Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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Obama Blocks Visitor Log Disclosure
This is pretty disheartening. The Obama administration is continuing to use the same arguments the Bush administration used to block disclosure of visitor logs, even in limited cases. Both msnbc.com and, in a more limited request, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) were denied access to the logs by the Secret Service. The Service claimed that the logs are presidential and not agency records, thus not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This continues the policy implemented by the Bush White House as they tried to block disclosure of visits to the White House by leaders of the Religious Right and, later, corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Despite court rulings requiring the disclosure of the logs, the Bush administration continued to stonewall and appeal the decisions. The Obama adminsitration has continued those appeals, while also saying the policy is “under review.” This looks like another example of the Executive Branch refusing to reliquinsh unnecessary secrecy that it seized in the face of a court order. This is also far more harmful to Executive Branch transparency than the failure to post bills on WhiteHouse.gov for five days. Hopefully, when the administration says that the policy is “under review” they actually mean it and this isn’t like the Supreme Leader of Iran saying that he will investigate election fraud.
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Transparency 2.0
Nick Troiano at SocialGovernment.com has an interesting and important post about government transparency, the 2.0 version. Nick was reflecting from a discussion featured by the National Conference on Citizenship titled “In Transparency, We Trust?
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Memorandum on FOIA
Since the Memorandum on FOIA and Government Transparency are not yet posted at WhiteHouse.gov, I thought I would post them both on the Sunlight’s blog. As you can imagine, we love the use of the Justice Brandeis’ quote in the FOIA Memoradum.
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Act
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.
The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.
All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.
The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.
I direct the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads of executive departments and agencies, reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency, and to publish such guidelines in the Federal Register. In doing so, the Attorney General should review FOIA reports produced by the agencies under Executive Order 13392 of December 14, 2005. I also direct the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to update guidance to the agencies to increase and improve information dissemination to the public, including through the use of new technologies, and to publish such guidance in the Federal Register.
This memorandum does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
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Transition Recommendations
Lots of folks are starting to think about the transition to a new Administration. We know of at least 2 dozen such efforts thus far. And so we’ll blog about them as they start to get released.
POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, just released a list of recommendations of major reforms they believe the new presidential administration should adopt to make the federal government more effective, accountable, open, and honest. And we sure like their list! POGO sent their list to both the McCain and Obama transition teams.
As Mandy Smithberger writes at the POGO blog, they are advising the transition teams to making agency missions more modern and relevant, keeping government’s role federalized, protecting whistleblowers, stopping the revolving door between government and private industry, strengthen the Freedom of Information Act and other transparency reforms, and other reforms to provide better government oversight.
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First FOIA Response on SF-LLLs
A brief, puzzling update (below the fold) on my attempts to get my hands on actual forms SF-LLL, which government contractors or grantees must file when they make a payment or agree to pay “any lobbying entity for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency, a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in connection with a covered Federal action,” with the latter phrase referring to any contract, grant, cooperative agreement, loan, loan guarantee or loan insurance worth more than $100,000. A reminder: The hope here is that if we can get enough forms SF-LLL, we can start to distinguish between those contracts awarded through the normal procurement process, and those awarded after lobbyists went outside the normal procurement process to influence members of Congress or administration officials. If we can get a complete set of all forms SF-LLL filed with the government, we might be able to build a database from that information, linking it with or incorporating it into sites like FedSpending.org, which tracks government contracts and spending, or OpenSecrets.org, which tracks political influence.
Now, for the update: I got an answer to a Freedom of Information Act request I filed on Feb. 5, 2007, with Hanscom Air Force Base requesting any forms SF-LLL filed by or on behalf of a company, ProLogic, in connection with this award:
ProLogic Inc., Fairmont, W.Va., was awarded on 19 December 2005, a $7,090,838 cost plus fixed fee contract to research how the best to gather required medical data from medical encounters, analyze it, and make to available to users in support of medical planning and operations using a Net-Centric approach identified as MED-STARS. At this time $2,208,000 has been obligated. This work will be complete by October 2008. Solicitations began January 2005 and negotiations were completed in August 2005. The Headquarters Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., is the contracting activity. (FA8726-06-C-0005).
The response reads as follows:
1. This is in reference to your FOIA request, dated 5 February, for any and all forms SF-LLL.
2. We do not maintain these forms; therefore, we have no records to give you.
3. If you decide to appeal this response, please write to the Secretary of the Air Force within 60 days from the date of this response, and include your reasons for appeal. Attach a copy of this response and address your letter to:
Secretary of the Air Force
THRU: 66 MSG/SCSF
63 Grenier Street
Hanscom AFB, MA 01731-2303Line #2 strikes me as being oddly worded. I can understand if they don’t have any forms because ProLogic didn’t lobby on that particular contract, and didn’t file the form. Then the response should be that, after searching their files, there are no “responsive documents,” or some such. But what does it mean that they don’t maintain the forms? Does that mean they get them but send them somewhere else? Throw them out? That if they’re offered them, they refuse to take them? Rather than immediately file an appeal, I emailed back asking for clarification of item 2 of the response.
For the record, here is the portion of the Code of Regulations (32 CFR 28 for those keeping score at home) that requires “persons” (defined below as “an individual, corporation, company, association, authority, firm, partnership, society, State, and local government, regardless of whether such entity is operated for profit or not for profit”) “requesting or receiving” a contract, grant, loan and so on, to file form SF-LLL (shown in appendix B).
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Legislative Transparency Proposed in Tennessee
Bill Hobbs reports that a pair of lawmakers in the Tennessee legislature (one in the Senate, one in the House) have introduced a bill to make subcommittees, committees, and the two houses of the legislature itself subject to the state’s version of the Freedom of Information Act, known as the Open Records Act. Hobbs notes that you can track the progress of the legislation here.
So which member of the House, and which member of the Senate, will introduce similar legislation at the federal level? Congress, of course, is currently exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
(Via InstaPundit.)
