Category Archives: freedom of information

At Congressional Transparency Caucus event, experts warn of increased secrecy & corruption

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On June 10, 2025, the U.S. House Transparency Caucus hosted a discussion about current issues, promising proposals, and ongoing successes in government transparency in the Rayburn building.

Our founder was present to record the event and pose questions. Video is embedded below.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WjVGQyh7yco

Congressman Mike Quigley (D-IL-5), chair and founder of the Transparency Caucus, gave opening remarks about the importance of open government in American democracy, reflecting on his experiences in Chicago and Washington, DC.

The cost of corruption is dollars, but the real cost of corruption is the loss of public trust. That trust has been on steady decline for the last 20 years,” said Quigley. “If we can improve the openness in communication between the government and the people, we can build a government that works better for the people.”

Panel Participants:
-Courtney Bublé (Moderator), Congress Reporter with Law360
-Lauren Harper, Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy with the Freedom of the Press Foundation
-Demian Brady, Vice President of Research with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation
-Jason Powell, Policy Director with the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)

“Another thing we need to pay attention to is the destruction of records and agencies discontinuing the practice of maintaining certain records,” said Harper. “You can not get a FOIA response if an agency has destroyed those documents. Or if it has opted to stop creating those records.”

Members of Congress “don’t lose their pensions until they’re finally convicted. That means many can sit in jail, and appeal, and still collect their taxpayer-funded pension,” said Brady. “The last piece of transparency we need for that is from the Office of Personnel Management, but they haven’t answered my emails since 2020.”

“Sunlight in government is essential to a functioning democracy,” said Powell. “As part of DOGE’s efforts to reshape the government, on April 1st the CDC’s entire FOIA office was suspended without prior notice or without a plan for how the statutorily required work would continue. The CDC is now not able to respond to new [FOIA] requests, existing requests, or make statutorily-required proactive disclosures.”

More information on the House Transparency Caucus is available at Congressman Quigley’s website.

More information on the Advisory Committee for Transparency is available at transparencycaucus. info

The Department of Justice’s “FOIA Wizard” isn’t a magical solution for White House strategic silence on open government

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In December 2021, President Biden urged “every nation in the Open Government Partnership to take up a call to action to fight the scourge of corruption, to “stand with those in civil society and courageous citizens around the world who are demanding transparency of their governments,” and to “all work together to hold governments accountable for the people they serve.”

Almost two years later, the United States is still not leading by the power of our example by including the priorities of US civil society organizations in additional commitments and engaging the American people and press using the bully pulpit of the White House, despite rejoining the Open Government Partnership’s Steering Committee.

What was missing from President Biden’s remarks at the Open Government Summit

That disconnect was evident at a public meeting with the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) on September 26, 2023. Members of the public and press who are interested in a first look at the Freedom of Information “Wizard” the OIP has been building with Forum One Communications can watch recorded video of the meeting on YouTube, along with DoJ’s work on common business standards and the “self-assessment toolkit” the agency updated. All three of these pre-existing initiatives were submitted as commitments on FOIA in the 5th U.S. National Action Plan for Open Government last December.

The General Services Administration’s new Open Government Secretariat will post a “meeting record” at open.usa.gov — their summary of what happened — though it’s not online yet. (Slides are online, along with agenda and screenshots.)

We posed a number of questions via chat that Lindsey Steel from OIP acknowledged, though not always directly answered — like the U.S. government not co-creating any of the FOIA commitments that were being discussed with civil society, in the Open Government Partnership model. (Unlike other previous public meetings in 2022 and 2023, members of civil society were given the opportunity to ask questions on video.)

While it’s both useful and laudable for OIP to take public questions on its work, the pre-baked commitments they presented on were not responsive to the significant needs of a historic moment in which administration of the Freedom of Information Act appears broken to many close observers, and follow an opaque, flawed consultation that was conducted neither in the spirit nor co-creation standards of the Open Government Partnership itself.

While the Open Government Partnership’s Independent Review Mechanism is far slower that press cycles in 2023, the independent researchers there have caught up with the USA’s poor performance since 2016. (Unfortunately, the OGP’s Independent Review Mechanism and Steering Committee’s governance processes both move too slowly to sanction governments during or after the co-creation process for failing to meet co-creation standards in a way that would have empowered US civil society in 2022.)

In a letter dated August 13, 2023, the Open Government Partnership formally informed the US government on August that it has acted contrary to process in its co-creation of.4th National Action Plan for Open Government and implementation of the plan.

The U.S. government’s response did not directly acknowledge any of the substantive criticism in the IRM or by good government watchdogs, much less announce a plan to address its failure to co-create a 5th National Action Plan last fall by coming back to the table.

Instead, the General Services Administration simply promised to do better in 2024 in a 6th plan and to keep updating the public on the work U.S. government was already doing.

