Read the best published op-eds on the need for open government and threats to information access collected by OMB Watch, OpenTheGovernment.org, and our allies. Permission is granted for free reprinting of any of these articles, provided it credits the author and includes this attribution: "© 2004, distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services." Court struggles with privacy issue in Vincent Foster suicide case By Martin Halstuk Ever since White House deputy counsel Vincent Foster, a close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, was found dead by gunshot in a Washington-area park a decade ago, some on the political right have claimed foul play. Several official investigations concluded that Foster committed suicide. Still, one of the murder theorists sued to obtain the death scene and autopsy photos in order to conduct an independent investigation. Foster's family and the government, meanwhile, counter-sued to block disclosure of some of the photos on ground their release would invade the family's privacy. Dec/05/2003 Download Government must come clean on energy bill By Chellie Pingree, Common Cause It is no secret that Americans need and want a new energy policy. Recent events -- including the August blackouts that affected tens of millions of people in the Northeast and Midwest, and the California energy crisis of 2001 -- have made that point abundantly clear. So if Americans want a balanced, reliable energy system that benefits consumers, boosts our economy and protects the environment, why do Congress and the Bush administration insist on developing an energy policy as though it were a top-secret military strategy? Oct/31/2003 Download Security act blocks citizens from getting information they need By Chellie Pingree, Common Cause More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote that "reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. ... If it be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged." Yet, at the beginning of the 21st century, we face a government seemingly intent on limiting the "free inquiry" of its citizens. The phrase "we don't want information to get in the hands of the terrorists," has become a mantra for drawing a curtain around public information. Oct/02/2003 Download Bureau of Prisons uses a sledgehammer where FOIA demands a finer instrument By Marka Peterson, Public Citizen Litigation Group Fifteen years ago the Supreme Court decided in Department of Justice v. Julian that prison inmates are entitled to obtain copies of their pre-sentence investigation reports under the Freedom of Information Act. The Federal Bureau of Prisons, an arm of the Department of Justice, recently decided to ignore that decision by adopting a blanket policy that prisoners are prohibited from obtaining copies of their pre-sentence reports. On the basis of this new policy, the bureau has uniformly denied prisoners' FOIA requests for their pre-sentence reports. Aug/06/2003 Download Public disclosure of medical errors By Amanda Frost, Public Citizen Litigation Group After Doris Shipp died of cancer in June 1999, her husband, David, informed the Department of Health and Human Services that he feared that her doctors had provided inadequate care that may have led to her death. Mrs. Shipp's treatment had been paid for by Medicare, the federal insurance program that provides medical coverage for Americans age 65 and over. July/16/2003 Download The business secrets that undermine our national security By Michael Tankersley, Public Citizen Litigation Group More than 90 percent of the facilities that are considered critical to defending our country from a crippling attack by criminals, hostile foreign governments or terrorists are controlled by private businesses. These so-called "critical infrastructures" include transportation systems, energy and water production and distribution facilities, and the computer and telecommunications systems that are vital to financial transactions, trade and law enforcement. July/9/2003 Download Why government secrecy won't make us safe By Danielle Brian Project On Government Oversight Since the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks, the Bush administration and Congress have expanded the kinds of documents and information that are withheld from the public in order to protect national security. Of most concern is the Homeland Security Act that may put excessive amounts of information about chemical, nuclear and other privately owned facilities out of public reach. Equally troubling has been the Bush administration's obsession with secrecy in the form of threats to prosecute whistleblowers. July/2/2003 Download Restore America's freedom of information By Sens. Patrick Leahy and Carl Levin Increased government secrecy has become a serious concern for Americans across the nation and across the political spectrum, sparking calls for greater openness from groups as diverse as the Eagle Forum and the ACLU. The Bush administration has made secrecy, not sunshine, its default position, whether the issue is industry input to the national energy policy, the names of those detained after the Sept. 11 attacks, or potential vulnerabilities in the nation's infrastructure. Secrecy has its place, but governments are always tempted to overuse the "secret" stamp. When that happens, it can come at the cost of the public's stake in such other values as safety or clean air and water. June/25/2003 Download Balancing privacy & accountability: What to do about tax returns By Alan B. Morrison, Public Citizen Litigation Group My tax return is my business and no one else's -- aside from the Internal Revenue Service and my wife who also signs it. How much I earn (or don't earn) is for us alone to know, as is how much we claim for medical expenses, pay on a mortgage, or give to charity. Having to tell the government all this information so that it can check to see whether I pay enough taxes is one thing, but allowing others to have access is quite another. That is why Congress has a long-standing statute that forbids the IRS from releasing any information about the tax return of any individual. June/18/2003 Download U.S. undermining openness by cutting off access to the courts By Brian Wolfman, Public Citizen Congress understands that when it creates important rights, the only way to make those laws a reality is to encourage people to go to court when their rights have been violated. Many of the civil rights, pro-consumer and "open government" laws of the 1960s and '70s have "fee-shifting" provisions. This includes the Freedom of Information Act -- the law that generally requires the federal government to make its records public. Under these laws, when someone has to sue to make the government (or some other violator) obey the law, the losing defendant has to pay the winner's attorneys' fees -- in contrast to most cases, where each side pays its own legal costs. June/4/2003 Download Public not served by unnecessary secrecy By Charles N. Davis, director of the Freedom of Information Center, University of Missouri School of Journalism Much has been said and written about the current administration's deep and abiding love affair with secrecy, its all-abiding desire to keep the public's business to itself. Long before the events of Sept. 11, 2001, provided it with a convenient catchall excuse for hiding its actions from public scrutiny, ours was a government enamored with classification for classification's sake. The media have done a fine job of chronicling the abuses of the last couple of years, from secret detentions of Muslim-Americans to back-office war planning conducted by non-elected policy warriors saddled by onerous conflicts of interest and the top-secret, rigged "bidding" for post-conflict reconstruction contracts in Iraq. All of this has transpired without so much as a yawn from most members of Congress, who question the propriety of the administration's fraternity meeting style of government at their own perceived peril. May/28/2003 Download Trade without transparency By Amanda Frost, Public Citizen Over the last decade the United States has been the standard-bearer in an open government revolution that has led dozens of countries to adopt laws requiring "transparency" in government decision-making. Yet, when it comes to international trade agreements, the United States accepts a system in which policy decisions that must be reached in full public view at home can be reversed by bureaucrats who operate in secrecy and are not accountable to anyone. This runs completely counter to the American ideal of openness. May/21/2003 Download New executive order means more secrecy By Alan B. Morrison, Public Citizen Litigation Group On March 25, 2003, President Bush issued Executive Order 13,292 on classifying documents for reasons of national security. To the surprise of no one, keeping secrets is now easier than it was before. Although the changes are subtle, every one of them will lead to more secrecy. No one disputes that the government may keep information from the public for defense and foreign affairs reasons and that the president and those who work for the executive branch need to decide the appropriate standards for classifying and declassifying documents. The key issue is how tough should they be, and the Bush administration's answer is "Very." May/07/2003 Download