OpenTheGovernment’s 2012 Secrecy Report

By Elizabeth

Earlier this week, OpenTheGovernment.org released the latest edition of their annual Secrecy Report. This year’s report reveals mixed marks for the Obama administration’s open government policies, highlighting both positive developments and room for improvement.

Several signs of progress of are of note. For example, the government processed more Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in 2011 than the previous year and brought the average cost of fulfilling a FOIA request down by more than $2. So far in his term, President Obama has not once cited executive privilege to deny Congressional requests for information, and the administration has also declassified previously secret defense information, some of which has not been declassified since the end of the Cold War.

However, there are still causes of concern around the administration’s level of secrecy, especially in light of the President’s bold promise of “unprecedented transparency.”  FOIA requests, the report noted, rose 5 percent from fiscal 2010 to 2011, and agencies processed 644,165, or 8 percent, more than the previous year— yet the backlog grew by 20 percent, reaching 83,490. It’s likely that the National Declassification Center will not meet its goal for declassifying old records on time. And while the volume of documents marked “Classified” continues to grow, there has been little assurance or reason offered for the decision that the information properly needs such protection.

The 2012 Secrecy Report includes a look at the limitations of the data the government currently makes available.  From the press release from OpenTheGovernment.org:

Missing and misleading data have a very real effect on the public’s ability to trust that the government is using taxpayer monies wisely, and that it is following its own policies. “Good information is essential for the public to know what interests are influencing government policies, and more,” said [Dr. Patrice McDermott, Executive Director of OpenTheGovernment.org]. “Partial and mis- information, however, erodes accountability and prevents the public from having an informed debate about critical national issues.”

AALL is a founding member of OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of 80+ groups advocating for open and accountable government. We’ll be joining a live Twitter chat with the report’s contributors on Tuesday, September 18^th from 4–5 p.m. EDT. Follow us at @AALL_GRO and join the conversation with #secrecy12.

OMB Watch Assesses Administration’s Progress on Transparency Recommendations

During last Friday’s Sunshine Week Webcast at the Center for American Progress (archived here), Gary Bass, Executive Director of OMB Watch, announced the release of a new report, “Assessing Progress: Toward a 21st Century Right to Know.” The report analyzes the Obama Administration’s progress in meeting the more than 70 transparency recommendations issued by the 21st Century Right-to-Know Project in November 2008. More than 100 groups and individuals contributed or signed on to the Right-to-Know recommendations – including AALL, a dozen of our chapters and more than 75 individual law librarians around the country.

OMB Watch found that the Administration has made progress on several high priority recommendations (promoting a culture of government openness; issuing new guidance on the Freedom of Information Act), but little progress in other areas (improving the use and consistency of metadata; addressing records management). In particular, AALL is very concerned about the lack of leadership from the White House on electronic records management and preservation. As OMB Watch states:

Records management is the sine qua non of open and accountable government: If records are not adequately retained, managed, and preserved, they will be inaccessible to the public, whether through FOIA, discovery in legal claims, declassification, internal audits, or any other transparency or accountability mechanism.

As we have done since President Obama took office in January 2009, AALL will continue to to track the Administration’s progress on openness. We will keep you updated on any significant developments.

GAO Report Finds EPA Lacks Strategic Plan for its Library Network

AALL strongly opposed the closure of five of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) libraries as soon as we learned of the agency’s troubling plans to reorganize its library network in spring 2006. We immediately met with EPA’s Chief Information Officer and other agency staff to  get more information on why this short-sighted decision was made. We also expressed our concerns about the loss of public access to EPA resources to members of Congress.

In February 2007, American Library Association (ALA) President Leslie Burger testified before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on behalf of ALA, AALL and the Association of Research Libraries to emphasize the importance of EPA’s libraries to our members and the public. In March 2008, ALA President Jim Rettig testified before the House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight on behalf of ALA and AALL to express concerns about EPA’s digitization plans and ask that Congress urge EPA to base its actions on user needs.

After many calls and letters to Capitol Hill from AALL members, our chapters, and others concerned about the closures, we were very pleased when Congress provided EPA with a $1 million order, included in the FY 2008 appropriations omnibus bill (P.L.110-161), to reopen the libraries. Three regional libraries in Chicago, Dallas, and Kansas City and a combined EPA Headquarters and Chemical Libraries reopened their doors to the public in September 2008.

Members of Congress asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a series of reports to monitor  the status of EPA’s library reorganization plans. The latest recently released report identifies three major failings and offers a number of important recommendations.

