Tag Archives: transparency

Obama takes the hot seat on talk show “The View”

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The daytime talk show hosts of ABC’s “The View” have a new guest today—the 44th president of the United States.

In the first interview of a sitting president in “The View’s” history, Obama faces the show’s women co-hosts, including renowned interviewer Barbara Walters, to discuss the administration’s accomplishments, jobs, the economy, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and family life inside the White House.

Obama has been on the show before, once in 2004 to promote his book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, and again in March 2008. Michelle Obama also made a guest appearance on the show in June 2008, where she was spotted fist-bumping with the co-hosts.

But how did a daytime talk show appearance get on the president’s busy schedule? Going on the show, which has a largely female audience, is a way for Obama to “talk to the people where they are,” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a press briefing Tuesday.

Watch when the show, filmed Wednesday, airs at 11 a.m. EDT or check back later to watch the episode online.

Obama’s daily schedule goes online

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The world gets a sneak peek into the day-to-day schedule of President Obama in the latest move to make Obama’s presidency the most transparent ever.

Obama’s and Vice President Biden’s daily schedules went online Monday for your curiosity-driven, RSS-following, calendar-adding reading pleasure. The calendar, updated daily, lets you track Obama from his morning briefing in the Oval Office to an afternoon press statement in the Rose Garden to a nighttime fundraising dinner at a local hotel (and that’s just today in Washington).

What serves up tantalizing clues for the press reads like a reality show splurge for Obama fanatics. Already, I’m hooked. What do you think?

We're Gonna Vent Our Frustration. If We Don't, We're Gonna Blow a 50-amp fuse.

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(I’m listening to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones)

Innovator Steven Clift is hoping to win millions of dollars to fund a project that would use Internet technology to spur greater democratic participation.

His entry for the 2010 Knight News Challenge is an online database that would automatically send you information on the issues you care about, and public meetings and other grassroots opportunities where you can make your voice heard.

For the user, Clift’s proposal is quite simple. You type in your address and some key words (human rights, education, taxes, health care, etc.) and his system will automatically generate an alert whenever public meetings in your area are going to take place and one of your interests is on the agenda.

“The most democratizing aspect opportunity of the internet, when it comes to democratic information, is to provide timely access to that information when people can still act on it,” he says in his video presentation. Often people find out about public meetings after the fact so they aren’t able to participate. Elected officials, in turn, are very interested in the input of their constituents before they make their decisions.
If he wins the Knight News Challenge, Clift’s Web site, e-democracy.org would have the funding needed to compile information from the approximately 30,000 state, local and federal governments from across the United States, and would use it to create an interactive public meeting events calendar. Even if you couldn’t come to the meeting, you could still leave a comment, text or video expressing your views to your elected officials, he says.

It is easy to see how you can have more of an impact on the issues you care deeply about while the decisions are still being made. So good luck to Mr. Clift. If he wins, we’ll soon get to see his plan in action.

Freedom of Speech v. Freedom of Information

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I don’t normally follow court cases, but one recently under review by the Supreme Court caught my eye. The case, Doe v. Reed, involves a group of Washington state residents who successfully petitioned for a referendum, Washington Referendum 71, to affirm or overturn state legislation expanding rights for same-sex couples. Government officials believe that, under the state’s Public Records Act, they have an obligation to release upon request the names and addresses of those who signed the petition.

“In all states with initiative or referendum systems, the ballot measure represents the people substituting themselves for legislatures,” Washington’s attorney general, Rob McKenna, said in a September 12 New York Times article. “We don’t conduct [the] legislative process in secret, and it doesn’t make sense to conduct this legislative process in secret either.”

The referendum supporters disagree, arguing that releasing their personal information is a form of intimidation and is thus a violation of their freedom of speech. “We’re not talking about removing the transparency of government,” said James Bopp, a lawyer for the group. “We’re talking about whether citizens should be outed in their participation in our democracy.” Bopp and others note that activists have published names and addresses of those who supported similar petitions in other states. Making this kind of information public has sometimes led to threats or boycotts of businesses, they say. But Tom Lang, the director of the activist Web site KnowThyNeighbor.org, says the publication of petitioners’ names and addresses is intended to generate conversations between neighbors, friends and others who already have personal connections, not to harass or intimidate anyone.

