Obama announces new disclosure rules

In an update to a story we brought you back in November, President Obama has announced new rules governing the declassification process of hundreds of millions of currently classified documents:

President Obama declared on Tuesday that “no information may remain classified indefinitely” as part of a sweeping overhaul of the executive branch’s system for protecting classified national security information.

In an executive order and an accompanying presidential memorandum to agency heads, Mr. Obama signaled that the government should try harder to make information public if possible, including by requiring agencies to regularly review what kinds of information they classify and to eliminate any obsolete secrecy requirements.

While imposing a four-year deadline to clear out 400+ million currently backlogged classified documents, Obama also created a "National Declassification Center" in the National Archives to facilitate the declassification efforts.

The success of these reforms depend on how faithfully they are implemented by the agencies involved. Only through a coordinated and proactive effort do these reforms stand any chance of success. For too long those in power have favored secrecy over openness and opaqueness over transparency. Changing that mindset will not happen overnight, but I hope this directive will move them in the right direction.

However, as I've said much too often with this Administration, I'll believe it when I see it.

Shame on you, Judge Glass

The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that the full questionnaires filled out by jurors in the O.J. Simpson robbery and kidnapping case be released to the public.

District Judge Jackie Glass redacted portions of the questionnaires before releasing them the day after the guilty verdicts were delivered. Judge Glass ruled the forms should be withheld because she "promised" the jurors they would remain private.

One would hope a relatively respected judge would realize that personal commitments do not trump the law of the land, but apparently Judge Glass needed a reminder. Thankfully, the Supreme Court's decision delivered one:

We further conclude that juror questionnaires used in jury selection are, like the jury-selection process itself, presumptively subject to public disclosure. The presumption of openness may be overcome, however, only if the district court identifies a countervailing interest to public access and demonstrates, by specific findings, that closure is necessary and narrowly tailored to serve a higher interest.

The Court's decision reaffirms the common-sense doctrine that public documents should be made open by default. Judge Glass and other public officials should take note of this decision and adjust their attitudes towards transparency accordingly.

Will any candidates post their contributions online?

Who says there's no bipartisanship any more? Both Mike Zahara (on the left) and Chuck Muth (on the right) are calling for candidates in Nevada to post campaign contributions online within 48 hours of receiving them.

Mike Zahara:

I’ve always been a goo-goo—a good government guy—and sure I support Rory Reid’s read on a ‘Foundation of Rust’ … ooops, I mean Trust, however, it is really lacking any semblance of teeth, is missing electronic donation reporting within 48 hours, and missing strengthening, including mandatory jail, for those who blow off ethics and campaign laws.

Chuck Muth:

Blogger Mike Zahara is on the Left. I’m on the Right. And we both agree that all campaign donations should be posted on the Internet within 48 hours. And even though there’s no law COMPELLING candidates touting ethics reform and transparency (hello, Rory Reid!) to post all of their contributions on a public website on a regular basis, there’s also nothing PREVENTING them from leading by example and doing so voluntarily. Any takers?

Will any candidates give an early Christmas gift to taxpayers and make this commitment? We'll let you know if they do.

Cross posted at Write on Nevada.

Top 10 ethics scandals of 2009

As the year wraps up, the Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) has released their list of top ethics scandals of 2009.

Singled out is TARP receiving/bonus getting executives; the SEC's total inability to stop Bernie Madoff's $65 billion ponzi scheme; a feckless FEC; John Ensign, John Murtha, Mark Sanford and Charlie Rangel all providing a less than upstanding example of ethical behavior; a Congress that won't police their own; and finally an undrained swamp that still stinks up all of D.C.

More than a few of President Obama's nominees had tax troubles, including Tom Daschle, Timothy Geithner and Nancy Killefer. While Daschle and Killefer both ultimately withdrew their nominations, Geithner went on to become the nation's Treasury Secretary. You know, the department in charge of collecting taxes.

