Change Congress aims to bring reform candidates to congressional office

Change Congress is now open for business! Founded by Lawrence Lessig and Joe Trippi, Change Congress aims to find, debate with and win over congressional candidates on several reform issues. Citizens can get involved right away, by pledging their support for this cause, finding candidates in their districts, and asking them to pledge their support for these reforms. Join now!

Sphere: Related Content

National Freedom of Information Coalition conference May 9-10 2008 in Philadelphia

The NFOIC - National Freedom of Information Coalition - will hold its national conference on May 9 - 10, 2008, in Philadelphia, PA. Called the "2008 FOI Summit", it promotes an active and informed citizenry; your participation is vital.

Please visit the conference web page for all of the details.

Sphere: Related Content

Write a letter to the editor in support of Sunshine Week 2008

I wrote a short letter to the editor for my local newspaper. It is in celebration of Sunshine Week 2008, upcoming around the country next week. I invite you to do the same today, to get the word out on, perhaps, the most important issue of these times...

To: Editor, Abilene Reporter-News

In these times of peril, when our nation is under assault by a closed organization, we come to Sunshine Week 2008 March 16- 22. One of the great strengths of our own society has been openness; a national journalist association has founded this week of celebration. Many activities will take place around the country and in Washington, DC-- check them out at www.sunshineweek.org!

Sphere: Related Content

Write articles on Helium in celebration of Sunshine Week March 16 to 22, 2008

Sunshine Week 2008 has partnered with Helium to offer authors opportunities to write about open government and Freedom of Information.

Sunshine Week, which will be celebrated March 16-22, 2008, engages people in conversations about open government and why it must be nurtured and protected. A non-partisan, good-government initiative led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, it is joined by students, the online community, libraries, civic groups, government officials and agencies of all political stripe, non-profits and others.

Sunshine Week articles posted on Helium leverage the site's fair and trusted peer-review rating. Every article at Helium is sorted for quality in a simple, yet effective A versus B comparison. After many ratings by many people, quality content rises to the top.

Writers also have the opportunity to donate their article earnings to Sunshine Week.

Visit Sunshine week at Helium to write, learn and donate www.Helium.com/partner/sunshineweek.

Sphere: Related Content

Positions on open government and Freedom of Information issues by the three major presidential candidates

In October of 2007, the then 16 presidential candidates were asked their positions on open government and Freedom of Information issues. Only Bill Richardson answered all of the questions; John Edwards answered some. In response, researchers for the Sunshine Campaign for Sunshine Week 2008 compiled a web page of how the remaining three major presidential candidates-- John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama-- stand on these issues.

Sphere: Related Content

Sunshine Week 2008 Webcast March 29, 2008, 1 - 2:30 PM EDT

OpenTheGovernment.Org presents an internet webcast: "Sunshine Week 2008 Webcast: Government Secrecy: Censoring Your Right to Know". It will be held on March 19, 2008, 1 - 2:30 PM (EDT) Participate in person at the National Press Club in Washington DC, or Online Anywhere. Details for the event are here. Please register to watch or show the webcast; a fee is required if you also want to show it from your own physical location.


I. The Secret Executive -- What Can Congress and the Public Do?

Confirmed Speakers: Mickey Edwards, Director of the Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership and former Republican member of Congress from Oklahoma for 16 years (1977-92), Ann Beeson, Director of U.S. Programs at the Open Society Institute and previously Associate Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, and John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for American Progress, Chief of Staff to President William J. Clinton from October 1998 until January 2001, and formerly in senior staff positions in Congress, will discuss executive branch power and secrecy, congressional rights and responsibilities, and the role of the press in combating government secrecy. Patrice McDermott, Director of OpenTheGovernment.org, will moderate the discussion.

II. Citizen Self-Help: Finding the Information You Need

We will be visiting and talking with creators of web sites that help the public avoid having to file official requests or go to offices and meetings to learn what our government is doing. These sites make hard-to-find government information -- federal, state and local -- easy for the public to find and use and may inspire you to do likewise. A quick report will be given, as well, on an initiative to develop a 21st Century Right-to-Know agenda and recommendations for the next President and Congress.

In each segment, opportunities will be available for audience questions from all participants.

The event will be held in the Holeman Lounge of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C and webcast to sites around the country. A satellite downlink option will be available for a fee.

We're inviting you to host a program in your community! Participants are encouraged to show the national program and plan local programs tailored to open government issues in their communities.

