Emanuel asleep at the switch?

The Chicago Tribune has a troubling story on President Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and his profitble stint at Freddie Mac.

On Emanuel's watch, the board was told by executives of a plan to use accounting tricks to mislead shareholders about outsize profits the government-chartered firm was then reaping from risky investments. The goal was to push earnings onto the books in future years, ensuring that Freddie Mac would appear profitable on paper for years to come and helping maximize annual bonuses for company brass.

The financial trickery eventually led Freddie Mac to the brink of insolvency. It had to be bailed out by the Bush administration and the Obama administration has pledged to continue supporting it.

This is just one more case of the cozy, unholy trifecta of Washington power, Wall Street money, and a bamboozled American public.

Citizen does job journalists don't

Interesting little story out of Colorado today. Community organizer Natalie Menten published a piece on the use of taxpayer money in her hometown of Lakewood and how it is being used to try and win awards that promote the image of the city in the taxpayer's eyes.

I've got a better idea instead: spend tax money in a responsible manner. Why would you need an award if you were doing everything right in the first place?

But more interesting is the fact that this came to light without the help of any sort of mainstream news media. This was published in a political blog and written by a private citizen, with no help from a huge publisher or a "professional" journalist.

I've written about the need for citizen-journalists to be a watchdogs of the government. This article provides a blueprint for future efforts by private citizens to keep an eye on their government.

(Thanks E!!)

Mixed report so far on Obama transparency push

The Politico has released a report card scoring President Obama's transparency efforts thus far.

On the whole Obama gets good -- not great, but good -- marks on most aspects of his transparency initiatives. The grades hover in the B/C range with a notable D for the bank bailout transparency. The Administration claims that providing lists of who got the money would damage the "commercial interests of banks." A tenuous reason to be sure.

We applaud the Obama Administration in areas where he has increased government transparency and hope that his transparency efforts become even more robust in the future.

Opening up Government Data - A Primer

Ever wanted to get involved with opening up government? Here is your chance.

Wired has unveiled A Wired Wiki How-To on things that need to be done to increase government transparency.

I could quote some of the suggestions but it would be doing a disservice to the Wiki and its mission. No one will be able to tackle 90% of what is mentioned, but if a lot of people are able to tackle 10%, we'll be on our way to making government more open and honest.

So take a look and see what you can do.

A step backwards for union transparency

In a sad day for union transparency efforts, the Department of Labor has ruled that union employees will not be required to use the updated and more comprehensive LM-30 form. According to Liberty Live, the updated forms "were supposed to provide union members with more information on possible union employee conflicts of interest."

The Department gave as their reason as a simple "not worth the resources":

Despite the promulgation of the new Form LM-30, fundamental questions regarding the scope and extent of the reporting obligations are unanswered, and litigation challenging some aspects of the form remains pending. Yet, by March 31, 2009, reports for calendar year 2008 must be filed. In light of this uncertainty, the pending regulatory action, the pending litigation and the rapidly approaching filing deadline, OLMS has determined that it would not be a good use of resources to bring enforcement actions based upon a failure to use a specific form to comply with the statutory obligation to report certain financial information. (Emphasis mine)

Union members have a right to know how their money is being spent. The new LM-30 form would of made that information easily accessible and the union employees more accountable.

This is a setback for union transparency and my hope is the Department of Labor soon decides that enforcement is worth its time. However, I do not expect a change anytime soon.

Public unable to get at taxpayer funded information

File this under "unabated shocker"—Government reluctant to give up taxpayer funded information:

Government agencies across the country are sitting on gigabytes of valuable digital data that could be mashed, mixed and re-organized in crafty ways by Web 2.0 entrepreneurs and public interest groups engaged in everything from government oversight, to providing practical information to Americans.

The article focuses on the arguments used to keep open government activists away from publicly funded information. The reason? Consider this money quote:

The tension between record seekers—including journalists and nonprofits—and government agencies often stems from the fact that bureaucrats collect data to do their job; while the public often requests it to prove otherwise. "Government does not want to release the data, because people would draw ... conclusions that government doesn't want them to draw," says Bill Allison, senior fellow with the Sunlight Foundation.

But how are they keeping transparency activists away? Through all sorts of convoluted legal arguments that fly in the face of common sense. Consider Exemption 3. In a nutshell, they allow targets of Freedom of Information Acts to omit certain records from disclosure, without the need to state a reason. While there is sometimes a valid reason for doing so (national security, privacy concerns), the fact that entire categories can be omitted should be cause for concern.

