President-Elect Barack Obama has promised much greater transparency in terms of making sure more public records are available online. One way to assess his commitment can be evaluated at his unprecedented use of the web, which is a developing story. Check out his shadow government site.
For now, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. I think he has earned that much. My hope, as a career journalist, is that we will soon have much greater public access to all sorts of government records, which, of course, we pay for with our taxes. Bush scaled back our access, in the name of national security, but on this issue, I agree with Bob Barr and Ron Paul. Libertarians always argue for less government, more freedom, and greater transparency.
There is no excuse for the U.S. government to hide so much information from the rest of us. If Obama lives up to his promises, our jobs as journalists will be much easier than it has been these past eight years. A confident leader releases more information, not less, so we can do our jobs, which is to keep him accountable.
