It’s time for Washington to catch up with the rest of America. As people share Facebook and Instagram pictures of every latte they drink, skyline they view and family event they attend,  the expectation of personal privacy is quickly becoming  a quaint relic of the past. We’re living in an instantly connected era: We’re becoming accustomed to knowing what’s going on. We expect to know what’s going on. And, while too much personal information can be annoying,  nowhere is the demand for openness more appropriate than in government.

The push for transparency in conducting the public’s business is not new, nor is pushback from Congressional representatives and government agencies. But with contemporary technology, it’s easier than ever to be open, and harder than ever to justify not letting the public know what’s happening.

Recently, the Sunlight Foundation suggested five technologically enabled ways for Congress to be more transparent:

1. Create an Online Guest Book

Starting the day they they were sworn in, lobbyists, well-wishers, and constituents have streamed into member offices. While visitors to the White House are listed online, the same isn’t true for visitors to congressional offices. At their front doors, representatives should set up an electronic guest book where visitors attending policy-related meetings are encouraged to type in their names, briefly summarize why they’re visiting, and say whether they’re a federally registered lobbyist. That information should be posted on the member’s website.

In addition, members should post online their just completed daily schedule of official activities, as maintained by their scheduler, at the end of each day. It will help people better understand what they do on a daily basis.

2. Who’s Who in the Office

Most meetings that take place in a congressional office are with staff, not the representative. Each staffer is the member’s point person for a particular topic. All offices should post online a list of staff working in the office and the issue areas they handle. (Some already do this.) This info is already available from private companies for a fee, but it should be available for everyone.

3. Say Where They Stand

Representatives receive a crushing amount of letters and email from constituents. In response, elected officials rely on form letters to share their (often nuanced) policy views on important issues. Instead of engaging in a massive paper chase, there’s a better approach.

In Germany, the non-profit Parliament Watch has developed a model where responses from members of parliament are posted online. While protecting the privacy of constituents, members of congress should do likewise. All letters to constituents regarding policy should be posted online in a searchable, easy-to-find location, and constituents should be encouraged to check the webpage first. If done properly, there’s a great chance that constituents will share the responses on social media, helping to spread the word.

4. Publish Official Reports and Correspondence

Members of congress send and receive official letters and reports from agencies all the time. It’s part of how they engage in government oversight. It’s incredibly valuable to be able to see when a representative is working on our behalf (such as when a letter is sent to an agency) or is gathering information to help make an informed decision (like that contained in a CRS report).

Most of the time, these reports are of public interest and do not contain confidential material. They should be published online as a matter of course, with limited, appropriate exceptions. Priority should be given to reports and letters from agencies on issues of public interest, online publication of CRS Reports, and “Dear Colleague” letters.

5. Ask for Comments on Legislation

When most people think of congress, they think of legislation. Representatives introduce legislation all the time, but the feedback process is pretty limited. Some representatives have been experimenting with feedback mechanisms. Rep. Issa launched the Madison Project, for example, so the public can comment (and respond to other comments) on legislation. Some members (like Zoe Lofgren) have used Reddit to gather feedback. There’s no best way to do this, but representatives that introduce legislation should provide an easy way to receive feedback and allow the public to see and comment upon those comments.

The post 5 online ways for Congress to be more transparent appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Should companies bidding for government contracts be required to disclose their political donations? An executive order under consideration by President Obama says, “Yes.” But Republicans [and some Democrats, too] say, “No.”

In an effort to reduce the likelihood that government contracts are payoffs for campaign contributions and other political expenditures, President Obama has drafted an executive order that would require companies bidding for government contracts to disclose their campaign spending. That sounds like a good idea, right? Openness and transparency are values that cross political lines. Who would publicly come out such an idea? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is: lots of politicians whose re-election campaigns depend on the huge, secret corporate donations legitimized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. In fact, some politicians are so worried that President Obama might actually wield his executive power, that they have introduced an anti-transparency bill that would pre-empt the President’s executive order.