GAO found that EPA:

• Has not yet completed the strategic plan for its library network, despite having consulted with AALL and other library organizations more than two years ago to get our feedback on a draft outline of the plan.
• Has not taken a complete inventory of its library holdings and thus has been unable to determine which documents need to be digitized, and the costs and time involved.
• Has used a flawed survey design to assess the information needs of its staff, producing unreliable results.

As a result of these shortcomings, GAO recommends that EPA:

• Complete its strategic plan, including implementation goals and a timeline.
• Conduct an inventory of the library network’s holdings to identify what items need to be digitized.
• Ensure that future surveys of library staff and user needs are methodologically sound.

We are disappointed that EPA has not taken proper steps during the last two years to complete an overall strategy for its library network, or to develop a blueprint for digitizing its collections. We are also troubled that EPA has failed to continue a dialog with the library community since we were engaged in those first discussions with agency officials.

In response to the report, EPA has agreed to finish its strategic plan and complete cataloging its library holdings by the end of this fiscal year, September 30, 2011. AALL will continue to closely monitor EPA’s progress in responding to GAO’s important recommendations.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

CREW Finds FOIA Implementation Problems Continue

A new report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), FOIA at the Mid-term: Obstacles to Transparency Remain, reveals that though there has been some progress since President Obama released his Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act and Attorney General Holder followed up with guidance for agencies, there has not been a major shift in the FOIA culture across the Federal government. CREW surveyed hundreds of FOIA professionals and found that a lack of staffing and funding are the biggest impediments to successfully implementing the FOIA.

We were very pleased when Anne Weismann, Chief Counsel for CREW, joined us in Denver for a panel discussion on “The Future of FOIA” (J1). She expressed at the time her sense that while many pieces to improve FOIA had been put in place under the Obama Administration, there’s still a long way to go to shift toward a culture of government transparency. This report confirms her statements and emphasizes the need for the Administration to continue to take steps to support government agencies in order to improve FOIA processes.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

New Report Finds Agency Progress on Rulemaking; Problems with Process Remain

A report released this week by 2008 AALL Public Access to Government Information (PAGI) award winner OMB Watch examines the Obama Administration’s approach to rulemaking. OMB Watch finds that the new Administration’s rulemaking record shows a marked philosophical change from the Bush era’s tendency toward deregulation, and most agencies have made significant strides to better protect the public. However, OMB Watch concludes that the Administration has not done enough to reform the rulemaking process, relying instead on the Clinton-era Executive Order 12866 on regulatory planning and review.

This is the first report in a series of three. The final report will focus exclusively on the regulatory process, including issues of transparency, participation, regulatory analysis, and scientific integrity. We will let you know when that report is released.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

2010 Secrecy Report Card Indicates Trend toward Greater Openness

OpenTheGovernment.org released its seventh annual Secrecy Report Card today, showing that secrecy across a wide array of measures has continued to decrease since President Obama took office in January 2009. For example, FOIA backlogs were reduced by 40 percent government-wide in Fiscal Year (FY) 2009, and the number of “original classification decisions” – the source of newly classified information – decreased almost 10 percent.

Despite these positive findings, one troubling trend stands out: there is a growing backlog of declassified records in the Federal government. This year’s report found the declassification rate government-wide fell from 61 percent of all material reviewed in 2008 to 55 percent in 2009.

It is important to note, however, that because the Secrecy Report Card is limited to FY2009 data, it does not reflect the recent efforts of the new Administration to target this backlog. Specifically, President Obama’s December 2009 Executive Order on Classified National Security Information established the vital National Declassification Center at NARA. AALL applauded the creation of this new center, which will help improve access to government information by making public by the December 31, 2013 deadline more than 400 million pages of classified records. According to the NDC’s first report, 8 million pages of material have already been processed and made available to the public since the NDC opened its doors January 2009.

AALL is a founding partner of OpenTheGovernment.org and Director of Government Relations Mary Alice Baish serves on its Steering Committee. AALL is committed to working with OTG to promote transparency at all levels of government.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

AALL Participates in Audit of Revised Open Government Plans, Revealing Significant Improvements

AALL contributed to a second audit organized by OpenTheGovernment.org to rank executive agencies’ Open Government Plans, which were initially released on April 7 as required by the Obama Administration’s Open Government Directive (OGD). Agencies were given the opportunity to revise their plans by June 25, and 23 of the 39 agencies evaluated during the audit released revised plans by the June deadline.

Using the same criteria employed in the first round, the auditors rated the extent to which agencies’ revised plans met the OGD’s requirements and provided bonus points for exceeding the requirements.