On the transparency front in 2009, I was most disheartened with the White House's breaking its promise to wait five days before signing bills. If Obama has any political sense, I would highly recommend he wait the five days before signing the health care bill if/when it passes. There will be a lot of unhappy people in the wake of that bill, and it wouldn't make sense to upset transparency-minded individuals as well.

Make sure to read CREW's whole report.

Nevada's toothless Ethics Commission

Following up on councilman Steve Ross' violation of state ethics laws, the Sun examines the distinction between willful and non-willful violations:

Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, the old legal saw goes. But that is not the case when it comes to Nevada’s ethics laws.

Nevada politicians who violate ethics laws face no penalties if their acts are not deemed "willful."

Apparently this neutered, "all bark and no bite" Commission acts this way by design:

Regardless, Ross’ case demonstrates what critics say is a shortcoming in Nevada law — namely, that even when elected officials violate ethics laws, they typically face neither penalties nor the potential to be removed from office.

That’s not by coincidence. The commission has decided that its primary job is to teach public officials about ethical conduct rather than punishing them, according to its executive director, Caren Jenkins.

Removing politicians from office, she said, is the job of voters. (emphasis mine)

Left unsaid is that both the Commission and the voters have a job. While it certainly is the voter's job to remove politicians from office if the need arises, it should also be the Commission's job to go after ethics violators with more than a slap on the wrist and an ethics pamphlet.

Skimming through Rory Reid's new plan for transparency and ethics in government, I found his intention to close this willful/non-willful distinction encouraging:

Impose "strict liability" for ethics violations

Currently, if the Nevada Ethics Commission rules that a violation was "non-willful," violators essentially get off penalty-free. This practice is dubious and encourages citizen cynicism — not to mention violations. Since I plan to institute and require ethics laws training for all state employees, officials and lobbyists, there will be no excuse for not knowing the law or understanding whether one's behavior violates it. there will be no further room for the "non-willful" distinction. I will move to have that loophole removed from law, so that all government officials and employees will be liable for all misconduct.

To top it all off, the 2009 Legislature made it even harder to prove that public officials willingly violate ethics laws:

In the future, it will be more difficult to prove that a politician willfully violated ethics law because of a little-noticed change in the statute made during the 2009 Legislature.

At the urging of ethics commissioners, the Legislature in May clarified the law defining a "willful violation." Instead defining it as something a public officer “knew or reasonably should have known,” the law now defines it as acting "intentionally and knowingly."

I have to imagine this is just the way they like it.

Rory Reid calls for a more transparent Nevada

Last week, gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid released his plan for increasing government transparency. One of his suggestions caught my attention, because it's a great idea for increasing government transparency.

Establish an open meeting law for the Legislature. I’ll work to establish an open meeting law for the Nevada Legislature that allows the body to conduct its business expeditiously, given the limits of a 120-day legislative session, but places a premium on openness and transparency. All legislative committee hearings, subcommittee hearings and work sessions should be open to the public as a matter of law rather than just standard practice. I’ll work with the legislature to define the parameters of such a law so citizens and the press have consistent, predictable, and open access to the public’s business.

During the last legislative session, Nevada's legislative leaders determined the budget and the record-setting, job-killing, billion-dollar tax increase through a series of secret, closed-door meetings.

These secret meetings were only possible because the legislature included this enormous contradiction when it passed the open-meeting law:

In enacting this chapter, the Legislature finds and declares that all public bodies exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly…

The Legislature is specifically excluded from the Open Meeting Law. NRS 241.015(3).

Since the Legislature, as a whole, is not governed, none of its various committees or subcommittees are governed by the law while the full Legislature is in session.

If Reid really wants to establish an open-meeting law for the legislature, all he would need to do is delete the line that says "'Public body' does not include the Legislature of the State of Nevada." I also hope he's not the only candidate to reject this legislative double standard.