What it says, and what it’s about

The initial wording of the proposed executive order says: “Every contracting department and agency shall require all entities submitting offers for federal contracts to disclose certain political contributions that may have been made within the two years prior to submission of their offer.”

The order includes all contributions to political parties or federal candidates or expenditures on their behalf and would require disclosure of contributions that exceed $5,000 in a given year.

It’s clear that the executive order is designed as a creative answer to Citizens United.  In a May 4, 2011 press release, Public Citizen gave this rationale:

The need for such action is directly traceable to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which lifted restrictions on political spending by corporations. The decision paved the way for companies to make massive expenditures from their general treasuries to influence election outcomes, including by funneling money through front groups that do not coordinate with candidates.

Public Citizen added that the new Citizens United rules invite an increase in “pay-to-play” abuses…

“…where contractors make campaign-related expenditures to obtain contracts, or at least favorable consideration of bids. There is no question that Citizens United will facilitate more and more severe contracting corruption, in the form of “pay to play” abuses, both federally and in the states. The pay-to-play system encourages fraud and abuses of power, prevents contracts from being awarded to businesses based on merit, wastes taxpayer dollars, and facilitates privatization and contracting out of services that otherwise could or should be provided by government agencies.”

Of course, the wording of the proposed executive order is merely draft language, and until it’s signed, it’s subject to change. But those sentences have ruffled a lot of political feathers. The controversy started earlier this year, when someone leaked the draft to a former Bush-administration official with an axe to grind: his appointment to the Federal Election Commission was blocked by Democrats. He published the draft on a conservative website, and that’s when the games began.

Who’s for it, and why

Early in May 2011, 22 government-watchdog and openness organizations sent a letter to President Obama, urging him to sign the transparency-in- government-contracting executive order. The letter pointed out:

… the widespread public perception that companies and their executives who provide the most generous campaign financial support to winning candidates are rewarded with the most lucrative contracts. On far too many occasions, that perception has been validated by scandal and the disgrace, resignation or even conviction of some governmental officials.”

The proposed executive order attacks the perception and the reality of such “pay-to-play” arrangements by shining a light on political spending by contractors. It simply requires that a business entity, as a condition of bidding on a government contract, disclose the campaign contributions and expenditures of the company, its senior management and affiliated political action committees for all to see, so the public may judge whether contracts are being awarded based on merit rather than campaign money.

The letter also notes that the requirement of transparency is not a new concept in government contracting: more than a dozen states already require campaign-finance disclosure from government contractors.

“The flip side of transparency is secrecy,” the letter continues, “and the specter of hundreds of millions of dollars in secret campaign cash coming from companies that derive much of their wealth from government contracts.”

Also lining up behind the proposed order are many Democrats, including Sen. Nancy Pelosi, who recently said: “What we are aiming at in this is to [target] those who have this endless, undisclosed money going into campaigns — again, in a way that I think undermines our democracy.”

Reps. Henry Cuellar [D-TX] and Robert Andrews [D-NJ, have also voiced their support for Obama’s draft “One of the questions is whether he has the authority to do this thing by executive order,” Andrews told The Hill. “I think he does … and I’d encourage him to use it. The more sunshine in government, the better.”

Who’s against it, and what they’re saying

It didn’t take long for politicians beholden to corporate donors to line up against the proposed executive order. Naturally, their arguments against transparency in government contracting don’t mention their obvious allegiances to the government contractors [details here] who keep them comfortably ensconced in Washington. Instead, they rail against—no surprise—government intrusion and purported politicization of government contracting. Examples:

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell [R-KY]: “It amounts to an effort to silence or intimidate political adversaries’ speech through the government contracting system.” McConnell says it’s an “abuse of executive branch authority.” McConnell  received $77,050 from the employees and PAC of AT&T. The company received $161 million in government contracts in 2009. He also received $71,750 from General Electric donors, which received $1.1 billion in government contracts in 2009.
• Senator Susan Collins [R-ME]: “No White House should be able to review your political party affiliation or the causes you support before deciding if you are worthy of a government contract. And no Americans should have to worry about whether their political activities or support will affect their ability to get or keep a federal contract or their job.” Collins  has received $99,550 from the employees and PAC of General Dynamics throughout her career. The company received $5.8 billion in government contracts in 2009. She also received $34,801 from Raytheon-connected donors. The company received $7 billion in government contracts in 2009.

