A step toward openness

A step toward openness

Miami Herald: President Barack Obama took a long step forward recently to fulfill a promise of greater transparency in government by mandating a 180-degree change in the handling of Freedom of Information requests. Attorney General Eric Holder directed all agencies to act on the presumption that documents should be released, rather than finding a pretext to keep the information secret. “In the face of doubt, openness prevails,” he said.

This reverses the policy put in place by former Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2001, which treated requests for information as hostile attempts to obtain public records.

This does not mean everything the government knows is now public information. Exceptions will be made if any agency “reasonably foresees that the disclosure would harm an interest” protected by one of the exemptions to release or if it is prohibited by law.

Still, it puts the onus on bureaucrats to show why they can’t comply.