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New Obama Orders on Transparency, FOIA Requests
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Washington Post
Posted: January 30th, 2009
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/01/_in_a_m...
In a move that pleased good government groups and some journalists, President Obama issued new orders today designed to improve the federal government's openness and transparency. The first memo instructs all agencies and departments to "adopt a presumption in favor" of Freedom of Information Act requests, while the second memo orders the director of the Office of Management and Budget to issue recommendations on making the federal government more transparent. His memo on government transparency ... directs the yet-to-be-named chief technology officer to work with the OMB director to develop an "Open Government Directive" in the next four months. Just in case new OMB director Peter R. Orszag needs any suggestions, the Sunlight Foundation -- a group dedicated to improving government transparency -- has several. Each agency should do an audit of its information and data how it makes it available, [director Ellen] Miller said. The administration should also redefine the definition of "public information" to mean that government information is not public until it is posted online in an easy-to-download format. "The devil is in the details," Miller cautions. Obama today also froze the salaries of senior White House staffers and issued executive orders on presidential records and new ethics guidelines for presidential appointees.
Note: For revealing reports on government secrecy, click here.
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