To underscore the hypocrisy of Congressional representatives who oppose the transparency order, Huffington Post recently reported that the Public Campaign Action Fund sent letters to a handful of House Committee Chairs alleging that their opposition to the executive order was being done as a gift to big-time donors:

The group noted that major federal contractors had contributed large sums of money to several key lawmakers, including Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) — who has received $122,150 from the defense contractor Lockheed Martin during his career — and House Science Committee Chairman Ralph Hall (R-Texas), who has received $45,531 from the national security contractor Raytheon’s PAC and employees during his time in Congress.

The congressman the group highlighted above the others, however, was committee chairman Darrel Issa, who has received $66,950 alone from the scientific, engineering and technology applications company SAIC’s PAC and employees.

The proposed executive order’s natural enemies, of course, are the companies who both compete for government contracts and make contributions to politicians with contracting clout. Their arguments against the proposed plan offer no surprises:

• In testimony before a Congressional committee chaired by Rep. Darrel Issa [R-CA], Marion C. Blakey, president and chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association, said that the requirement “would strain companies and might even encourage some potential or current competitors to leave the federal marketplace.”
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called the proposal a “backdoor attempt” to silence White House critics and vowing to “fight it through all available means.”

Transparency advocates worry that opponents of the draft order are winning the messaging battle, partly because Republicans seized on the leaked draft early and framed the issue as one of “politicization,” and partly because Democrats—perhaps because of their own corporate allegiances—have remained mostly silent or are siding with Republicans in opposing it. Prominent among these Democrats are Sen. Claire McCaskill [D-MO], and Senate Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer [MD], plus Sen. Joe Lieberman [I-CT], who caucuses with the Democrats.

Talking points

Irony and hypocrisy abound in the debate over transparency in government contracting. For those who say that demanding disclosure is tantamount to politicization, proponents point out that government contracting is already highly politicized and corrupt. A comment from Firedoglake:

First of all, let’s nobody pretend that politics ALREADY doesn’t play a role in contracting. And there are literally hundreds of examples of that (I’ll choose one at random). Second of all, you could design this in such a way that the disclosure couldn’t possibly be a factor in choosing a contractor, simply by staggering the disclosure. There are all kinds of ways to base contracting on performance and efficiency. The reason to add disclosure at all is to remedy a great wrong carried out by the Supreme Court that is eating away at the heart of democracy.

And if you’re looking for irony, look no further than the Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD.), ranking member of the committee, backed the draft order as a way to bring additional transparency to the contracting process, but found no support from committee chair Darrel Issa.  Cummings says, “I never thought I would see the day that our committee would view transparency as the enemy.”

The post Transparency has a cloudy future appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Document storage meets social media—with potentially positive effects for government transparency. At Scribd [don’t ask us how to pronounce it], you can upload and store large documents, avoid the burden of hosting huge files on your own website, and top it all off with a layer of social connectivity.

Scribd also allows you to research existing documents, download them, add them to your personal account and interact with other readers via commenting, ranking and sharing. All documents are indexed during the upload process, which makes them easier to find on Google and other search engines.

A click on the Scribd site yields links to a vast library of print materials, from business reports, recipes and polls, to how-to guides and spreadsheets. Topics range from a daycare newsletter, to a PowerPoint presentation on treating glaucoma, to the 1992 Dallas Cowboys playbook! Scribd’s technology enables the reader/uploader to maintain the original format of the document, so you see graphics, page formats and images as they were intended.

Scribd also features magazine articles and books. The service has struck deals with several major book publishers to publish content online. According to Wikipedia, these include Random House, Simon & Schuster, Workman Publishing Company, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Thomas Nelson, and Manning Publications. But before we unequivocally endorse the service, it should be noted that some uploads have been controversial, with some writers and publishers claiming copyright violations and forcing some “takedowns.”

