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Obama administration 'failing, badly' on open government commitment

Measured in terms of his administration's responsiveness to Freedom of Information Act requests, President Obama is a long way from meeting his campaign promise to render the government more accountable through transparency. While the president may well have intended to usher in “an unprecedented level of openness in government,” many federal agencies appear not to have received the memo, according to the Federal Times.

Measured in terms of his administration's responsiveness to Freedom of Information Act requests, President Obama is a long way from meeting his campaign promise to render the government more accountable through transparency. While the president may well have intended to usher in “an unprecedented level of openness in government,” many federal agencies appear not to have received the memo, according to the Federal Times.

 For an example, Federal Times turned to a recent request one of its reporters filed with the Department of Homeland Security.

 “(F)rustrated by a system that required all media queries to be funneled through a central, nameless email address — mediainquiry@dhs.gov — (he) asked for the names and phone numbers of DHS spokespeople. When DHS refused, he filed a request under FOIA, with the sound reasoning that the names and office phone numbers of a public agency's public spokespeople could not possibly be seen as a government secret. He was wrong.

In response, DHS sent a 58-page directory of its public affairs staff — with all work phone numbers and email addresses blacked out. Its explanation: The information would cause ‘a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.'”

This department that thinks its employees' “personal privacy” would be invaded by sharing their phone numbers and email addresses is the office charged with serving as the “primary point of contact for news media, organizations and the general public seeking information about Department of Homeland Security's programs, policies, procedures, statistics, and services.”

 

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