The audit found that most agencies made significant steps to improve their plans. The Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency met all of the OGD requirements, and earned bonus points.

The Department of Justice moved from the lowest ranking to a respectable spot at number 8. DOJ responded positively to feedback and made important steps to include required links and identify high value data sets. Significantly, DOJ has promised to make publicly available its collection of digital legislative histories and to provide access to significant court filings through its Web site.

The auditors are now developing metrics to evaluate how agencies implement their Open Government Plans. AALL and the other auditors will continue to work closely with agencies to ensure that they follow through on their promises to create a more open government.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

AALL Contributes to Audit Revealing Wide Variation in Agency Plans to Make Government More Open: NASA, HUD, EPA Produce Strong Plans, DOJ Plan Disappoints

AALL contributed to an audit organized by OpenTheGovernment.org to rank executive agencies’ Open Government Plans, which were released on April 7 as required by the Obama administration’s Open Government Directive (OGD). The evaluations rate the extent to which agencies met the OGD’s requirements and provide bonus points for exceeding the requirements.

While all of the agencies required to produce a plan completed them within the four month deadline, the audit found wide variation in the plans. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Environmental Protection Agency produced the strongest plans by going beyond all the OGD requirements, while the Department of Treasury, Department of Defense, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Department of Energy, and the Department of Justice produced the weakest.

Agencies will be asked to revise their plans by the end of May. OpenTheGovernment.org and AALL will revisit those plans in early June to see how agencies have responded to this audit.

Please see our Press Release for more information.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

New Report Highlights Continued Problems with Classification System

Last week, the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), a component of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), released their annual report on security classification programs, as required by President Obama’s December 2009 Executive Order on classified national security information. The E.O. requires agencies to take a number of actions to improve their classification procedures, and it establishes a National Declassification Center within NARA that will help reduce the backlog of declassified records.

The ISOO report highlights a number of troubling trends. For example, the number of pages declassified in FY 2009 dropped by 8 percent (from 31.4 million pages in FY 2008 to 28.8 million pages in FY 2009), despite a 1 percent increase in the number of pages reviewed for declassification. Agencies also reported a total of 54.7 million derivative classification actions for FY 2009, a 135 percent increase from FY 2008. However, this increase is largely attributed to improved reporting practices that now require agencies to count email and other electronic products when reporting their classification decisions.

One of the most encouraging findings of the report is that agencies currently have the lowest number ever reported of staff who are charged with classifying information. This improvement from previous years is mostly due to the drop in original classifiers at the Department of State, which took taking swift action to decrease the number of staff who can classify information.

Despite President Obama’s commitment to transparency, most classifying agencies clearly have a long way to go to shift away from a deeply embedded culture of secrecy. To read more about recent developments and pending bills that impact classification policy, please read our Issue Brief.

OpenTheGovernment.org’s 2009 Secrecy Report Card

OpenTheGovernment.org released the latest edition of their annual Secrecy Report Card today. This year’s report card found slight decreases in government secrecy in the past year, though secrecy remains a serious problem in many areas of the federal government.

Special to this year’s report is an analysis of the Obama Administration’s track record on transparency. Despite many initial promising steps toward government openness, the Administration has disappointed open government groups, including AALL, with a number of decisions that promote secrecy. For example, the Administration has repeatedly used signing statements and the state secrets privilege to keep information secret, despite Obama’s promise to curb the use of both.

AALL is committed to ensuring that the new Administration follows through on its promises of “a new era of open Government.” We will continue to work with OpenTheGovernment.org to promote transparency at all levels of government.

Findings of the 2009 Secrecy Report Card include:

• Classification Activity Still Remains High
  In 2008, the number of original classification decisions decreased to 203,541, a 13% drop from 2007. The number of “derivative classifications” continues to climb.
• FOIA Backlogs Slightly Reduced
  The federal government processed 17,689 more FOIA requests than it received in 2008. The net improvement is in part the result of significant backlog progress on the part of a few agencies.
• Reported Invocations of the State Secrets Privilege Continue to Rise
  Invoked only 6 times between 1953 and 1976, the privilege has been used a reported 48 times—an average of 6 times per year in 8 years (through 2008)—more than double the average (2.46) in the previous 24 years.
• Scientific and Technical Advice Increasingly Closed to Public
  65% of FACA committee hearings were closed to the public in 2008. The same number of meetings was closed in
  2008 as in 2007, but the total number of meetings fell—leaving fewer opportunities for public
  participation.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]