Vernieuwing mentaliteit regeringen

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Zou die PvdA politicus, die (op een verzoek om meer middelen voor een
politieke partij) zo snedig verwees naar de manier en bedragen die Obama
via het web ophaalde, ook zo enthousiast zijn om deze maatregelen te
implementeren?

Transparency and Open Government
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies Subject
► The White House / Office of the Press Secretary / by Barack Obama
Jan 22 2009 ► Jan 21, My Administration is committed to creating an
unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to
ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public
participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy
and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent
Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens
about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the
Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take
appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose
information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.
Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put
information about their operations and decisions online and readily
available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also
solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the
public.

Government should be participatory
Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the
quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and
public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge.
Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased
opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their
Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and
information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public
input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public
participation in Government.

Government should be collaborative
Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government.
Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods,
and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of
Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals
in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit
public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to
identify new opportunities for cooperation.

I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director
of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of
General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive
departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open
Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs
executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing
the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies
should comply with the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or
benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a
party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities,
its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
==========================================================
January 23, 2009
Editorial NYT
The President Orders Transparency

President Obama wasted no time in moving to roll back the Bush
administration’s disgraceful strictures on open government.

In a welcome series of orders, Mr. Obama directed federal agencies to err
on the side of transparency, not the Bush-era default of secrecy and
delay, in releasing records to the public. He also undid the executive
order signed by President George Bush that lets past presidents and vice
presidents sit indefinitely on potentially embarrassing records that
belong in the public domain.

And Mr. Obama issued some of the toughest limitations yet on the power of
lobbyists to influence government from within. Under the new rules, anyone
who leaves the Obama administration will be barred from lobbying the
executive branch for the remainder of Mr. Obama’s time in office, rather
than the yearlong ban Mr. Bush employed. In addition, no one may serve in
the Obama administration if he or she lobbied an executive agency in the
preceding two years.

The new president’s actions provided a burst of executive sunshine that
Washington badly needs. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama already wants to make an
exception for William Lynn, a former lobbyist for the defense contractor
Raytheon, to become deputy secretary of defense. Mr. Lynn, a respected
Pentagon official in the Clinton administration, has the right résumé —
except that he was a lobbyist until last year. This clearly violates the
mint-new standard, especially since the Pentagon job is so wide-ranging
that recusal on specific issues is impossible.

The White House is hoping for Senate approval nevertheless, arguing that
while the president sought the firmest ethics rules, he also believes that
“any standard is not perfect,” that “a waiver process that allows people
to serve their country is necessary.” Maybe the Senate will concur that
Mr. Lynn is “uniquely qualified” and a waiver is justified. But this is
not an ideal first test of Mr. Obama’s exemplary rules. Voters who heeded
the president’s campaign message of openness must demand any exceptions to
be few and far between.

This is particularly true for Mr. Obama’s order reversing a memo from Mr.
Bush’s Department of Justice that hobbled agencies in fulfilling the
Freedom of Information Act’s promise of accountability. A healthy
democracy needs to know what is going on in its government. Small wonder
historians instantly hailed Mr. Obama’s reversal of Mr. Bush’s order,
which gave veto power to past presidents, vice presidents and their heirs
over which executive archives are made public.

President Obama’s new orders go well beyond the standards of his
predecessors, particularly in shutting, not slowing, the revolving-door
path from well-connected government veteran to high-salaried corporate
lobbyist. The promise of transparency is heartening (though the Obama
White House’s initial opening day action in crimping photographers’
traditional access to ceremonies was not). The president has vowed “a
clean break from business as usual,” with transparency at the core. The
nation welcomes this promise and will be tracking its fulfillment.

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