On numerous occasions our President has lectured us about the need for civility and transparency. But often not even 30 minutes passes before Mr. Obama is blasting the "tea
baggers". This is a term some of you may be too young to understand but suffice it to say that it is an extremely offensive sexual reference that I just don't believe has slipped by the likes of
Rahm Emanuel. This administration fails to understand that marginalizing dissent and criticism only serves to motivate the dissenters. I sincerely hope that our President will continue on his present course and will continue to insult his detractors.
As to transparency, I have provided the memorandum on the White House website.
1. "Transparency and Open Government
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies
SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policy making and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.
Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.
This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
As to transparency - What do liberal media sources have to say?
2. CNN - February 2, 2009.
The story - "All this week, we're taking aim at one word and one theme. It is something the president has promised and we're holding him to it: transparency. If it's more than an updated campaign slogan, the president might start by looking at his own Cabinet picks.
Both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Health and Human Services nominee Tom Daschle were delinquent in paying tens of thousands of dollars each in back taxes. That's more than some people earn in a year, let alone owe in back taxes. Neither man paid up in full until after they were approached to join the Obama administration.
I wonder how many Americans would avoid paying a six-figure tax bill until they were up for a new job? For that matter, how many people have owed more than $100,000 dollars without the IRS coming to haul off anything that wasn't bolted down -- like the car and driver Daschle forgot to pay for."
3. From the University of Pennslyvania law blog On the newly appointed Deficit Commission - very slick non transparent maneuvering:
"The Commission’s one possible salvation might come from its ability to convene secret deliberations, out of the usual media glare that can exacerbate partisan tendencies.
The Obama Administration may be – ironically – banking on some secrecy to solve one of the nation’s most challenging domestic problems. Despite the administration’s overall
emphasis on governmental transparency, the executive order establishing the Deficit Commission does not itself say anything about whether the Commission's deliberations must be open to the public.
Some government commissions are covered by the
Government in the Sunshine Act, which requires that all their proceedings are open to the public. But that Act only applies when the majority of a commission’s members have been appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. With more of the Deficit Commission’s members appointed by the House and Senate leadership than the President, the Government in Sunshine Act does not apply.
The
Federal Advisory Committee Act (
FACA) requires meetings of advisory committees to be fully open to the public. Being advisory, the Deficit Commission would fall under
FACA, which applies to “any … commission … which is … established or utilized by the President … in the interest of obtaining advice or recommendations for the President.”
"The report found that despite Mr. Obama’s directive for agencies to take “affirmative steps” to make more information public through the Freedom of Information Act, many agencies do not appear to have made any concrete changes. It also found little indication that most federal agencies were releasing information any more frequently or rejecting public requests for information any less often.
Thomas S.
Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, which is affiliated with
George Washington University, said that in making good on Mr. Obama’s pledge to operate the most transparent administration in history, “agencies are talking the talk, but few are yet walking the walk.”
TARP watchdog cites lack of transparency in Obama administration
Neil Barofsky's stinging report on a survey of banks' use of bailout funds reveals Treasury's refusal to give, or seek, answers. Critics say the White House hasn't met pledges of more open government.
July 21, 2009Tom Hamburger and Peter Nicholas
WASHINGTON — As the watchdog of the government's massive bailout of the financial sector, Neil M. Barofsky had a simple question: What had the nation's banks done with all their bailout money?
Can't be answered, said the Treasury Department, because of the way banks move money internally. The department declined to put the question to the banks.
The
Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.
Despite President Barack
Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied
msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied
a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.
Updated:
CREW says it filed suit Tuesday against the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service. Here's a copy of
CREW's complaint.
Story continues below ↓ WASHINGTON — One year into its promise of greater government transparency, the Obama administration is more often citing exceptions to the nation's open records law to withhold federal records even as the number of requests for information declines, according to a review by The Associated Press of agency audits about the Freedom of Information Act.
Among the most frequently cited reasons for keeping records secret: one that Obama specifically told agencies to stop using so frequently. The Freedom of Information Act exception, known as the "deliberative process" exemption, lets the government withhold records that describe its decision-making behind the scenes.
Obama's directive, memorialized in written instructions from the Justice Department, appears to have been widely ignored.
Major agencies cited the exemption at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, up from 47,395 times during President George W. Bush's final full budget year, according to annual reports filed by federal agencies. Obama was president for nine months in the 2009 period.
The government's track record under the Freedom of Information Act is widely considered a principal measurement of how transparently it makes decisions. When Obama promised last year to be more open he said doing so "encourages accountability through transparency," and said: "My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government."
In a statement Tuesday during Sunshine Week, when news organizations promote open government and freedom of information, Obama noted the release of White House visitor logs and federal data online in recent months said his administration was recommitted "to be the most open and transparent ever."
"We are proud of these accomplishments, but our work is not done," Obama said. "We will continue to work toward an unmatched level of transparency, participation and accountability across the entire administration."
Also Tuesday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and White House Counsel Bob Bauer urged agencies to improve their handling of information requests and assess whether they are devoting the resources needed to respond to requests promptly and cooperatively.
The AP's review of annual Freedom of Information Act reports filed by 17 major agencies found that the administration's use of nearly every one of the law's nine exemptions to withhold information from the public increased during fiscal year 2009, which ended last October.
8. LA Times - March 21, 2010
A little secret about Obama's transparency
The current administration, challenged by the president to be the most open, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than Bush did.
TOP OF THE TICKET
March 21, 2010By Andrew Malcolm
The Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his predecessor, George W. Bush, as the most secretive in history, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republican did.
Transparency and openness were so important to the new president that on his first full day in office, he dispatched a much-publicized memo saying: "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......But why make such a big campaign deal over a previous administration's secrecy when you're going to end up being even more secretive?
On March 16 to mark annual Sunshine Week, designed to promote openness in government, Obama applauded himself by issuing a statement:
"As Sunshine Week begins, I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever."
However, a new study out March 15 by George Washington University's National Security Archive finds less than one-third of the 90 federal agencies that process such FOIA requests have made significant changes in their procedures since Obama's 2009 memo."
Transparency is simply one example of a concerted and very well planned strategy to say one thing and do something very different. In Obama's world the agenda is everything. What you have to do or say is merely secondary. And when he states that he plans to fundamentally change America, he clearly means it.
But will you like it?
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CNN News, not Fox -- Obama is indeed transparent. Arizona probably forced him to show his hand a bit sooner than he would have liked.. like after the Amnesty bill was passed. Obama wasn't lying when he said illegal’s would not be able to get medical coverage under his ObamaCare plan. His simple fix is to make them all legal first... and could this have anything to do with slanting the vote in 2010 & 2012....?) Please click on this link to view the CNN segment from June 2007. It is important to understand the kind of elements that Congressional Democrats tried to include in this bill which in my mind exceeds the description Baynard gave it. Be wary of the next time around. This is still up on YouTube.
