Over on the White House blog, Beth Noveck, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government, writes that the administration is officially ending the “brainstorming” portion of its Open Government Dialogue process tonight at midnight. Noveck states that the administration will begin reviewing the submissions for preparation of the “discussion” phase which begins on June 3rd.  The brainstorming phase, however, was incredibly short and wrought with problems which I will outline below.  I only hope that the administration’s subsequent steps in the process represent dramatic improvements.

On May 21, President Obama gave a speech defending his administration’s controversial positions on national security and transparency.  Despite his campaign promise to bring change and accountability along with greater transparency, some open government advocates have been worried that his actions have not lived up to the hype.

Last week I wrote about the short-sighted decision by House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN) not to require members to disclosure their earmark requests for the 2009 Transportation reauthorization bill. As I noted, this decision is a step backward in the House on earmark transparency and disclosure - as the Appropriations committees have adopted more strict disclosure protocols for all appropriations bills this year. Despite this setback, there is good news to report this week.