The Federal District Court of Washington issued an order on September 10 temporarily prohibiting the state of Washington from releasing the referendum supporters’ personal information, stating that the case “likely raises serious First Amendment questions in regard to protected speech.” Although the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the injunction, the Supreme Court has reinstated it until the parties in the case file new motions for action.

How can the courts balance freedom of speech and freedom of information in this case? Is it even possible?

Court Transparency

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I spoke with Judge Rifat Abdullahu, president of the Ferizaj Municipal Court in Kosovo. With the help of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the court just received a major renovation. Archives now have a proper place to live, in a storage area protected from the elements. Ongoing case files are now properly secure. There are more courtrooms and judges’ offices.

But the court got more than a facelift. As a participant in USAID’s Model Courts program, judges and administrators have received technical assistance and training.

Kosovo’s citizens have long distrusted the judicial system, Abdullahu said. But he believes his court is ready to increase public confidence in the judiciary. One way it aims to do that is by being transparent. Abdullahu showed me how the court is taking many simple steps to do this. The court now publishes its hearing schedule each day. It also has clear signage indicating the fees for various court services. It has flyers for people to take that explain things like how to appeal a court ruling. Everything is published in Albanian and in Serb, so that the minority Serb community is not at a disadvantage. These things may be small, but they are important.

Abdullah hopes his court will be seen as a model for others in the country and seeks to collaborate with other courts. Sounds like a good idea to me!

How Does Government Information Get Online?

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Here at By The People, we’ve talked a lot about the Obama administration’s commitment to transparency. But being transparent is no easy task – there are millions of government documents. Making them accessible to the average citizen takes a lot of organization and resources.

This new Web page on America.gov, “U.S. Government at the click of a Button,” shows you why the United States is putting in so much effort to ensure that government information is available online and just how much work goes into making this happen. Check out the videos from government officials, tips from savvy web designers and interviews with some of the most popular U.S. government bloggers!

Transparency in Government

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I’ve been hearing a lot about transparency lately.  First there were UK citizens crying out for more transparency after learning about the less-than-necessary items MPs were buying with taxpayer money.  Now it’s our turn to discuss transparency in the U.S., with the announcement of a “next step” project related to President Obama’s Transparency and Open Government memo. 

You can read about this next step on the White House’s Open Government Blog, but if you don’t want to do that, I’ll summarize it for you.  Basically, American citizens are being invited to participate in a brainstorming session.  The Obama administration plans to publish a set of recommendations for making the federal government more transparent, participatory and collaborative, and citizens have been asked to submit ideas they feel should be included.  The public can view and vote on submissions, and later the government and citizens will discuss their ideas and use a wiki to draft the recommendations collaboratively.

I’m curious to see how this experiment in transparency will go.  How many citizens will participate?  Will these suggestions be included in the final set of recommendations that come out of the White House?  Will the Obama administration and future administrations continue to use this model for collaboration?  The process is well underway, and ideas are available for the public to review.  I’ve already started voting for my favorites.

A new day for transparency

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President Obama says he’s committed to ensuring that Americans have access to government information, so that they know what their leaders are doing and how they are spending their tax dollars.

Yesterday the administration launched a new Web site, Data.gov that brings that information to Americans’ fingertips. Users can search by topic or by government agency. There is not a great wealth of information on the site just yet, but more is coming, White House officials say. Data.gov is one of many new Obama Web sites that aim to bring U.S. government information online. For example, Recovery.gov lets Americans see how their tax dollars help stimulate the economy.

Are there other ways the U.S. government can use technology to show its commitment to openness and transparency? The Obama administration wants to know! The new Open Government blog asks everyone to join in a brainstorming session to collect the best ideas.

Does anyone know of good Web sites like these run by other governments? If so, Obama Today wants to know about them.