Another way bureaucrats thwart government watchers is by stretching the exemption that applies when private citizens become involved. As the Supreme Court said in a landmark ruling on governmental transparency:

Significantly, the court also concluded that the purpose of FOIA was to monitor the government, not private citizens. Rarely would records involving private citizens aid in keeping an eye on government activities, the court said. (Emphasis mine)

Think about that for a second. In the case that was brought to the Supreme Court, an organization dedicated to preserving the freedom of the press wanted the Justice Department to provide it with information on a businessman with possible mob ties as well as ties to a congressman. Yet because the businessman is a private citizen, the Court shut him down. I understand the need to protect citizen's rights to privacy, but it would seem that once you become involved with a public figure you are allowing yourself some level of scrutiny.

Introducting ReadTheBill.org

The ever busy Sunlight Foundation has released another tool in its arsenal of promoting government transparency—ReadTheBill.org:

ReadTheBill.org is a commonsense solution—we want Congress to post all bills online for 72 hours before they are debated. That gives members of Congress—and you—three days to read legislation and consider how it could potentially affect each of us in our daily lives. A 72 hour rule would also give you a chance to let your senators and representative in Congress know what you like, or don't like, about a bill before they vote.

This is definitely a step in the right direction. We the people should be given at least a chance of examining potential bills and letting our voices be heard.

Do you remember when the $780+ billion dollar stimulus bill passed? The whole bill clocked in at 1,100 pages. You would think something that important would be reviewed line-by-line to ensure it was effective and worthy. Yet nobody read it. You would of had to read just over six pages a minute for three hours straight to have gotten through it by the time our Congress members voted on it.

It is still a way off but I personally would like to watch the entire creation of a bill through some sort of wiki system, wherein each revision made to it is logged and timestamped. But until that glorious day comes, I'd be plenty happy with simply being able to read the final product.

Sunshine Week kicks off

It was briefly mentioned in the Sun's editorial in support of governmental transparency but this week is Sunshine Week.

What is Sunshine Week all about? It is a week of spreading the word about government transparency in all its forms. Check out this handy calendar of various efforts across the nation.

Even though it is nice to have a week dedicated to government transparency, a constant supply of pressure is the only way to ensure governmental accountability.

TransparentNevada is always working to make sure information about Nevada's government is open and accessible to all of its citizens. For instance check out our homepage to find information on government contracts, salaries, lobbying efforts, and more.

Government information should be free

A good editorial in the Sun today on how government information needs to be free:

Although many government records are stored electronically and could be easily posted online, some officials feel that the records are the government’s documents and refuse to make them available. Officials at all levels of government should understand that the taxpayers own these documents and they should be open, free and on the Internet for all to see.

Agreed. A healthy democracy requires an informed citizenry, and an informed citizenry can only happen with freely available information.

It's great that Nevada meets 14 out of 20 categories, but there is no reason we can't have 20 out of 20.

Also, make sure to check out TransparentNevada.com to get more information on Nevada's state government.

Radical Transparency Now!

Wired has an interesting piece on what steps need to be taken to make Wall Street more transparent to help avoid another economic collapse:

That's why it's not enough to simply give the SEC—or any of its sister regulators—more authority; we need to rethink our entire philosophy of regulation. Instead of assigning oversight responsibility to a finite group of bureaucrats, we should enable every investor to act as a citizen-regulator. We should tap into the massive parallel processing power of people around the world by giving everyone the tools to track, analyze, and publicize financial machinations. The result would be a wave of decentralized innovation that can keep pace with Wall Street and allow the market to regulate itself—naturally punishing companies and investments that don't measure up—more efficiently than the regulators ever could.

Part of the current problem is the information is available, but in an inaccessible form. The lack of a standard reporting format is preventing functional transparency.

An interesting solution to this problem (which I hadn't heard of before this article) is XBRL. In short, XBRL allows for anybody to scan through reports produced by financial institutions without having to worry about the differences between two particular documents.

The SEC is going to mandate that all companies with market caps greater than $5 billion use XBRL to report their information by this June and eventually all companies will be required to report to the SEC in XBRL by 2011.

Before the move to XBRL it used to take 70 days to go over a bank's quarterly financial information. Now it takes two days.

