A day after I complained his Website wasn't working, President Obama made open record nuts everywhere happy.

The new leader of the free world on Wednesday undid the previous president's orders closing presidential records and ordered federal agencies to lean on the side of openness when handling Freedom of Information Act requests. Click here to read the story.

Obama received immediate kudos from The Sunshine In Government Initiative. It issued a press release saying:

Yesterday's policy of 'When in doubt, leave it out,' today became, 'When it doubt, let it out.' And this policy will help keep the public informed in our technology-driven, connected society. On open government, the dawn is breaking.

— NC


Photo courtesy of The Associated Press.

Labels: FOIA, White House

That's the page I got when I tried to load the FOIA handbook for the White House office of Administration.

I'm trying to send President Obama his first requests under the Freedom of Information Act but I can't find up-to-date instructions for doing so. Maybe this lapse is a problem left over from the previous administration. (You know, the one that was in office this morning.) But here's hoping the new guys hop on this.

— NC

UPDATE: Below are copies of the FOIA requests I just sent the new administration.

HHSrequest.pdf

FOIAMSHA.pdf

ObamaRequest.012009.pdf

Labels: FOIA, White House

President Bush may be a lame duck, but that doesn't mean public access watchdogs are going to let him fly away without a fight.

A federal judge on Monday said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive could go ahead with their suit against the Bush administration in a case involving millions of missing e-mails.

The two groups claim that the White House didn't adequately preserve e-mails during the period of 2003 to 2005.

In his defense Bush said: "Oh, shucks guys, there wasn't anything interestin' goin' on during those years anyway!"

OK, actually the president hasn't even come up with that lame of an excuse. In fact, he hasn't come up with any excuse at all for the missing public records. Instead, his cronies contend that the courts don't have authority to review their compliance with public records law.

Checks and balances? We don't need no stinkin' checks and balances!

— ML

Labels: FOIA, open records, White House

A few recent items about President-elect Obama and open government: 

ProPublica had a piece last week discussing Obama's history with transparency. (Why weren't there more articles about this during the campaign?)

On Friday, ProPublica followed up by reporting on Obama's plan to use technology to increase government transparency.

Some folks have their own plan for Obama. The Sunshine in Government Initiative has recommendations for the incoming administration. Click here for a PDF of the organization's four-page letter to Obama. Click here for a PDF of the the Sunshine in Government' white paper.

By the way, the polls are still open on my first FOIA under the Obama administration.

— NC

*Photo courtesy of The Associated Press. Draw your own conclusions about why Bush is in the shadows and Obama in the light.

Labels: open records, White House