The request of the coalition prior to the Open Government Partnership Summit was for the U.S. government to come back to the table and co-create new commitments that are representative of our priorities, not to continue hosting virtual webinars at which civil servants provide “updates” on pre-existing commitments in order to be in compliance with the bare minimum that OGP asks of participating nations.

With respect to FOIA, doing more than the minimum would look like the White House making new commitments to effective implementation of the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 and the Open Government Data Act through executive actions, including:

  • Building on U.S. Attorney General’s memorandum mandating the presumption of openness and ensure fair and effective FOIA administration.
  • Convening the U.S. Digital Service, 18F, and the nation’s civic tech community to work on improving FOIA.gov, using the same human-centric design principles for improved experience that are being applied to service delivery across U.S. government.
  • Making sure FOIA.gov users can search for records across reading rooms, Data.gov, USASpending.gov, and other federal data repositories.
  • Restoring a Cross-Agency Priority goal for FOIA.
  • Advising agencies to adopt the US FOIA Advisory Committee recommendations.
  • Tracking agency spending on FOIA and increase funding to meet the demand.
  • Directing the Department of Justice to roll out the “release-to-one, release-to-all” policy for FOIA piloted at the direction of President Obama, which the State Department has since adopted.
  • Collecting and publishing data on which records are being purchased under the FOIA by commercial enterprises for non-oversight purposes, and determine whether that data can or should be proactively disclosed.
  • Funding and building dedicated, secure online services for people to gain access to immigration records and veterans records — as the DHS Advisory Committee recommended — instead of forcing them to use the FOIA.
  • Commiting to extending the FOIA to algorithms and revive Code.gov as a repository for public sector code.”

We continue to hope that President Biden will take much more ambitious actions on government transparency, accountability, participation, and collaboration in order to restore broken public trust in our federal government, acting as a bulwark against domestic corruption and authoritarianism.

What was missing from President Biden’s remarks at the Open Government Summit

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On December 15th, President Joe Biden delivered pre-recorded remarks to the Open Government Partnership Summit, an international conference that convened dozens of nations in South Korea to discuss the past, present, and future of open government. It’s not clear how … Continue reading →

What cities can learn from Gainesville’s experiment with radical transparency

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City_of_Gainesville_Commissioner_Mail_Archive_-_Message_Archive

There’s much to be learned from the experience of the city Gainesville, Florida, where a commissioners voted in 2014 to publish the public’s email correspondence with them and the mayor online.

More than five years on, the city government and its residents have are ground zero for an tumultuous experiment in hyper-transparent government in the 21st century, as Brad Harper reports for the Montgomery Advertiser.

It’s hard not to read this story and immediately see a core flaw in the design of this digital governance system: the city government is violating the public’s expectation of privacy by publishing email online.

“Smart cities” will look foolish if they adopt hyper-transparent government without first ensuring the public they serve understands whether their interactions with city government will be records and published online.

Unexpected sunshine will also dissolve public trust if there’s a big gap between the public’s expectations of privacy and the radical transparency that comes from publishing the emails residents send to agencies online.

Residents should be offered multiple digital options for interacting with governments. In addition to exercising their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and petition on the phone, in written communications with a given government, or in person at hearing or town halls, city (and state) governments should break down three broad categories of inquiries into different channels:

Emergency Requests: Emergency calls go to 911 from all other channels. Calls to 911 are recorded but private by default. Calls should not be disclosed online without human review.

Service Requests: Non-emergency requests should go 311, through a city call center or through 311 system. Open data with 311 requests is public by default and are disclosed online in real-time.

Information Requests: People looking for information should be able to find a city website through a Web search or social media. A city.gov should use a /open page that includes open data, news, contact information for agencies and public information officers, and a virtual agent or “chat bot” to guide their search.

If proactive disclosures aren’t sufficient, then there should be way to make Freedom of Information Act requests under the law if the information people seek is not online. But public correspondence with agencies should be private by default.

 

US FOIA Advisory Committee recommends agencies harmonize FOIA and open data programs

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Yesterday, the United States Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee met at the National Archives in Washington and approved a series of recommendations that would, if implemented, dramatically improve public access to public information. And in May, it will consider … Continue reading →

Department of Justice Quietly Answers Senate Questions on FOIA Regression

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During Sunshine Week in March 2019, members of the Senate Judiciary sent a letter to the Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) that asked for information about the state of the Freedom of Information Act, noting a lack of … Continue reading →

US FOIA Advisory Committee considers recommendations to part the rising curtains of secrecy

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Government secrecy, as measured by censorship or non-responsiveness under the Freedom of Information Act, is at an all-time high during the Trump administration. The Freedom of Information Act is getting worse under Trump for a variety of reasons. Continued secrecy … Continue reading →

New “State of Open Data” book captures a global zeitgeist around public access to information and use

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For a decade, I’ve tracked the contours of open data, digital journalism, open source software and open government, publishing research on the art and science of data journalism that explored and tied together those threads.