I haven't had time to evaluate the other parts of Reid's report, but I was disappointed that it didn't include a mention of improving the state's searchable budget database. From the Nevada News Bureau:

Reid said he is not familiar with what would be involved in making state government budgets, expenditures and contracts totally transparent on a searchable database. Nor is he proposing any changes right now to the way candidate campaign contribution and expense reports are available for public review.

Maybe leaving out the searchable budget database was an oversight, because it's an idea with deep bi-partisan support. If Rory Reid wants any information on the searchable budget database, here's a great place to start. And if that's not enough, we're only a phone call or e-mail away.

Cross posted on Write on Nevada.

Recovery.gov details errors

Given Recovery.gov's less than stellar history of reporting how the stimulus money is being spent, their new report on "errors, omissions, and non-reported rewards" is a minor victory for transparency advocates. Minor because these errors should not be happening in the first place, but their publication at least shows some initiative to be open about their mistakes.

There were 682 recipient reports that included incorrect data in one or more of three fields: Funding agency, Awarding agency, or Treasury Account Symbol. For the first two types, the recipients erroneously attributed funds to agencies that had no ability to provide or award funds. For the Treasury Account Symbol, a total of 498 reports listed either the GAO or temporary account numbers that should have been finalized before making it onto Recovery.gov.

There were 12 recipient reports that the Office of Management and Budget withheld from Recovery.gov because of "unrealistic" job creation numbers and other unidentified errors in the data.

Finally, there were 4,359 recipients who never completed the appropriate reports for Recovery.gov. The Army Core of Engineers had 1,580 recipients fail to report their rewards, by far the largest.

While mistakes like this shouldn't be happening in the first place, that Recovery.gov publishes them gives me hope. Instead of hoping nobody would call attention to these errors, Recovery.gov got out in front and detailed them for all to see. While the execution has been less than perfect, their effort here is very appreciated.

"Disclose, disclose, disclose"

I bet Steve Ross wishes he took that advice:

Las Vegas City Councilman Steve Ross was found today to have violated state ethics laws for failing to disclose his labor union interests and abstain from voting for a new city hall project at two different meetings in December 2008 and February 2009.

The 4-1 Ethics Commission votes for the three violations came because of a finding that Ross had a conflict because the union group he works for as secretary-treasurer, the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council, was negotiating with the developer of the proposed project

While the Ethics Commission ruled that the violations were not willful, this should serve as a lesson to other representatives. Elected officials represent their constituents and it is their duty to abstain when conflicts of interest arise. Let's hope Mr. Ross doesn't make this mistake again.

Progress on the transparency front

The White House has recently released its long awaited Open Government Directive. The memo, created by the Office of Management and Budget, lays out what agencies and departments must do to become more open and transparent.

There is a continued emphasis on transparency, participation and collaboration throughout the Executive branch. I wish the same could be said about their previous efforts.

The inclusion of deadlines is extremely encouraging. Without a nudge towards compliance, the policies would never be enacted. Just take a look at the delayed document release for a perfect example of this.

The memo first directs that relevant data be placed online in open formats. This should end the use of hard to parse PDF documents, given their history as inhibitors of open government.

Second, within 45 days, each agency must publish at least three high-value datasets on Data.gov. The issues with Data.gov have been previously noted, so hopefully this represents a kick in the pants to get more interesting and relevant data on the site.

Third, each agency must within 60 days create an "Open Government Webpage" located at http://www.[agency name].gov/open. I really like this idea because it brings a modest amount of organization to what could otherwise be a chaotic enterprise. Without this, each agency would create ad-hoc schemes to publish this information, leaving the public in the dark, because of the confusion. When this is completed, you'll be able to find relevant information at justice.gov/open or irs.gov/open. It should be noted that The White House already has this and the results are quite encouraging.

Finally, on the FOIA front, annual reports are to be placed on this page. Additionally, agencies must take steps to reduce their backlog of FOIA requests by 10% a year. Given the lengthy timelines of FOIA requests, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Presumably still stinging from the black eye caused by those phantom Recovery.gov districts, the memo states that each agency must appoint a senior official to be responsible for the "quality and objectivity" of the data released.

