good morning the committee will come to order the oversight committee's mission statement reads as follows we exist to secure two fundamental principles first americans have the right to know that the money that washington takes from them is well spent and second americans deserve an efficient effective government that works for them our duty on the government oversight and reform committee is to protect these rights our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government we will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy this is the mission of the oversight and government reform committee today's hearing falls exactly within our mission statement and is in fact the heart of our statement bureaucratic accountability is in fact a growing problem in america at a time in which we would hope that data transparency websites that can be automatically populated with information day in and day out so that americans seamlessly search for information they have a right to know should be a given but it most information requested and seldom properly granted should be available on line in real time this committee will have to work with this and future administrations to break down the silos that have for so long caused the closing even of financial information to be done generally by tens or hundreds of bureaucrats retyping and re inputting data or data centers manipulating data from divergent databases today we will hear about the president's issued executive order directing federal agencies to disclose more information and disclose it more rapidly and to reduce the backlog for this we commend the president just this week john podesta the man who managed the president's transition team stated his disappointment in how the administration has thus far implemented foia procedures indeed transparency is often the victim of electoral success every inspiring presidential candidate promises voters to inaugurate a new era of open government upon his election but nearly every administration and if this hadn't been written for me i might have said every administration proceeds to delay redact or deny foia requests when public disclosure of information is deemed politically inconvenient the committee has initiated a comprehensive analysis of how federal governments handle foia procedures in recent weeks the committee has witnessed firsthand the bureaucratic obstruction that the general public often experiences the committee experience to date reveals inadequacies in foia as well as a disparity in foia compliance among federal agencies today's hearing will afford the committee an opportunity to fully examine some of the problems associated with foia design and implementation as well as executive branch compliance i look forward to the witnesses today in closing before i recognize the ranking member i also would like to thank the men and women who do foia compliance as much as today's hearing may be about delays and bureaucratic ineptness there are hundreds upon hundreds of people whose is every day to try to work within a system that they did not create rules that they with which they much comply and frustrations when people are complaining they didn't get what they asked for they didn't get it at all or they didn't get  th anniversary of james madison's birth he was a champion of the public's right to know and a strong defender of open government in one thousand eight hundred and twenty two james madison said a popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives it is fitting today that our committee is holding a hearing on one of the pillars of open government the freedom of information act which helps ensure that the public predecessor highlighting foia as the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open government the president said the freedom of information act should be administered with a clear presumption in  face of doubt openness prevails based on this instruction attorney general eric holder rescinded attorney general ashcroft's two thousand and one policy memorandum on fo allowed agencies to err on the side of secrecy rather than disclosure for eight long years the obama administration's new commitment to transparency and open government has resulted in significant improvements in foia implementation foia backlogs have been reduced significantly in back to back years under this administration agencies such as the departments of agriculture and defense have decreased incoming requests by proactively disclosing more information on line the department of justice recently unveiled foia gov a comprehensive public resource for government wide foia information and data still there is always room for improvement  do better a recent report from the national security archive found that the obama administration has clearly stated a new policy direction for open government but has not conquered the challenge of communicating and enforcing that message throughout the executive branch in my opinion the best way to make government more effective is to make it more accountable to the public for this reason i am pleased to announce that i have introduced legislation this morning to strengthen the nation's core open government laws and every democratic member of our committee is an original co sponsor this legislation the transparency and openness in government act is a package of five bills that overwhelmingly passed the house in the last congress w broad bipartisan support including your own mister chairman this legislation will make federal commissions more transparent and accountable increase public access to presidential records require greater disclosure of donations t presidential libraries ensure that government email records are preserved and clarify the authority of the government accountability office to access agency records mister chairman i know you believe that transparency should not be a the last congress i know you share our goals given the widespread bipartisan support of these provisions i hope that you and every single republican and every single democrat in the house will join us in making sure that we sign on to this bill and urge speaker boehner to move it to the house floor as swiftly as possible with that mister chairman again i thank you for this hearing i look forward to the testimony and i thank the witnesses for being with us today with that i yield chairman issa i thank the ranking member members may have seven days to submit opening statements and extraneous material for the record the chair will now recognize the panel of witness metcalfe is the executive director of collaboration of government secrecy through american university's washington college of law and a former director of the office of information and privacy