The Obama administration announced Tuesday it will ditch regulations that subjected large portions of White House correspondence to public records requests, a decision derided by transparency advocates who wryly noted it was issued during a week celebrating open access to government.
The notice exempting the White House's Office of Administration from the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act was contained in Tuesday's Federal Register, reversing a three-decade-old policy during Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of the FOIA law.
Anne Weismann, interim executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), says the step "makes mockery of the administration’s commitment to transparency, especially given that it's Sunshine Week.”
“The White House has reversed a decades long practice of opening the files of [the Office of Administration] to the public,” she says. “Apparently they have abandoned even the appearance of transparency."
More @ U.S. News & World Report
No comments:
Post a Comment