This week, I’m proud to announce that a new book chapter on open data, journalists, and the media that I co-authored with data journalism advisor Eva Constantaras has been published online as part of “The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons!”

We joined 43 other authors in a 18-month project that reflected on “10 years of community action and review the capacity of open data to address social and economic challenges across a variety of sectors, regions, and communities.”

The publication and the printed review copy I now possess is the end of a long road.

Back in January 2018, I asked a global community of data journalists, open government advocates, watchdogs and the public for help documenting the “State of Open Data” and journalism for a new project for Open Data for Development. While I was at the Sunlight Foundation, I seeded the initial network scan on journalists, media and open data.

Over the past year, people and organizations from around the world weighed in – & Eva Constantaras joined me as co-editor & lead author, creating a “network scan” of the space. The writing project traveled with me, after I left Sunlight, and over this winter we edited and synthesized the scan into a polished chapter.

The book was originally going to be introduced at the 5th International Open Government Data Conference in Buenos Aires, in the fall of 2018, but will instead be officially launched at the Open Government Partnership’s global summit in Ottawa, Canada at the end of May 2019.

The book, which was funded by the International Research Centre and supported by the Open Data for Development (OD4D) Network. As a result of that support, “The State of Open Data” was also published in print by African Minds, from whom it may also be purchased. (While I was paid to edit and contribute, I don’t receive any residuals.)

Last night, I joined Tim Davies and other authors at the OpenGov Hub in DC to talk about the book & our chapters. Video of Davies, who managed to cover a tremendous amount of ground in ten minutes, is embedded below.

Thank you to everyone who contributed, commented and collaborated in this project, which will inform the public, press and governments around the world.

 

Sunshine and comity featured at US House Modernization Committee hearing

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On May 10, the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress in the United States House of Representatives held a hearing on “opening up the process,” at which 4 different experts talked with Congress about making legislative information more transparent,” from ongoing efforts to proposed reforms to the effect of sunshine laws passed decades ago.

If you’re not up to speed on this committee, it was established on January 4, 2019 the House voted in favor of establishing the Select Committee by an overwhelming margin (418-12) by adopting of Title II of H.Res.6, the Rules of the House of Representatives for the One Hundred Sixteenth Congress, with a sole authority of investigating, studying, holding public hearings, making finding, and developing recommendations to modernize Congress – but no legislative jurisdiction nor ability to take legislative action. The committee has has been fairly described by IssueOne as “the best opportunity in decades” for Congress to improve itself, by looking inward.

The two hours of discussion on May 10 mostly added up to good news for good government, with useful summaries of progress opening up Congress to date from the deputy clerk of the House, proposed recommendations and reforms from GovTrack founder Josh Tauberer and DemandProgress policy director Daniel Schuman that would build on that progress, and some skepticism of sunshine in the legislative process from University of Maryland professor Frances Lee.

I attended the hearing and tweeted from it, as has been my practice for nearly a decade in DC:

The thread of tweets above, however is not meant to be comprehensive, nor could it be fully contextualized in the moment. For that, watch the hearing on YouTube, in the video embedded below:

…and read a summary of the hearing from the Congressional Institute, reporting from Federal Computer Week on “transparency through technology” and Roll Call on ongoing development of an “artificial intelligence engine” (applying machine-learning to structured legislative data), and the latest edition of Demand Progress’ First Branch Forecast, in which Schuman summarizes his testimony and aspects of the hearing.

He and Tauberer recommended from appointing a legislative branch Chief Data Officer, releasing structured data that would feed into the clerk’s tool to show how proposed amendments would change bills, and enact a mandate and open standards for a unique identifier for lobbyists across the U.S. government. Whether those ideas make it into the committee’s recommendations remains to be seen, but they’re worth weighing – along with further studying of the value or risk of increasing or decreasing public access to various aspects of the deliberative processes that constitute legislative and oversight activities.

On a meta note, the process on display at this forum was notable for comity between witnesses and members, openness to the public and press, and engagement online.

The medium is still the message, when it comes showing (not telling) how open a given institution is.

While paying attention to the digital component has become downright mundane in 2019, the Committee demonstrated admirable competence, streaming the hearing online at YouTube, publicized it on social media prior to the event, engaged with the public during the hearing, and published testimony on its website afterwards. (Unfortunately, there’s no text transcription of the hearing on the hearing page. Given the committee’s acknowledgement of the importance of accessibility, it should make sure to get transcripts online.)

As at the most recent “Congressional hackathons,” Members of Congress were able to show good government, ethics and transparency, far away from partisan rancor over white hot political issues or Congressional attempts to conduct constitutional oversight of a corrupt administration.

If you’re interested in following the activities of the committee or providing feedback, visit Modernizecongress.House.gov and scrub in: the People’s House will only be as open, accessible, accountable, and effective as we make it – or demand it to be. There’s no one else coming to help.