Obama Doesn't Fully Live Up to Openness Promise: Report

While President Barack Obama has improved federal government openness since the years of President Bush, he has fallen short in living up to the ambitious promises he made at the beginning of his administration. Those are the conclusions of the "2010 Secrecy Report Card" published September 7, 2010, by OpenTheGovernment.org.

The foundation-funded nonprofit is actually a coalition of more than 70 freedom-of-information and open-government groups. It has been compiling the annual report card, which covers most federal agencies, since it was founded in 2003. Members of the coalition include several major journalism groups.

The 2010 report notes a steady decrease in secrecy, as measured by most indicators, during the Obama administration, down from their peaks during the Bush administration. Because of data lags, the 2010 report covers only the first nine months of the Obama administration.

But the report also noted some poor marks on things like declassification backlogs, or the continued invocation of the "state secrets" privilege to quash court cases the White House claims could harm national security.

Or to take another example, the report states that "During FY2009, more than 73% of the 7,721 full committee meetings of the 925 active federal advisory committees that fall under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) were completely closed to the public."

• Report. Press Release.
• "Feds Have Mixed Record on Openness, Report Says," Associated Press, September 7, 2010.