Analysis

Devil in the Details with New Commitments to Improve FOIA

On December 8, the Administration committed to taking a series of concrete steps in the next two years with the goal of improving implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The steps include: creating a consolidated online FOIA service; developing common FOIA regulations; scaling up targeted efforts to make processing requests more efficient (sharing best practices); establishing a FOIA Modernization Advisory Committee; and improving FOIA training. If the government meets these commitments, will it actually be any easier for the public to ask for and receive government information?

Former-Representative Mickey Edwards on Restoring Accountability to National Security Programs

For the release of this Secrecy Report, we asked former-Representative Mickey Edwards, who is also the author of, The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans and a noted commentator on restoring the Constitution’s balances of power, to provide insight on how to secure better oversight of national security programs.

How could Congress’ oversight of intelligence programs be improved? Or how can the system of checks and balances be restored to our intelligence programs?

First, the congress must reclaim its constitutional authority to oversee the executive branch, decide on questions of war and peace, regulate the armed forces, and determine how federal funds are to be expended.  These are the proper powers of congress but more importantly they are the obligations the constitution places on congress to ensure that the people, through their representatives, control the activities of the federal government.

Calls for Transparency and Oversight on Intelligence Surveillance Programs

The House of Representatives recently took the first vote on limiting the government's national security surveillance programs since their broad scope was revealed by a series of leaked documents and press reports.

Multiple Efforts to Bar Access to Ag Info Sprouting on Capitol Hill

Recently we wrote about a successful effort to keep a provision out of the Senate-passed Farm Bill that would have barred the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from releasing information about farm owners or operators. Unfortunately, though, it seems that the attempt to attach the language to the Farm Bill in the Senate was only the opening salvo in a wider war to stop the EPA from releasing potentially important public health and safety information. The Senators who proposed the Farm Bill amendment, Senators Grassley and Donnelly, recently introduced an identical bill, and similar language appears in the House-passed version of the Farm Bill (Sec. 450) and the House Appropriations Committee's version of the 2014 Interior spending bill (Sec. 11325).