Obama campaigned in 2008 using transparency as part of his platform.
Sunshine Week is supposed to be dedicated to transparency and openness in government, but President Barack Obama's administration seems to have thumbed its nose at the idea by announcing that the executive office would not comply with Freedom of Information Act requests.
The FOIA allows people to access federal documents with limited exceptions.
Advocates of open government are concerned, saying that to claim exemption from FOIA during Sunshine Week shows that transparency is low on the Obama administration's list of priorities.
Nate Jones, the FOIA director at the National Security Archive, says "it's really disappointing."
"I don't think it's a big scandal, but it just shows a really disappointing lack of appreciation for FOIA and openness in general," Jones said.
Obama campaigned in 2008 using transparency as part of his platform. He even issued a memo in 2009, wherein he described the FOIA as something "which encourages accountability through transparency, [and] is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government."
"In responding to requests under the FOIA," the memo continued, "executive branch agencies should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public."
The recent order was done without public comment.
When he first took office, Obama appointed Norm Eisen to be the go-to person for FOIA compliance. Eisen was known as the "ethics czar" in the media and "Dr. No" to bureaucrats. His appointment was seen by open government advocates as a big win for transparency. He expanded the FOIA, wrote rules to keep lobbyists out of the White House, and pushed for campaign finance reform.
But he left in 2011, and his predecessors were not as keen on transparency as he was.
PBS "NewsHour" published a story that claimed the Obama administration has been the most opaque in recent history. The government did not send anyone to comment for the story.
"NewsHour" based its report on an Associated Press analysis released this week. From the report:
Its backlog of unanswered requests at year’s end grew remarkably by 55 percent to more than 200,000. It also cut by 375, or about 9 percent, the number of full-time employees across government paid to look for records. That was the fewest number of employees working on the issue in five years.
Former President George W. Bush's administration issued an executive order exempting the president's office from FOIA. This prompted a lawsuit, but the court upheld Bush's exemption claim in 2009. The matter has not been heard by the Supreme Court, however.
Obama's office has not complied with FOIA requests since he took office, and his administration has claimed that they are simply complying with the court's decision. The move during Sunshine Week to further distance the White House from transparency doesn't mesh with this stance, say open government advocates.
Jim Smith, president of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information, said he wants to know where the Obama from 2009 is.
"President Obama has been a disappointment on Freedom of Information issues, and his action this week, during Sunshine week, is at the very least tone deaf for the leader of a democracy," Smith said.
Mitchell Pearlman, a board member of the National Freedom of Information Association, said his optimism with Obama has also diminished.
"We thought [Obama] was really going to change the dynamic," Pearlman said. "We should have realized that bureaucracy is like an oil tanker on the sea -- you just can't turn it around."
Connecticut Has Strong Transparency Track Record, But Is It Waning?
Connecticut has been heralded as a state with a high level of government transparency. It has a Freedom of Information Commission, which decides disputes between public agencies and those seeking public records. It has the authority of law behind it, whereas other states rely on the attorney general to settle disputes.
Last year, transparency proponents were set back when Connecticut reduced access to police records. This happened after media outlets sought 911 transcripts from the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, that left 20 children and six adults dead. After the Connecticut court's decision, people must now visit a police station to examine records, and no copies can be made.
Jones, from the National Security Archive, said the White House's move wouldn't have much trickle-down effect on state transparency policies.
"If their leadership has transparency as a priority, than it will continue to be," Jones said. "If they want to be shady, they will be."
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, noted the Sunshine Week decision was merely a housekeeping measure.
"It has no impact at all on the policy that we have maintained from the beginning to comply with the Freedom of Information Act when it’s appropriate,” Earnest said, according to the Washington Post.
But, as the Post article points out, the "Obama White House has not released any records from the office under FOIA, using the court decision to justify its policy."