That said, if Scribd’s convenient, accessible format were to become widely adopted in government circles, the potential could be an enormous boon to transparency.

The Sunlight Foundation, whose mission is to make government transparent and accountable, calls itself “a big fan of Scribd,” and says:

Many of us are sitting on files we’ve obtained through government offices, FOIA requests and other publicly available sources.  Hosting these files ourselves can be cost prohibitive, difficult for others to find and may exist in formats unusable to some.  Scribd takes the pain out of hosting and sharing these documents.

Every government office and agency, and every appointed and elected official needs to make public documents accessible to the public.  Posting these docs in an archaic format on a government server doesn’t exactly fulfill this civic duty, but when these documents are posted in a format that everyone (with an Internet connection) can use, download, share and comment on, well, that’s a different story.

Scribd’s high-volume traffic makes it a good fit for disseminating information about government activities and policies. According to technology reviewer Crunchbase:

The company claims more than 50 million readers every month and houses more than 10 million documents…Scribd’s document reader has been embedded more than 10 million times across the web, on sites like The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, and TechCrunch. More than 1.4 million searches happen on Scribd.com every day, and prominent users include Meg Whitman, Seth Godin, the FCC, World Economic Forum, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Lonely Planet, Harvard, Ford, Microsoft, the Red Cross.

Scribd’s self-proclaimed mission is “to liberate the printed word.” Perhaps, if used well, it could also help open up America’s democracy.

The post A YouTube for documents and government transparency appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Right-wing activists are doing a great job of whipping up anti-government sentiment—mostly based on fear-mongering and misinformation. In fact, however, even the most right-wing citizens depend on government services in their daily lives—although they’d be reluctant to admit to this reality. In this irrational political climate, you’d think that government agencies would be clamoring to get out their messages and clarify their roles in citizen’s lives.

Well, they are and they aren’t. On President Obama’s first full day in office, he released a memorandum spelling out his commitment to government transparency.  Unfortunately, according to a survey released on March 31, many government agencies still are doing a lousy job of communicating. But there’s good news from the survey, too: When the federal government communicates effectively and helps people understand what it does, citizens’ opinions of government improve.

According to a telephone survey of 1,000 adults, conducted earlier this year by Segal+Gale, a New-York-based company that specializes in “strategic branding:”

• Two-thirds of American adults (65%) say the U.S. government does not do a good job of communicating what benefits and services its agencies provide to its citizens Only one-third (34%) rate the government’s performance in this area as good.
• Americans tend to understand the basic functions of each agency, but many are unaware of the breadth of services they provide.
• When respondents were given specific information about agency programs, they were much more likely to recognize the impact the agencies have on their day-to-day lives and, more importantly, tend to view the agencies in a more positive light.
• When asked about six specific federal agencies – the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – opinions tend to be more positive. Yet while awareness of these agencies is high, (at least eight in ten have heard of each) the survey results suggest that few have a good understanding of the wide range of services that they offer.
• Among the six agencies, the FDA and the EPA are those that are best known, best liked and most perceived as having an impact on Americans’ daily lives.
• The agency viewed least favorably among the six is the FTC and there appears to be a good deal of confusion around the role that the FTC plays.
• While the Center for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) enjoys higher levels of familiarity and favorability among its beneficiaries than it does among the general public, 40% believe the agency has little or no impact on their day-to-day living.
• While those who have a driver’s license tend to have a better opinion of the NHTSA and to know it better in general than those who do not drive, awareness levels for specific NHTSA services are similar among drivers and non-drivers.
• Majorities view the TSA favorably and feel that it has an impact on their daily lives, though this is more common among more affluent adults. Few seem to recognize that the TSA’s responsibilities extend beyond airport security.

