I recently wrote a critical comment on Philipp’s blog entry on a note by Ed Felten. Click here to read the original blog post. It dealt with the understanding of open government and transparency, and how outreach is only one side of the 2.0 coin. On the thought of politics and the web 2.0 “bandwagon” – as I called it – I wrote:

“The danger within politics jumping on the web 2.0 bandwagon is clearly that governments and politicians will use these tools to keep the citizens at bay. While we are busy watching Merkel’s video blog and reading Guembel’s tweets, we don’t ask questions at the same time. Very convenient for the politicians and we’ll see more of that. Bread and games 2.0”

Here is why I am so skeptical about the way governments and politicians are employing the tools of the world wide web. In many cases, the effects are rather negligible. Clearly, what Felten calls “outreach” is a marked improvement in how citizens are being informed about politics. Yet the real decisions are still made behind closed curtains, and no matter how much citizens know about what politicians seem to be doing, as long as they do not get a say in it, what is the point? Transparency does not solely come from knowledge, it comes from empowerment. Only when the public is in a position to use the information gained towards political ends, does it server a real democratic purpose. All too often it appears to me that politicians’ blogs, twitter messages and Facebook profiles are nothing more than entertainment, to keep us busy and occupied, so we forget what is really at stake. Like the games in ancient Rome. Bread and games for the masses. Laugh, applaud, cheer, but don’t question. Public actors need to step out of the shadow of bread and games 2.0 and start employing these tools to real purposes. Barack Obama’s new open government directives sound fantastic, but will U.S. citizens get real change, or just twice the amount of PDF files and blog posts? Time to rethink the client (more on that right here).

Sebastian Haselbeck is a graduate student at the Erfurt School of Public Policy and webmaster of the Center for Public Management and Governance.

I started working at the National Security Archive in 2001 requesting information related to US foreign policy in Latin America to one of the most secretive administrations in American history. Asking for government records was not easy – to begin with, backlogs plagued the system (with requests related to Mexico being responded in an average of 2 years, although the Freedom of Information Act clearly states that agencies have 20 days to comply). Furthermore, the administration issued clear guidelines that encouraged government officials to withhold information: the President rewrote the Executive Order on Classified National Security Information, removing a section that instructed agencies to declassify information if they doubted it merited to be classified. Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a Memorandum on Freedom of Information in May 2001 encouraging agencies to: “carefully consider the protection” of national security when making disclosure decisions under the FOIA.

Increased transparency and government accountability were key commitments of Obama’s presidential campaign. More than sixty organizations, among them the National Security Archive, called on President-elect Obama to fulfill campaign promises and to: “restore efficiency and openness to the Freedom of Information Act process, reform the classification system to reduce overclassification and facilitate greater declassification, and ensure that presidential records are handled in accordance with the law and Congress’ intent”. On day one in office, President Barack Obama issued a memo on FOIA which directs all agencies to “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure” and apply this presumption “to all decisions involving FOIA.” President Obama also made clear that “the government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.” Moreover Attorney General Eric Holder issued a Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act last month, where he encourages agencies to: “make discretionary disclosures of information” and clearly specifies that “an agency should not withhold records merely because it can demonstrate, as a technical matter, that the records fall within a scope of a FOI exemption.”

Now, the challenge for openness advocates is to put the new transparency guidelines to the test.

In December 2008, in partnership with journalist Manuel Mora MacBeath, the Archive requested information related to the activities of Mexican right-wing organizations in the 70s. To our surprise, last March we got a response from the CIA (after 3 months not 2 years) to two specific requests informing us that the agency could “neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence” of the records pertaining our request because of “the fact of the existence or nonexistence” of the requested records is classified. Our request was denied pursuant to FOIA exemptions (b) (1) and (b) (3) related to national security and information identifying personnel in sensitive units.

Yesterday, we filed an appeal to the CIA’s Release Panel arguing that records related to the right-wing organizations mentioned in the request have been already disclosed in Mexico. Intelligence records from the Mexican Federal Security Directorate (Dirección Federal de Seguridad) regarding these groups’ activities are available for public access at the Mexican National Archives and have been mentioned in countless publications, including the bestseller by journalist Álvaro Delgado “El Yunque: The Radical Right in Power”. The fact that the information regarding these organizations is publicly available in Mexico, and is no longer considered sensitive, lead us to question how the release of information related to them would affect the current national security of the United States. Furthermore, in the past the Archive has successfully obtained records from the CIA related to activities of other Mexican dissident groups during the same time period.

In our appeal, of course, we quoted the Obama and Ashcroft directives – let us see how well all the discourse is put into practice. I will keep you posted on any new developments on the case!

*The CIA denial generated front-page news in León Guanajuato (a right-wing stronghold), you can view the article here: http://www.am.com.mx/Nota.aspx?ID=320127. More information on this case is also available at Manuel Mora’s blog: http://mejoroficio.blogspot.com.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT:      Transparency and Open Government

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.

BARACK OBAMA