Change being the slogan of his campaign, it appears that President Obama has held true to one of his campaign promises. Wednesday, January 21, 2009 Obama issued a Memorandum to Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies regarding the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently wrote:
It’s only his first day in office, but President Obama has already signaled a serious commitment to transparency and accountability in government. The President ordered federal agencies in a memorandum released today to approach the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) “with a clear presumption: in the face of doubt, openness prevails.”
Here is Obama’s FOIA Memo.
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January 24th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I think you should read the FAS commentary on what Obama has done, and don’t celebrate too much. His order only applies to “discretionary” material which is a very small portion of gov’t records. Most material that is classified is rendered so by statute, not agency whim. As the FAS blog says:
” Inevitably, several caveats are in order. A “presumption of disclosure” really only applies to records that are potentially subject to discretionary release, which is a finite subset of secret government information. Vast realms of information are sequestered behind classification barriers or statutory protections that remain unaffected by the new policy statements. “In the face of doubt, openness prevails,” the President said. But throughout the government secrecy system, there is not a lot of doubt or soul-searching about the application of secrecy.”
See: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/