OMB Watch's Information and Access program released a very good article in this week's Watcher summarizing a new report from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) on the need for more independent Inspector General's offices in the federal government. The article and POGO's report are well worth a read for anyone concerned with recent trends among IG offices. Recent instances OMB Watch has reported on that are cause for concern include:

• The Central Intelligence Agency conducting an investigation of its own IG while that office reviewed the agency's detention practices;
• The General Services Administration dramatically cutting its IG office's budget; and
• The IG for NASA destroying documents and interfering in a federal investigation.

These ongoing problems across several agencies serve to reinforce the problems outlined in the POGO report. Many of the recommendations contained in the POGO report, as well as the improvements sought by a few different pieces of pending legislation, would directly address many of these problems. All that's left is for Congress to act.