Audience members at all sites viewing the live event will have an opportunity to call in (using any telephone) and email questions to our live panels. We will answer as many questions as time permits.

Sites are encouraged to show the national program and plan local programs tailored to open government issues in their communities. Audience members at all sites viewing the live event will have an opportunity to call in (using any telephone) and email questions to our live panels. We will answer as many questions as time permits.

Sphere: Related Content

Ask your local, state and federal candidates where they stand on open government

Sunshine Week, which is March 16-22, has begun compiling an unprecedented Web database that will chronicle the positions of candidates running for president and Congress on issues of government openness, access and secrecy.

Sunshine Week Campaign database planned

From David Westphal, and Pat Yack, co-chairs of ASNE's Freedom of Information Committee:

Sunshine Week has begun compiling an unprecedented Web database that will chronicle the positions of candidates running for president and Congress on issues of government openness, access and secrecy. We're calling this the Sunshine Campaign.

Our aim is a one-of-a-kind repository that will inform voters on where candidates stand, and will serve as a touchstone for measuring the winning candidates' performance in office.

We need your help in asking candidates their views on Freedom of Information issues. Many of you will have the chance, over the next 14 months, to grill candidates in editorial board meetings, debates, town-hall meetings and on-the-road reporting. We'd like to suggest that these are golden opportunities to ask what we think are among the most important questions of the campaign.

We've put together a list of questions we hope will get to as many candidates as possible, but we encourage you to formulate your own as well. We also hope you'll take this model and apply it to candidates at the state and local level.

We know there's never enough time to ask all the questions that need to be asked, but access to government information lies at the heart of our democracy. At a time when world events have prompted strong pleas from some to expand secrecy in government, it is fundamental to the public interest to know where the candidates stand — just as we need to know their views on war and peace, jobs and the economy.

Getting candidates to address openness issues is the big challenge. But we ask your help as well in getting their answers to Sunshine Week Coordinator Debra Gersh Hernandez, who will compile this searchable database. Simply e-mail transcripts or clips — from your reporting or from others' that you spot — to Deb at dghernandez@asne.org.

Visit Sunshineweek.org for more of the story.

Sphere: Related Content

Tell your Senators to vote YES on improved government transparency

.gov Watch blog reports a new government transparency bill: S2321, titled the "E-Government Reauthorization Act of 2007". It updates an earlier Act, and makes government wesites easier to search on search engines like Google. If you agree, please contact both of your U.S. Senators and tell them to vote YES on the bill.

.gov Watch says the following about this improvement in government searchability on the web:

Government information is about to become easier to find. By some estimates, 50% of all Government web pages on the Internet are invisible to search engines. By searching on Google, Yahoo, or MSN you are missing half of what your Government is posting online. Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs sent the E-Gov Reauthorization Act to the Floor. Besides renewing the original E-Gov Act for 5 years, it requires that "publicly available online Federal Government information and services are made more accessible to external search capabilities".

Sphere: Related Content

Tell your Congressmen YES to "plain language" government documents

Josh Tauberer writes in Legislative Analysis Community Blog at GovTrack that there's a bill in both houses of Congress mandating "plain language" government documents. The U.S. House bill is HR3548; the U.S. Senate's is S2291. If you agree with this legislation, please contact your Representative and two Senators and ask them to vote YES on the "Plain Language in Communications Act of 2007".

Here is what Mr. Tauberer says about this important bill for improved government openness and transparency:

We all know that government documents can be hard to understand. Tax forms and legalese befuddle the best of us. Finally, Congress is poised to pass good legislation to outlaw government gobbledygook.
The Plain Language in Government Communications Act of 2007 (HR3548/S2291) will require government agencies to write many future documents in plain language: language that is clear, concise, and easy to understand.
Specifically, it mandates plain language for new government documents related to:
Government requirements
Government programs
Obtaining government benefits
Obtaining government services

Sphere: Related Content

A call to citizenship and responsibility

The Progress Report has an interesting commentary by Ben Tanosborn, on today's "consentership" of the American people to our government. It is a cry to shake off the deferment of all the great issues of the day to our unresponsive government. Democracy lies in the hands of we, the people; it is our responsibility as citizens of this great nation to see that our government is honest and accountable, a truly-qualified representation of you and I.

I hope that All Things Reform is a step in the right direction, that we, the people are the ultimate owners of this country, that we are upholding our responsibility as its only constitutional owners. It is truly up to us.

