White House Issues Status Report on Open Government Initiatives

The White House released a status report today on its various open government initiatives.  Highlights include the following:

• FOIA.  The White House reports that its efforts to increase responses to FOIA requests, improve proactive FOIA disclosures, and develop a better FOIA infrastructure have been successful and are continuing.
• Open Government Initiative.  The report gives an update on the administration's Open Government Initiative, which includes the Open Government Directive and agency Open Government plans.
• Data.gov.  The White House reports that Data.gov, it's two-year-old effort to put various agency data sets in one accessible location and on a single platform, has been successful and has yielded some innovative private initiatives to share information.
• Transparency in Spending.  The report updates on administration efforts to increase transparency in how it spends taxes.
• Classified Information.  The White House reports that it has revamped the process for classifying and declassifying government information, resulting in less unnecessary classifications and greater disclosure.
• White House Information.  The report updates on greater transparency in White House information, e.g., publicizing the daily schedule, tax returns, financial disclosure forms, and visitor logs, among other information.

SDS