sources of information like the United Nations and it's subsidiary regional commission ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) do what some of our finest U.S. government agency publications do -- they track the statistical universe of nations. One of my favorite sources of free flowing, current foreign / international government information is UNPULSE, "Connecting to UN Information" (A Service of the UN Library). UNPULSE links to the 2008 edition of the ECLAC's Statistical Yearbook for Latin America and the Caribbean, "... one of the main sources of statistical information of the region." The full text of the report, published in English and Spanish, is divided into four chapters: "(1) Demographic and social areas, with special attention to gender; (2) Economical statistics such as prices, international trade, balance of payments and national accounts; (3) Information on natural resources and the environment; and, (4) Methodological aspects and other data on sources, definitions and coverage of the statistics cited." About ECLAC: "ECLAC is one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations. It was founded with the purpose of contributing to the economic development of Latin America, coordinating actions directed towards this end, and reinforcing economic ties among countries and with other nations of the world. The promotion of the region's social development was later included among its primary objectives..." ~ Free government information flowing south to north. Continue reading
FOIA in the news
ACLU Blog of Rights Post [Familiar Story: CIA Destroys More Tapes] (March 2, 2009):
"Back in December 2007, we learned that the CIA had destroyed two videotapes depicting the "harsh interrogation" of two detainees in U.S. custody. This morning, we learned ... the CIA has actually destroyed 92 tapes. Those tapes are directly responsive to the ACLU’s October 2003 Freedom of Information Act request asking the government to release all documents and information pertaining to the treatment of detainees held in U.S. custody overseas."The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a remarkable tool. On Wednesday, January 21st, President Obama published a memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on the broad topic of FOIA at the White House Briefing Room:
"A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike..."Continue reading
Spring [Training], March [Blogging], et al.
Thanks so much to the editors of FGI for allowing me the extreme pleasure of blogging this month! I understand March has come in like a [don't say it] lion in many parts of the eastern United States. Well, its baseball weather here in Los Angeles and Orange Counties -- 70 degree temps with perhaps the slightest chance of rain imaginable... Throughout this wonderful month, as the Dodgers and A's toil in Spring Training, I'll do my level best to keep the FGI blog well stocked with stories of government information from across jurisdictional boundaries. It’s my pleasure! Brian Continue reading
Federal Reserve releases and withholds documents on credit crisis
As noted here before, the Federal Reserve has been reluctant to release documents about bailout money. Now according to POGO, "Governmentattic.org has posted several documents from the Federal Reserve in response to a FOIA request about the Fed's lending activities related to the credit crisis" but "the Fed was withholding over 2,000 pages of information under the (b)(4) and (b)(5) FOIA exemptions, which protect against the disclosure of "trade secrets" and "inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters."" The Fed Knows Best, Project on Government Oversight, Feb 23, 2009. Continue reading