Transparency won't just help large financial institutes. The article also talks about LendingClub, "a Web site that matches individual lenders with borrowers who need loans." What makes this site so different from other lending solutions is that it is largely open and transparent. Where as commercial banks keep their formulas under lock and key to develop a competitive edge, LendingClub "crowdsourced" their formula used to determine risk to the community and asked for suggestions and tweaks. The result?

All this innovation benefited not just individual lenders but the entire ecosystem. LendingClub's default rate is a staggeringly low 2.7 percent (versus nearly 5.5 percent for prime credit cards).

Kundra picked as country's first CIO

The Obama administration has named Vivek Kundra to be the nation's first Chief Information Officer:

The White House said Thursday that it had selected Vivek Kundra, 34, the chief technology officer for the District, to the federal position, where he will be expected to oversee a push to expand uses of cutting-edge technology. He will have wide powers over federal technology spending, over information sharing between agencies, over greater public access to government information and over questions of security and privacy.

I have previously mentioned some of the interesting things Kundra has been doing in D.C:

In October, he launched a contest called "Apps for Democracy" to encourage developers to create applications for the Web and cellphones to give District residents access to city data such as crime reports and pothole repair schedules.

"I expected to get maybe 10 entries, but we got 47 apps in 30 days," Kundra said. He said he spent $50,000 for the contest and prize money, and estimates he saved $2.6 million over what it would have cost to hire contract developers.

Hopefully some of his creativity will manifest itself in opening up the halls of government for all to see.

David Simon on police transparency

David Simon is a former journalist, author, and the creator of the HBO masterpiece, The Wire. He is also a fierce advocate of government transparency. One of the biggest motifs in The Wire is how corruption, shady deals and criminal behavior in both political and economic institutions can eventually bring a city to ruin.

David Simon's latest piece focuses on the roadblocks police officials use to stand in the way of the public's right to know what is going on with their city's police force.

When Simon worked the police beat for the Baltimore Sun, police officers often tried to stonewall his investigative efforts:

In response to such flummery, I had in my wallet, next to my Baltimore Sun press pass, a business card for Chief Judge Robert F. Sweeney of the Maryland District Court, with his home phone number on the back. When confronted with a desk sergeant or police spokesman convinced that the public had no right to know who had shot whom in the 1400 block of North Bentalou Street, I would dial the judge.

One can easily see that Simon is no push-over.

Simon also makes an interesting point on the future of uncovering corruption in government:

There is a lot of talk nowadays about what will replace the dinosaur that is the daily newspaper. So-called citizen journalists and bloggers and media pundits have lined up to tell us that newspapers are dying but that the news business will endure, that this moment is less tragic than it is transformational.

Well, sorry, but I didn't trip over any blogger trying to find out McKissick's identity and performance history. Nor were any citizen journalists at the City Council hearing in January when police officials inflated the nature and severity of the threats against officers. And there wasn't anyone working sources in the police department to counterbalance all of the spin or omission.

Maybe in Simon's experience that is true, but there are good efforts out there being led by bloggers, activists, and citizen journalists to do hard-hitting investigative reporting. There is the good work going on at ProPublica and the debunking of the Bush National Guard memos led by conservative bloggers. In addition, Michelle Malkin has an excellent round-up of investigative reporting being done by various bloggers. TransparentNevada is also doing its part to bring transparency to Nevada state government.

Citizens should welcome any and all investigations into political and governmental corruption be it from newspaper reports, bloggers, activists, or groups like TransparentNevada.

TransparentNevada is constantly on the lookout for political and governmental corruption and will not hesitate to shine the light on it once found. If you have a tip on any possible corruption, please let us know. Our contact information can be found here.

Twitter opening up halls of Congress

You new media enthusiasts out there will enjoy this. Twitter takes Washington by storm:

The halls of the US Congress are alive with the sounds of Twitter. Members of the Senate and House of Representatives—or their aides—are tapping out dozens of the micro messages a day on cellphones and computers from offices, committee meetings and even the floor of the legislature.

John McCain is the most followed Congress member (with just under 125,000 followers). That's probably because of his recent run against Barack Obama—who counts just over 350,000 followers.

As for Nevada's delegation, the Republicans currently lead the way in embracing twitter. Both John Ensign and Dean Heller have accounts while Harry Reid, Dina Titus, and Shelley Berkley do not.

Also, don't forget that TransparentNevada has joined the twitter craze.