From Secrecy News:
“We are launching a review of current policies by all of those agencies responsible for the classification of documents to determine where reforms are possible,” announced President Obama in a speech at the National Archives today.
Archive of entries posted on May 2009
Obama Announces Review of Classification Policies
Archive Testifies to House Oversight Committee About Challenges Facing National Archives
From the National Security Archive:
At a hearing today [May 21] focusing on the National Archives and Records Administration and the selection of a new Archivist, National Security Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs said: “[The new Archivist] should have a vision for an Archives 2.0.”
Deal or No Deal – What if the Google settlement fails?
From Publishers Weekly:
The deal was almost done. In June, a tense four-year period of legal conflict between publishers, authors and Google over its library scanning program was poised to end with the approval of a visionary class action settlement. But just one week from a key May 5 deadline—by which authors and rights holders opposed [...]
Lieberman Looks to Make Detainee Photos Indefinitely Secret
From OMB Watch:
Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) has submitted an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 (S. 2346) which would withhold any “photograph relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States” if the Secretary of Defense certifies that the release of [...]
Obama Administration Views Torture Transparency Inconsistently
From OMB Watch:
On May 21, President Obama gave a speech defending his administration’s controversial positions on national security and transparency. Despite his campaign promise to bring change and accountability along with greater transparency, some open government advocates have been worried that his actions have not lived up to the hype.
USDA to Restart Collection of Pesticide Data
From OMB Watch:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will resume a portion of its survey of the use of farm chemicals that was cut during the Bush administration. The surveys historically have provided crucial publicly available data on the amount and types of pesticides used on a variety of crops and livestock operations nationwide.
Better Regulations.gov on the Horizon
From the SLA Government Information Division blog:
The White House announced today that the administration has been working on designing a new and better Regulations.gov website. The Regulations.gov site as it stands today has been seen as difficult to use and not as helpful as it could be; see, for example, Achieving the Potential: The Future [...]
Keeping an Eye on Data.gov
From Sunlight Labs:
One thing that’s curiously missing from Data.gov is an RSS feed for new data feeds. Sort of shockingly, and glaringly left out. We were disappointed, and didn’t want to wait. Scraping here is such an easy thing to do that we decided to just build our own. Sunlight Labs’ James Turk did it, [...]
Court Pulls Curtain Over White House E-mails
From OMB Watch:
The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled today that the White House Office of Administration (OA) does not need to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith, writing for the 3-0 majority, concluded: “the Office of Administration is not [covered by FOIA] because it performs [...]
Announcing Apps for America 2: The Data.gov Challenge
From the Sunlight Foundation blog:
We’ve been planning this for awhile. Ever since we heard about Data.gov we have been planning a contest, and if you’re reading this blog post, that means Data.gov has finally launched.
I’m pleased to wave the green flag on Apps for America 2: The Data.gov Challenge. This is a development and visualization [...]