Watchdog Group Gives Obama Mixed Grade On Government Openness

An annual report card on secrecy in the federal government indicates the Obama administration has taken promising steps toward becoming the most open White House ever, while still criticizing the new president for spending billions of dollars creating and securing classified material, according to the authors of the study.

"The elections of 2008 were viewed by many as a referendum on the secrecy and unaccountability of the Bush administration, and the country elected a president who has promised the most open, transparent and accountable federal executive branch in history. The record to date is mixed, but some indicators are trending in the right direction," said Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment. The study's authors noted agency reported statistics on compliance with the Freedom of Information Act should become easier to compare because departments now are submitting their results in file formats that Web tools can analyze. The Obama administration also changed the way agencies count secrets that are exchanged via e-mail to more accurately reflect the amount of classified material produced. Tallies now must also include messages that forward classified content to additional parties or reply to senders of classified material. Previously, agencies were not asked to measure what are called derivative classification actions.

McDermott said by not including classified e-mail messages in past reports, the Bush administration greatly understated the amount of classified material in the federal government. Still, the Obama administration spent a substantially larger amount of money on securing secrets than declassifying them, according to the report card.