From the Washington Post:
The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House’s electronic mail messages and documents to the National Archives has been imperiled by a combination of technical glitches, lawsuits and lagging computer forensic work, according to government officials, historians and lawyers.
Federal law requires outgoing White House officials to provide [...]
Archive of entries posted on December 2008
Bush E-Mails May Be Secret a Bit Longer
FOX Business Network Sues the Treasury Department for Failure to Respond to Freedom of Information Act Requests
From FOX Business:
FOX Business Network (FBN) has filed a lawsuit against the United States Treasury Department over failure to provide information on the bailout funds or respond to FBN’s expedited requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The initial request, filed on November 25, sought actual data on the use of the bailout funds [...]
Blago records may stay under wraps
From Politico:
Barack Obama is promising that this week he’ll disclose contacts between his staff and disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s office, but he’s stopped short of pledging to release e-mails or other records that could be key to understanding those contacts.
Whatever such records exist may never see the light of day, thanks to a gap [...]
Public.Resource.org Policy Papers Submitted to Change.gov
Public.Resource.org has submitted five ideas to Change.gov, the Obama-Biden transition team.
Per the procedures and policies propagated by the Office of the President-Elect, Public.Resource.Org is pleased to provide for publication and posting the following policy papers and proposals which we have previously shared with your staff.
An ad hoc story of America emerges from online posts to Change.gov
From Computerworld:
More than 3,500 comments posted at President-elect Barack Obama’s Change.gov Web site have been merged into a single document, creating a downloadable portrait of a nation in crisis that runs for more than 700 pages and nearly 500,000 words.
In merging the 3,572 comments, the Obama transition team has also utterly transformed them into something [...]
DoE Seeks to Limit “Public Interest” FOIA Disclosures
From Secrecy News:
A proposed new Department of Energy regulation would eliminate the so-called “public interest” balancing test that encourages DOE officials to release information under the Freedom of Information Act even when it is legally exempt from disclosure if doing so would serve the public interest.
“This proposed rule would remove the so-called ‘extra balancing test’… [...]
State Dept: Crisis in the “Foreign Relations” Series
From Secrecy News:
In a tense and adversarial meeting at the State Department yesterday, the chairman of the Department’s Historical Advisory Committee warned that the future of the Department’s “Foreign Relations of the United States” (FRUS) series, which is the official record of U.S. foreign policy, is in jeopardy due to mismanagement by the Office of [...]
Google denies seeking privileged network access
From Information World Review:
Google has reaffirmed its commitment to net neutrality, following reports last week that it had been seeking preferential treatment from broadband providers to generate an internet ‘fast lane’ for its own content.
The reports implied that Google had offered large US phone and cable companies money in return for privileged network access. The [...]
Stanley Kutler: Bush’s 11th-Hour Bid for Secrecy
From the History News Network:
If Barack Obama as president would withdraw Bush’s infamous Executive Order 13233, which effectively repealed the Presidential Records Act of 1978, Bush and Cheney still can expect to seal their papers for at least 12 years. If Richard Nixon is their model, count on at least 20.
The president-elect’s Web site promises [...]
Obama and Affirmative Disclosure
From the Sunlight Foundation blog:
The Obama transition team released two new policies this week, a Creative Commons license and a radical disclosure policy. These changes don’t just signal a new relationship to the public, but also create a paradigm shift in how government manages information, and could lead to much bigger things to come from [...]