While this memo is certainly encouraging, it must be noted that it is only in the early stages of implementation. The devil, especially in this case, is in the details. There are many places and interlocking parts where these goals could fall flat on their face. Delays, office politics or outright refusals could all still mar what is overall a pretty positive development for transparency activists.

But, for today, we should celebrate this important announcement and hope the steps introduced actually see the light of day.

Make sure to check out what others are saying:

• OMBWatch: Open Government Directive Hits the Streets
• ProPublica: White House Gives Agencies Transparency To-Do List
• White House Blog: Promoting Transparency in Government
• Washington Post: Federal agencies must post public data online

Local governments open up

After much hesitation, local governments are starting to recognize the benefits of opening data up to the public.

The New York Times reports that San Francisco, New York City and Washington, D.C., are becoming more transparent.

Stumble Safely, focusing on Washington, D.C., aggregates crime reports with information on bars, sidewalks and subway stations so you can choose the safest route home. San Francisco recently unveiled DataSF, a clearinghouse of city government information. Trees Near You, an iPhone app for New York City, shows — you guessed it — trees that are near you.

With governments releasing this public information, it has allowed private developers to create useful and exciting applications that a government agency never could.

Of course, not everything is perfect. Plenty of local government agencies are reluctant to release information. Eight counties in Nevada are breaking the law by not providing TransparentNevada with their salary information. As other cities show the benefits of transparency though, more local governments will begin to embrace the people's right to know.

And combined with the advances in technology, one can only imagine what the future has in store.

The White House's opaque transparency record

Talk about mixed messages: "A workshop on government openness is closed to the public." Wow.

This workshop, intended for FOIA officers, would benefit from inviting the news media and open government activists. If government officials want to be as helpful as they can in responding to FOIA requests, why not listen to the very people who make the lion's share of them?

Unfortunately, this highlights the Obama administration's poor record on transparency issues nearly a year into his term.

The Administration's lone bright spot was the release of the White House visitor logs. Otherwise, its records has been dismal. From the blatantly and repeatedly broken "five day waiting period" before signing bills, the phantom districts on Recovery.gov, and continued presence of lobbyist influences on the Administration and in Washington, one would never know this is an Administration that committed on its first day to be completely open and transparent.

At this point, my hope for Obama to be a shining light on transparency has been snuffed out. Rather than hope it gets better, I now hope it doesn't get any worse.

Shining a light on Nevada PACs

Following up on a story we brought you back in October, Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller has issued a "clarification" of PAC disclosure rules. The rules say that PACs must report contributions and expenses and refrain from engaging in non-political activities.

“The point of the campaign law is to provide transparency so that people are aware of money contributed to elected officials, so they can determine for themselves if there’s undue influence,” Miller said. “If there’s an interpretation out there that allows public officials to have unlimited amounts of money contributed to them without reporting, it’s disconcerting and in conflict with current law.”

This is a very positive development for transparency in Nevada. PACs are very useful in achieving political goals, so their funding sources should be known. This clarification makes sure that the general public can freely inspect the money that revolves around PACs and decide for themselves if there are any improper dealings.

(Thanks Las Vegas Sun)

A Victory for the Read the Bill campaign?

Yes, according to the Sunlight Foundation:

When it comes to the single biggest piece of legislation we’ve seen in years in the health care bill, everything that we’ve asked for in terms of reading the bill has happened so far. The various House and Senate health care bills, and even their amendments (so far), have been online for 72 hours before being debated and subsequently voted on.

The Read the Bill campaign has been successful in changing debate from "Are you going to post the bill online?" to "When are you going to post the bill online?" Also the idea behind the campaign has moved beyond political junkies and into the mainstream.

While some have, unfortunately, changed their tune on transparency or broken campaign pledges promising it, it is a good thing that people are more aware of the issue.

As online efforts for openness and transparency mature and Washington comes to realize the necessity of transparency, let's hope a new era of accountable government will blossom.