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‘Secrecy Report’: Obama has taken some positive steps towards open government
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 09/07/2011 16:36:00
- In: Freedom of the press
The 2011 Secrecy Report released Tuesday by OpenTheGovernment.org — a coalition of more than 80 groups, including ASNE, advocating for open and accountable government — chronicles positive changes in some indicators of secrecy during the Obama administration.
The 2011 Secrecy Report released Tuesday by OpenTheGovernment.org — a coalition of more than 80 groups, including ASNE, advocating for open and accountable government — chronicles positive changes in some indicators of secrecy during the Obama administration. The indicators also, however, show a national security bureaucracy that continues to expand and remain shrouded despite the administration's openness directives.
“We are not as yet at the level of ‘unprecedented transparency' the Obama administration promises, but we are beginning to see signs that at least some of the Administration's openness efforts are paying off,” said Patrice McDermott, Director of OpenTheGovernment.org.
Among the positive trends cited in the report: FOIA backlogs government-wide were reduced by 10 percent; Obama is the only U.S. President on record who has not asserted executive privilege to deny Congressional requests for information; and the administration declassified and released information about the U.S. nuclear stockpile, the nuclear posture review, and the full size of the national intelligence budget.
The report also includes a “Progress Report on Openness and Secrecy in the Obama Administration” that shows success, although uneven, on commitments along with some troubling trends; and an analysis of FOIA delays in select agencies, using FOIA data from users' perspectives