Transparency Pledge, January 21, 2009

[Amelia]

To be sure, issues like personal privacy and national security must be treated with the care they demand. But the mere fact that you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean you should always use it. The Freedom of Information Act is perhaps the most powerful instrument we have for making our government honest and transparent, and of holding it accountable. And I expect members of my administration not simply to live up to the letter but also the spirit of this law.

I will also hold myself as President to a new standard of openness. Going forward, anytime the American people want to know something that I or a former President wants to withhold, we will have to consult with the Attorney General and the White House Counsel, whose business it is to ensure compliance with the rule of law. Information will not be withheld just because I say so. It will be withheld because a separate authority believes my request is well grounded in the Constitution.

Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.

Remarks of the President in Welcoming Senior Staff and Cabinet Secretaries to the White House | The White House



In light of recent moves related to the FOIA and responses to subpoenas, it begs the question, how hard is it to get the White House Counsel and the Attorney General to agree to whatever the president wants?

 

[ladyliberal]

This was an obvious concern well before the recent subpoenas. White House Counsels are often political partisans who act as advocates rather than as advisers. It is difficult to imagine a WHC advising a president that he is required to turn over documents when the legal case is at all ambiguous.

One rather suspect opinion from a WHC was Gonzalez's approving several new arguably torturous techniques for use by the CIA. The last time I know of that a WHC proved any check at all on a President was when Leonard Garment managed to persuade Nixon to eschew certain blatantly illegal tactics during Watergate. Hopefully, though, the American people won't elect someone so blatantly criminal in the future.

 

[Amelia]

From the same date, I think.

Freedom of Information Act | The White House

A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike.

The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. .....