open government

To follow up on my earlier post about Rep. Louis Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and her speech on her colleagues’ move to amend the Freedom of Information Act to prevent the release of photographs depicting abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, it’s worth looking at the conference report on the bill. The bill is called the “Protected [...]

The Obama Justice Department has asked a judge to dismiss charges against two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists accused of receiving classified information from the Bush Pentagon and passing it on to journalists and Israeli government officials. Good.
Put aside whatever you may feel about AIPAC. The case amounted to the criminalization of extremely [...]

On March 11, President Obama issued a signing statement attached to an omnibus spending bill that qualified a small but important provision that would deny a salary to a federal manager who “interferes with or prohibits certain communications between federal employees and Members of Congress.” In his signing statement, the president said that the provision [...]

The National Security Archive at Georgetown George Washington University today announced that the Federal Bureau of Investigation won its annual award for worst Freedom of Information Act performance by a federal agency.  The FBI has apparently been unable to find records in response to two-thirds of the FOIA requests it’s received over the past four [...]

President Obama and new Attorney General Eric Holder Monday will face the first public test of their stated commitments to opening government and ending torture.
Since we first reported in January on the pending court case, Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, there’s been growing pressure — both from advocacy groups and now also from the mainstream media [...]