Category: government transparency

Categories
government transparency

Grading the President

Barack Obama promised a new era of government transparency. He even pledged a fully transparent congressional debate on health care reform, telling us repeatedly that the negotiations would be televised on C‑Span.

Now in power, he’s forgotten that tune. But of course, that’s not up to him. It’s up to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Last week, she laughed at such transparency.

But Clint Hendler of the Columbia Journalism Review has graded the president for what he — not Pelosi or Reid — can deliver on transparency. Regarding state secrets, Hendler gives Obama a “D.” With Freedom of Information Act requests the administration has done better: Mark it a “B.”

I’ve talked before about problems with the recovery​.gov website. But what about data​.gov? By the end of the month there should be some meat on that site’s database bones, but a lot more work will remain. Call it a “D‑plus.”

Hendler gives an “F” to the White House’s routine — and utterly opaque — practice of concocting off-​the-​record background briefings. An “A‑minus,” though, goes for White House visitor records … despite a refusal to issue lists of visitors in the administration’s first seven months. Further, the White House reserves its right to hold back this info at any time.

The president’s grades sure aren’t that of an overachiever. Maybe he needs a tutor.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency responsibility

What Would Confucius Say?

House Resolution 784, proposed to honor the twenty-​five-​hundred-​sixtieth anniversary of the birth of Confucius, received a No vote from Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake.

Why?

Honorable Flake say ‘He who spends time passing trivial legislation may find himself out of time to read healthcare bill.’

He has a point, and it’s worth than a fortune-​cookie presentation.

I am pretty sure Master K’ung-tzu, whom we call Confucius, would side with Flake. It is more important actually to do good deeds than honor the ancient wisdom of a foreign culture, or its chief exemplar.

It’s not bad to honor such an ancient one as Master Kung. But if everything else you do rubs against the Confucian grain, what does that say?

Take just one issue. Congress continues to obsess about executive salaries, and in effect has given the current administration the green light to fix salaries.

But as economist Arnold Kling has noticed, this is all a distraction. ‘The substantive issue is the extent to which [recent market] losses were caused by political actions and the extent to which they are concentrated at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.… Given the large role of Freddie and Fannie, it makes sense for politicians to create as large a diversion as possible. Hence, the brouhaha over bonuses at bailed-​out banks.’

Very un-​Confucian, such shifting of blame.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

Steal This Free Document

Is it possible to steal a free good? Ask a lawyer. She’ll look it up, probably in federal court records.

Now, our federal courts use a not-​very-​user-​friendly database system, known as PACER, for distributing public records. These records are the work product of democracy. Federal law prohibits copyrighting the information, making it public property. But the PACER system nevertheless requires lawyers and others who want to access court decisions to plunk out eight cents per page to get them.

Worse than this, the database isn’t keyword searchable.

Enter the geeks.

In a free market, a potential demand meets supply by the entrepreneurial minded. In this case, it’s just the freedom-​minded, the transparency-​minded. Some Harvard and Princeton affiliated computer whizzes developed a new tool or two to retrieve these documents little pieces at a time, planning to place them in a truly searchable system.

And then the courts opened the records to law libraries without charge, and one hacker wrote a PERL script and started downloading the whole database, in huge, streaming chunks.

Half a month later someone noticed. Egads, someone was stealing free information!

The FBI investigated, started following the infiltrator.

So, what do you do when someone steals public information? Exactly what the FBI determined, in the end.

Yes, sometimes “nothing” is the proper response.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability government transparency

Cuz You Constituents Work for Me!

This summer, many congressmen held town-​hall meetings about health care and other hot political topics.

Sometimes they were not entirely statesmanlike. Clips of their more embarrassing moments now reside on YouTube. For instance, you can watch Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee chat on a cellphone while a constituent is asking her a question — taking rudeness to congressional levels.

Congressman Baron Hill was determined to avoid this sort of thing. He wasn’t going to be on YouTube in any “compromising position,” not him. So he actually tried to ban any videotaping of his event. I kid you not. The evidence is on, uh, YouTube:

Constituent: “ — why can’t I film this? Isn’t this my right?”

Hill: “Well, this is my town-​hall meeting, and I set the rules, and I’ve had these rules— 

“Let me repeat that one more time! This is my town-​hall meeting for you. And you’re not going to tell me how to run my congressional office! Now, the reasons why I don’t allow filming is because usually the films that are done end up on YouTube in a compromising position.”

Oh, those pesky constituents!

Anyway, sir, too late. The technology is out there. The genie won’t go back in the bottle. Every audience you ever face will include folks who can record your words. With that in mind, you might want to, uh, watch your words from here on out. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency insider corruption

Setting the Jet-​Setting Record Straight

The media has falsely reported that Congress bought itself three new corporate jets at a price of $200 million to jet-​set across the globe, without even a shred of transparency as to who requested this earmarked spending.

It’s not true. One of those jets was requested by the military. Congress really only bought two new corporate jets at a price of only $132 million. 

Yes, after enviously berating auto company CEOs last year for daring to use jets their companies had already purchased, our legislators have the unmitigated gall to one-​up them by buying new jets to jet-​set about in.

You might ask which politicians are responsible for this gross excess. The leaders of Congress, the Speaker and Majority and Minority Leaders, are most likely to use these aircraft. But who actually made the request is being kept from We the People.

Because this spending gets called a “program increase” rather than an “earmark,” this insertion into the Defense budget can remain secret.

Steve Ellis, with Taxpayers for Common Sense, laments that “The more you push for transparency, the more of this stuff goes underneath the carpet.” He called the Appropriations Committee “the judge, jury and executioner over what is an earmark and what isn’t and how much information we get.”

So much for transparency. The only thing transparent in Washington is the arrogance and greed of our so-​called leaders.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency judiciary

The Judges, the Lawyers, and the People

In legal circles, when folks think of Missouri, they think of the “Missouri Plan.” Seventy years ago, Missouri instituted a new method of selecting judges, especially the judges that sit on the state’s supreme court. The plan was copied by many other states. 

It is beloved by the insiders.

A few years ago, I wrote at Townhall​.com: “[T]he Missouri Bar has something of a lock on the whole process.… It’s supposed to be non-​partisan. Bottom line is that lawyers are in control.”

A judicial commission controlled by the state bar association picks the judges that the governor must then pick from — with the bulk of the commission’s work done behind closed doors.

Missourians are shocked when informed how the process works. So are folks in other states that have adopted the Missouri Plan. It isn’t transparent and it puts key decision-​making on judges in the hands of an unelected special interest.

But things may be looking up. A group called Better Courts for Missouri submitted paperwork to start a new petition. The group aims to gather enough signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2010, to open up the system, make it more transparent.

Legislative attempts to change the system have failed. Generally, politically powerful lawyers are for a plan that lets lawyers have the biggest say.

Well, now they are up against competition. The people.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.