A Journalist Explores Obama's "Transparent" Government

One of President Barack Obama’s first acts after he assumed office was to lift what might be called the “Dick Cheney veil of secrecy” over government documents, by ordering all executive agencies and departments to “adopt a presumption in favor” of Freedom of Information Act requests.

“The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears,” Obama stated.

The era of open government was thus born.

Early in March, Obama took another critical step in creating transparency where before there was only opaqueness. He named Vivek Kundra the federal government’s Chief Information Officer (CIO). As Kim Hart of the Washington Post noted, Kundra is the guy, who as the District of Columbia’s CTO last year, established a contest called Apps for Democracy, “which challenged independent Web developers to come up with interesting ways to use government data.” One result was called “DC Bikes, a site with information about bike thefts, popular bike trails and other information for local bike enthusiasts,” all based on aggregating government data.

It’s a little early to tell what Kundra will do as Uncle Sam’s CIO, since he only assumed office two weeks ago today.

But the Obama administration is certainly living up to its campaign promise to open up government agencies to the public. For the first time since The White House discovered the web, back in the Clinton years, www.whitehouse.gov actually seems to be a solid source of current news, as opposed to a site devoted to political propaganda (though there’s still some of that.). Today, when I read about Obama’s press conference in London, the report had the feel of coverage by a journalist as opposed to a PR agent.

Poking around the site, I stumbled upon the Office of Public Liaison, which bills itself as “the front door to the White House through which everyone can participate and inform the work of the President.”

This part of the site appears to be a work in progress, so I decided to walk inside and conduct a little experiment, designed to determine just how open to new ideas the Obama team actually is. In a field soliciting public comment, I submitted a little 1,000-word description of a way I think the President could stimulate the economy and encourage entrepreneurs, like those I post about every day here on Bnet.

Will anybody respond? (I imagine so.) Will they take my idea seriously? Or will I get the old brush-off, much as my youngest daughter received when at age five or so, she penned out a hand-written letter to then-President Ronald Reagan, offering her wishes that he would recover from a near-fatal assassination attempt.

All she ever got in return was a post card with the words: “Thank you for your support of the Republican National Committee.”

As for the current President’s response to me, stay tuned.

(Note: This article has been updated with the following correction: Kim Hart was originally misidentified as with the Sunlight Foundation, whereas in fact she is a reporter for the Washington Post.)