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From U.S. News, an extensive investigative report on How the public’s business gets done out of the public eye: “For the past three years, the Bush administration has quietly but efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government–cloaking its own affairs from scrutiny and removing from the public domain …
Government officials and observers report on the progress made under the E-Gov Act of 2002 The President signed the E-Government Act on December 17, 2002. IRS leading the pack in privacy beSpacific postings on e-government since September 2002.
From the November/December 2003 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: How agencies thwart the Freedom of Information Act, by Jeffrey T. Richelson, a senior fellow with the National Security Archive, Washington, D.C. “Although the Freedom of Information Act has been a blessing to academics, journalists, and activists, it is seen as a curse by some in …
On November 21, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) introduced the Congressional Research Accessibility Act (H.R. 3630), To make available on the Internet, for purposes of access and retrieval by the public, certain information available through the Congressional Research Service Web site. The press release from Rep. Shays states: “CRS products are created with taxpayers’ dollars and …
The 9/11 Commission continues to pursue access to essential documents according to this announcement of its intention to issue another subpoena, this time to New York City, in an effort to obtain “tapes and transcripts of 911 emergency calls…[and] transcripts of historical interviews with firefighters…conducted after the 9-11 attacks.”
From FAS, this link to CRS reports for Congress on First Amendment topics, from the First Amendment Center. The 16 reports were published in 2003, and address topics that include Internet privacy, freedom of press and speech, and regulation of the telemarketing industry.
From FAS, news about this CRS report: “The occasional practice of holding closed door sessions of Congress is surveyed in Secret Sessions of Congress: A Brief Historical Overview by Mildred Amer, Congressional Research Service, updated August 5, 2003.”
According to CNN, the White House, after considerable delay, has finally agreed to provide the independent 9-11 Commission with selective access to the Daily Brief from both President’s Clinton and Bush. Commission member Max Cleland is quoted as being “disgusted” [by the deal], and ready to vote to subpoena documents from the White House. From …
From the Commission’s November 7 press release: “The Commission has encountered some serious delays in obtaining needed documents from the Department of Defense (DoD). We are especially dismayed by problems in the production of the records of activities of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and certain Air Force commands on September 11, 2001. …
The Memory Hole announced that it has added links to over 300 Congressional Research Service Reports (Long Reports, Short Reports, Issue Briefs, Appropriations Reports) that were recently removed from free public web access. These CRS research are only a selection of the total number published, and the editor of The Memory Hole website is actively …
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board released Volumes II-VI of its report on October 28, 2003. Use this link to the website where you may access the table of contents and the full text of report volumes I-IV, in pdf.
Each year the Congressional Research Search (CRS) publishes approximately 1,000 reports of which the public may have access to several hundred. In an interesting change of policy, Secrecy News reports that access to selected reports previously provided via the websites of two members of Congress, Rep. Mark Green (R-WI) and Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT), has …
