Open-government activists typically work to bring the bureaucracy into broad daylight, but for one week every year, they focus the spotlight on their own doings to educate the public about government secrecy.
During this year's Sunshine Week, which began Sunday and ends Saturday, the champions of transparency are drafting mock open-government bills, staging online town halls and introducing legislation to mandate change.
OMB Watch Executive Director Gary Bass, who will be a key player in the annual campaign, said the week will be "brighter" this year under the new congressional leadership and with Congress' heightened oversight.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has rallied for online democracy since the dawn of the Internet, when in 1996, the then-Rep. Pelosi took to the House floor in opposition of a proposal that would have granted the majority party control of all committee home pages. "The minority, regardless of the party, has a right to be heard," she said. "I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule and support a free and open government."
As evidence of increased bipartisan oversight, Bass noted that Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., "who could never get together on anything," recently joined forces to push into law a bill that will create a search engine of federal spending. The first stage of the database went online Monday.
Steven Clift, the board chairman of E-Democracy.org, said he hopes Sunshine Week "will help people remember not to take for granted what we fought for in the past." Clift will post to his Web log a draft outline of his Minnesota Digital Democracy Act, which will include items mandating more proactive dissemination of information to the public via the Internet.
"If a city manager sends a memo to a majority of the city council, that should automatically be on the public Web," he said. The bill also will call for an online directory of all public officials, with full contact information "right down to dog catcher." And Clift wants to see legislative committees create Web spaces for hosting weeklong public discussions.
Expectations for increased transparency in the federal government are higher this year in part, due to the evolution of online social networks and downloadable audio known as podcasts, Clift said. "If every committee meeting is not publicly webcast and archived" in two years, "then our Congress is not moving forward," he said. "As long as they do audio, I'm happy. ... Audio is much more portable [than video]."
He noted some projects happening now that are aimed at forcing ajar congressional doors. In late February, for instance, the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation started OpenCongress.org, a Web site that will combine official government data with news and blog coverage "to give you the real story behind what's happening in Congress."
Earlier that month, the Sunlight Foundation started the Open House Project to study how the House can integrate the Internet into daily operations.
The bipartisan effort has brought together heavy-hitters from the blogosphere, including Matt Stoller of MyDD. The participants will write a report and present it to Pelosi in March. She has publicly pledged her support of the project.
The tone of Sunshine Week will change this year, Clift said, "but I'll be waiting to see that the substance changes as well."
Some lawmakers will be encouraging such substantive changes in Congress to mark Sunshine Week. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, on Tuesday reintroduced legislation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act. The committee also will hold a hearing March 14 to focus on the legislation.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee already reported a bill March 6 to help enforce lapsed open-government laws.
OMB Watch's Bass said he is particularly vexed about the online secrecy imposed after the 2001 terrorist attacks, when Bush administration officials directed federal agencies to scrub their Web sites of sensitive data that could possibly aid terrorists. The order failed to define the scope of sensitive information, leading to an alphabet soup of acronyms for non-disclosure, Bass said.
On Monday, Bass spoke at the National Press Club as part of a dialogue on open government moderated by Ira Flatow, host of NPR's "Science Friday." The program, which was webcast to events across the country, highlighted the suppression and manipulation of scientific information on public health and safety.
