Late last week, the administration released a status report on their open government efforts over the past two and half years. Impressive progress has been made because of the hard work of public employees across the federal government.

The Federal Times had an interesting piece last week on the contracting industry's reaction to a recent notice in the Federal Register seeking input on "how best to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to enable public posting of contract actions." Despite the FAR Councils' stated efforts to post contracts "without compromising contractors' proprietary and confidential commercial or financial information," industry executives are beside themselves over such a monumental change. Not surprisingly, their arguments against the idea don't hold much water.

Today, the DC Circuit court reissued an opinion in Public Citizen v. OMB that rejected the agency’s use of exemptions 2 and 5 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  OMB had attempted to withhold information from Public Citizen that detailed which agencies submit materials to Congress without clearance by OMB.  This court case adds an important legal support to the FOIA practice of discretionary disclosure.

Back when the Recovery Board released the Recovery.gov redesign contract, many in the transparency community were upset at the extent to which the General Services Administration redacted the contract. While we certainly expected General Services Administration (GSA) - the agency which conducts most of the federal government's procurement - to redact proprietary information, the document had massive swaths blacked out, including such ridiculous sections as the number of peak users and one part titled "Introduction."