“This survey suggests that familiarity breeds affection,” says Siegel+Gale.  “Government agencies could significantly increase their perceived value by simply increasing their visibility and communicating more clearly with the American people. When government fails to communicate clearly, the social and economic costs can be considerable. When Americans can’t figure out how to answer U.S. Census questions, complete their tax forms, apply for student loans, qualify for small business assistance, or understand their Medicare and Social Security benefits, the economy suffers, revenues decline, and confidence in government takes a dive. The Obama Administration has an opportunity to change all that: when government provides applications that are easy to complete, disclosures that actually inform, and websites that are navigable and intelligible, this clarity and convenience sends a powerful message that our government is truly here to serve the people.”

The post Familiarity breeds affection for government services appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The White House has made some good moves toward increasing government transparency, but there’s still a lot more to be done.  Recent reports by the Associated Press and the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), give the White House mixed reviews in its effort to make good on President Obama’s campaign promise to shed more light on the inner workings of government. But even the harshest critics acknowledge that breaking down long-established barriers to government information is a monumental task in a town where traditions die reluctantly, where exclusive access to information is a tool of power, and where “need-to-know” is the insider’s mantra.

On the plus side, CRP gives the White House and Congress kudos for:

…[regularly releasing]  records of who is visiting the White House. The U.S. House now posts expenditure data online, and it’s becoming the norm for congressional leaders to release the final legislative language online for 72 hours before bills are voted upon.

CRP also notes other positive steps in the right direction, including:

.. an executive order on [President Obama’s] first day in office with new ethics rules, a later ban on lobbyists from serving on government advisory boards and a new rule to post contacts with special interests on federal agencies’ websites.

It’s a start, says CRP. Another major step forward is data.gov, whose self-stated purpose is “to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.” It’s a data-rich site, which recently added a blog where citizens can suggest improvements and additions.

On the debit side, the Associated Press reports that “one year into its promise of greater government transparency, the Obama administration is more often citing exceptions to the nation’s open records law to w.ithhold federal records, even as the number of requests for information declines.”  The AP’s report is based on a review of agency audits about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  According to the report,

“Obama’s directive, memorialized in written instructions from the Justice Department, appears to have been widely ignored.  Among the most frequently cited reasons for keeping records secret: one that Obama specifically told agencies to stop using so frequently—is the Freedom of Information Act exception, known as the “deliberative process” exemption, which lets the government withhold records that describe its decision-making behind the scenes.

Major agencies cited the exemption at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, up from 47,395 times during President George W. Bush’s final full budget year, according to annual reports filed by federal agencies. Obama was president for nine months in the 2009 period.

The administration has stalled even over records about its own efforts to be more transparent. The AP is still waiting – after nearly three months – for records it requested about the White House’s “Open Government Directive,” rules it issued in December directing every agency to take immediate, specific steps to open their operations up to the public.

The White House… described the directive as “historic,” but the Office of Management and Budget still has not responded to AP’s request under the Freedom of Information Act to review internal e-mails and other documents related to that effort.

Agencies won’t be able to stall much longer, says the White House, because they face an April 7 deadline to create new transparency plans. As reported in the National Journal, Norm Eisen, Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, says, “FOIA compliance is where [we have] seen the most improvement. The Department of Agriculture put in tracking technologies for FOIA requests; the Department of Defense retrained over 500 persons involved in FOIA request processing; and the Federal bureau of Investigation has changed policy to comply with requests.”

The government’s track record under the Freedom of Information Act is widely considered a principal measurement of how transparently it makes decisions.

CRP’s Sunshine Week report credits the Obama administration with making progress toward its transparency goals, but cautions the White House and Congress not to “rest on their laurels.”  The report gives simulated academic grades to issues of openness that still need to be addressed, including:  Senate campaign-finance reporting; 527 committees; campaign expenditures; personal financial disclosures; lobbying; donors to presidential libraries; and politicians’ ties to leadership PACS. CRP also offers handy guides to action for citizens, to help push the openness agenda forward.

Whether the Obama administration can follow through on its good intentions for openness in the Executive branch, and whether the President can influence Congress to do the same, remains an unanswered question. Let’s keep our eyes open.

The post White House lets some sunshine in, but still not enough appeared first on Occasional Planet.