at the department of justice rick blum is the coordinator for the sunshine in government initiative and has spent over a decade in washington advocating for greater transparency in government tom fitton is  president of judicial watch a conservative nonprofit whose mission is to promote transparency and accountability in government we are very familiar with your work also ms angela canterbury is director of public policy at the project on open government otherwise known as pogo which is focused on achieving effective accountable and open ethical government again we thank you for your work it is the rule of the i would inform the entire panel that contrary to our ordinary procedure since this is the last day before recess votes will be held sometime during this hearing there will only be two votes we will stay for at least five minutes perhaps as much as ten if you are still making your statements we will leave there will be two votes and we should be back in twenty to twenty five minutes after we leave i would announce that as soon as anyone returns who can take the chair have been here a lot and you know the drill green yellow and red let us get through all of you if we can before the votes good morning mister chairman representative cummings and members of the committee i am delighted to be here today during sunshine week to talk about my office the office of government information services at the national archives and records administration we are an important part of the freedom of information and open government initiatives of the federal government and we are also a new approach under the foia to avoid litigation as you know the foia is pretty simple in concept but a bit more complicated in execution anyone can ask for records of the executive branch agencies which then within strict time limits must respond to the requester either disclosing the records or giving the reasons why they are not being disclosed under specific exemptions if dissatisfied the requester can file an administrative appeal within the agency and then if still unhappy file a lawsuit in federal court at least that was the law until the foia was amended in two thousand and seven to create the office of government information services or ogis as we call it to offer mediation services to resolve disputes between foia requesters and the executive branch agencies in addition to resolving disputes the statute directs us to review policy procedures and compliance in carrying out our mission we have realized that much of our work does fall under the designation that congress gave us as the ogis acts as a confidential and informal information resource communications channel and compliant handler ogis supports and advocates for the foia process and does not champion requesters over agencies or vice versa we encourage a more collaborative accessible foia for everyone at this hearing looking at among other things crowd sourcing of foia oversight you will be glad to hear that the interest in foia reaches far and wide based on what we have seen in our first eighteen months of operation we heard from requesters from forty three states the district of columbia puerto rico and twelve foreign countries our cases have involved thirty two departments and agencies including all fifteen cabinet level departments we answered questions provided information listened to complaints and tried to help in any way we could for the more substantive disputes we facilitated discussions between the parties both over the phone and in person and worked to help them find mutually acceptable solutions the statutory term mediation services include the following formal mediation facilit and ombud services we have found the less formal method of facilitation by ogis staff members provides something similar to mediation but as i said in a less formal way and parties are more willing to engage with ogis and with each other without the perceived formality of mediation since september two thousand and nine when we opened ogis has closed five hundred and forty one cases  hundred and twenty four of them true disputes between foia requesters and agencies such as fees charged and foia exemptions as applied as a facilitator for the foia process to work as it is intended we were not calling balls and strikes but letting the parties try to work matters through with our assistance in an effort to avoid litigation in three quarters of the disputes we handled we believe the parties walked away satisfied and that ogis helped them to resolve their disputes you can read about those cases in our public case log which is posted on our website a realization we quickly faced is that defining success is a challenge the final results of our process is not both parties getting exactly what they want sometimes not even close but if we are able to help them in some way by providing more information or by helping them understand the other party's interest we feel that we have provided a valuable service when ogis first set out we spoke of changing a culture a mind set from one of reacting to a dispute in an adversarial setting to one of actively managing conflict in a neutral setting o s has a unique perspective in the way foia works we work side by side with foia professionals and the agencies to improve the process from within and we also work closely with requesters on the outside to address shortcomings we have seen the importance of building relationships and trust among the members of the foia community it is an exciting process we have just gotten started but we are pleased to see so many positive results in a short time thank you mist metcalfe good morning mister chairman and members of the committee as someone who has worked with the freedom of information act for almost thirty five years now i am pleased to be here to provide an academic perspective on the act and its government wide administration my own views today are rooted in my work at american university's washington college of law in recent years where i teach courses in government information law and direct the collaboration on government secrecy or cgs for short cgs came into existence  two thousand and seven as the first academic center at any law school in the world to focus on the subject area in addition to maintaining an extensive website as an academic resource for all those interested in government secrecy and transparency as two sides of the same coin we have conducted a dozen day long programs on the subject with particularly heavily focus on the foia this academic perspective is also informed by decades of experience in leading the component of the department of justice that discharges the attorney general's responsibility to guide all agencies of the executive branch on the