New Pentagon policy favors ‘presumption in favor of disclosure’

The Defense Department has revised its policy regarding the Freedom of Information Act to include the “presumption in favor of disclosure”. The change is to promote  transparency and accountability involving the FOIA with prompt response to requests. Despite President Barack Obama’s early assurances that transparency would be a priority, the White House has come under [...]

Knight survey reveals Obama administration faltering in transparency initiative

The Knight Open Government Survey has revealed that a little over half of the federal agencies have made changes in their response to Freedom of Information Act requests, this after President Obama instructed agencies to “usher in anew era of open government.” Whereas in 2010 the Knight survey found that only 13 out of 90 [...]

No transparency on Citigroup securities as documents from U.S. Treasury heavily redacted

In spite of President Barack Obama’s promise for a new era of open government, after a Freedom of Information Act request by a Boomberg News reporter, the U.S. Treasury released pages of heavily redacted e-mails and no information about the $301 billion of securities owned by Citigroup that was the subject of the reporter’s request. [...]

Group pinpoints lapses in Obama open government practices

OpenTheGovernment.org says the Obama administration has made some progress in its quest towards becoming the most open government in history but is tarnishing that effort by spending billions on creating and securing classified material. -db NextGov September 9, 2010 By Aliya Sternstein An annual report card on secrecy in the federal government indicates the Obama [...]

Freedom of Information Act requests down in 2009

The Obama administration attributes a significant drop in FOIA requests in 2009 to their efforts to post more government data online. But a recent report said that less than a third of federal agencies had changed their FOIA procedures since his first day in office when President Obama ordered them to “adopt a presumption in [...]

Transparency presents challenges for citizens

Nick Judd of techPresident writes that open data alone does not allow the public to participate meaningfully. The citizenry needs training in assessing the reliability of  data and also in interpreting it. -db techPresident May 26, 2010 By Nick Judd This morning, danah boyd summed up the problem with the open data movement in a [...]

Site allows public comment on new airline rule

A site launched at Cornell University allows the public to use Web 2.0 to comment on a rule announced this week requiring airlines to increase compensation to passengers bumped from flights, end fees for canceling reservations within 24 hours and disclose baggage fees fully. -db NextGov June 2, 2010 By Aliya Sternstein Cornell University launched [...]

Transparency survey ranks NASA on top and the Department of Justice on the bottom

An independent audit of the open government plans of  federal government agencies showed that NASA, HUD and EPA had performed well and DOJ and OMB poorly. The performance of the Office of Management and Budget disappointed the auditors since the agency is spearheading Obama’s transparency initiative. -db OMB Watch Press Release May 3, 2010 WASHINGTON, [...]

Iraq war: Federal transparency lacking without muscle behind Freedom of Information Act

Frank Smyth, the Journalism Security Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, argues that Obama’s promises for greater transparency are proving empty with the military failing to provide access to information about the killing of civilians and journalists in Iraq. -db Committee to Protect Journalists Commentary April 26, 2010 By Frank Smyth WASHINGTON, D.C. – [...]

Information technology analyst evaluates Obama open government initiatives

A senior analyst for The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation finds much to like in Obama’s efforts to make government more open but also says it’s important to identify weaknesses in the initiatives to make sure the gains are substantial and meaningful. -db eGov Monitor Commentary March 29, 2010 By Daniel Castro of The Information Technology [...]

Transparency experts advising patience over Obama open government initiative

Federal agencies easily met the first deadline in the Obama open government initiative, but the next steps for improving transparency and getting public feedback will take longer say open government experts. -db Federal Times March 10, 2010 By Gregg Calstrom The first steps were easy: Most agencies met the first deadline of President Obama’s December directive [...]

Microsoft aggressive in competing with other vendors for open government market

Microsoft is using Sharepoint, Bing, SQL, and Azure to command a share of the traffic on open government while Google and Amazon are joining Microsoft in offering to host public data on their cloud services. -DB Information Week December 15, 2009 By J. Nicholas Hoover With the open government movement in full swing and the [...]