Sphere: Related Content

The left column tools on this blog are now easier to use

I have further organized the link lists in the left column to make it easier to follow. The "Government Reform-Related Organizations" is now divided into three lists: "Electoral Reform Organizations", "Campaign Finance Organizations" and "Government Finance Organizations". This will also allow the user to see the correlations in the "Campaign Finance Databases" and "Government Finance Databases" lists below.

And don't forget another powerful tool for the citizen researcher: the search box for the three "Organization" lists-- for example, type in your Congressman's name to see articles from the different orgs. with his name mentioned; the more detailed your query, the more relevant your results. Follow that up with any of the "Databases" for more details. The search box also checks this blog's posts, and all incoming links on them.

These tools give you great background information for your next letter to your representative, or your next letter to the editor, be it your hometown paper or TIME magazine!

UPDATE: We are having a technical problem with the search box; I can only wait on Blogger to make the needed corrections.

Sphere: Related Content

Call U.S. Senators Bunning and McConnell for presidential records reform

Over the course of his one and a half terms as president, George W. Bush has written into law a record number of Executive Orders. These orders are solely the work of our president, yet there are some of them enacted that are very controversial to segments of the American public. OpenTheGovernment.org is running a netroots campaign to help overturn those that concern the openness of presidential records of the present and former presidents:

The Presidential Records Act, enacted in 1978 following the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Nixon, established that presidential records belong to the American people, not to the president. The Act gave custody of the records to the Archivist of the United States, established that records should be released to the public 12 years after the end of a presidential administration, and recognized presidential authority to assert executive privilege. On January 18, 1989, President Reagan, the first president to whom the Presidential Records Act applied, issued Executive Order 12667. The order established a process to deal with potential executive privilege claims.
In November 2001, President Bush issued Executive Order 13233, overturning the Reagan E.O. and giving current and former presidents and vice presidents broad authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely. E.O. 13233 requires the incumbent president to sustain the executive privilege claim of a former president unless a court order is issued to reject the claim. The E.O. also gives "designees" of the former president the right to assert privilege, allowing relatives and others to delay the release of the president's records. Also under the Bush E.O., the Archivist must wait for both the current and former president to review the records to be released, which could lead to indefinite stalling. As recently reported by the New York Sun, President Clinton is accusing the current Bush administration of delaying the release of the former president's records. In late September Mr. Clinton said, "I want to open my presidential records more rapidly than the law requires, and the current administration has slowed down the opening of my own records."
Legislation currently being held up in the Senate would nullify the Bush executive order and establish procedures for the timely release of records. The "Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007" (H.R. 1255; House Report 110-44) would reverse the Bush E.O. by establishing a deadline for the review of records, limiting the authority of former presidents to withhold records, requiring the president to make privilege claims personally, and eliminating the ability for Vice Presidents to assert executive privilege claims over vice presidential records. On March 14, 2007, by a vote of 333-93, the U.S. House of Representatives approved H.R. 1255. The legislation is currently being held up in the Senate by Sen. Jim Bunning [R-KY]. On September 24, Sen. Bunning objected to floor consideration of the bill, but did not state the reasons for his opposition.
On October 1, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected part of President Bush's 2001 executive order in a civil lawsuit filed by the American Historic Association. The judge struck down the section of the E.O. that allows a former president to indefinitely delay the release of records.
In comments on the Senate floor on October 15, Sen. Jeff Bingaman [D-NM], the sponsor of the Senate version of the bill (S. 866), spoke of the need to pass H.R. 1255. He said, "The people of this Nation hired the President. His work is undertaken on behalf of the people. Can anyone doubt that the Nation is made stronger and our Government and the electorate are better served by the study of the actions of past Presidents?"
TAKE ACTION: Call Sens. Bunning and McConnell to ask them to allow the presidential records reform bill (H.R. 1255) to come to the Senate floor for a vote.

Sphere: Related Content

No more replies from a couple of my representatives!

Well, I've lost touch with one of my U.S. Senators and my U.S. Representative. Not that they have stopped sending me multiple informational emails from their respective offices each week... Since last summer, all three of my federal representatives have just about stopped sending me any replies at any of my letters to them! Is anyone having the same responses lately?

This won't stop me at all from sending those personal letters from their website contact forms; nor, will I stop participating in selected public interest group "contact your Congressman" drives. However, they will know how increasingly dismayed I am as their owner, the American taxpayer.

Sphere: Related Content