Doing this assignment I stumbled upon the Austin American-Statesman's Secrecy Files where they report the growing trend in the US Government toward closing off the public from the real dealings of the US Government.
In the Secrecy Files, there is a cool story about President Bush's attempts to cripple a new law that would strengthen the already enacted Freedom of Information Act.
With this, it would appear that Senators John Cornyn(R-Texas) and Patrick Leahy(D-Vermont) drafted a piece of legislation titled the OPEN Government Act (OPEN is an acronym for Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National [Government]). This piece of legislation would create a new government agency titled the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) who would be responsible for resolving disputes between people exercising their rights under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the agencies who resist their lawful requirements through an individual known as the FOIA Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman is crucially important because this office would assume the resolution responsibilities currently resting at the Department of Justice who is also responsible for representing the agencies in the disputes. This action and this position would clear up a huge and messy conflict of interest and would actually be in the best interest of the citizenry, if you can imagine that.
As one should expect, President Bush line item vetoed the ombudsman position relegating this duty back to the Department of Justice and ensuring that the people who represent the non-compliant agencies are effectively the same folks who decide whether or not they have to comply with the law.
Oh, and for the record: Senators Cornyn and Leahy scored some not-so-blatantly-corrupt points today. Way to go guys!
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