complexities of the foia's administration i know firsthand both the difficulties to federal agencies that foia requests can pose and the challenges met in encouraging proper compliance with the act including new policy conformity by all agencies notwithstanding those difficulties it is through that lens that i view the many ways in which the openness in government community has been disappointed by the surpris incompleteness of the obama administration's new foia policy implementation during these past two years this began with the holder foia memorandum itself as quickly issued as it was contrary to all expectations and despite the precedent established by attorney general janet reno not long before the holder foia memorandum did not by its terms apply its new foreseeable harm standard to all pending litigation cases where it could have had an immediate highly consequential impact rather it contained a series of lawyerly hedges that appear to have effectively insulated pending cases from it as one of the speakers at cgs foia community conference in january pointedly observed the foia requester community is still waiting to see a list of any litigation cases in which the foreseeable harm standard has been applied to yield greater disclosure there is a very strong suspicion that there are few at best and perhaps even no such cases thus the best possible opportunity to press for full adoption of the standard throughout the executive branch in a concrete exemplary fashion was lost neither did the holder foia memorandum or its initial implementation and guidance take the expected step of directing agencies to reduce their backlogs of pending foia cases whereas the reno foia memorandum and its implementing guidance had immediately confronted that difficult subject their two thousand and nine counterparts contain hardly a word about it let alone a direction to reduce any backlog that did not come until the broader open government directive was issued in december two thousand and nine this led to the department of justice straining at this time last year to claim government wide backlog reduction progress based upon new annual report statistics that hardly could be administration actually had done this remains a matter of concern today for more than one reason first there is the awkward fact that the justice department's own foia backlog has not been reduced in the past year rather it has been allowed to worsen when the lead government agency for the foia fails in its entirety to reduce its own backlog it makes it much harder to press other departments and agencies to do so this do as i say not as i do problem is exacerbated by the fact that the department's high visibility leadership offices the offices of attorney general deputy attorney general and associate attorney general saw their own numbers of pending requests increase in this past year by an aggregate figure of nearly thirty three percent this makes it impossible to lead by example turning to the foia's exemptions the one that cries out for immediate attention is of course exemption two this is because federal agencies have been for nearly three decades using the so called high two aspect of the exemption to withhold sensitive information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to enable someone to circumvent the law especially in the post context ten days ago the supreme court firmly ruled in milner v department of the navy that this longstanding interpretation of exemption two is incorrect as of that date high two simply ceased to exist this means that the large amounts of information that agencies have regular exemption two alone are no longer properly withheld on that basis it places agencies in an immediate quandary over how to handle such sensitive information both at the administrative level and in foia cases pending in court i think the summary of the position with respect to exemption two in the interest of time is that this committee does need to address it with nothing less than a wholesale rewrite of the exemption carefully contoured to protect security sensitive information with a firm harm standard in conclusion i also want to mention something briefly about exemption three because i think the committee will also want to pay attention to that i know it struggles with the proposed new exemption three statutes that it tries to flag for attention but there is also the matter of the existing exemption three statutes this past year cgs conducted an academic study of this subject by first compiling a list of the statutes  more than three hundred of them and in summary we found nearly half of them were not properly qualified to be invoked as exemption three statutes the committee could take this groundwork if it chooses and build upon it simply by asking each agency that reports using a questionable statute under exemption three to look into why and how it is doing so i daresay that if the committee were to take such a step it would at a minimum result in dozens of agencies realizing that many dozens of the statutes it now i coordinate the sunshine in government initiative a coalition of media groups dedicated to prompting transparency and accountability in government foia is a vital tool to identify problems in government and society because of foia the public learned that meat in school lunches has been held to a lower safety standard than meat supplied to adults and firefighter safety equipment would not work well at high temperatures or when wet and yet journalists comprise only about six percent of all  there are several reasons none surprising some are long delays and backlogs that persist in every administration no matter which party controls the white house few consequences for agencies improperly denying and delaying requests a don't have the luxury to wait or fight bureaucratic battles and move on to the next story the most successful foia filers are the most organized and patient despite some improvements from the president's transparency efforts reporters filing fo requests are seeing little improvement on the ground i would like to focus my comments on the costs of foia troublesome statutory exemptions to foia under exemption three as dan mentioned and the use of technology to better manage the foia process first the cost of the government is spending more money on the foia process federal spending on foia is up thirty five percent in two years in two thousand and ten agencies reported spending nearly four hundred dollars million to process foia requests at the same time the investment in foia can sa taxpayer dollars by shining a light on what government is doing let me give you an example the washington post tied good reporting with foia to show that farm subsidy payments meant as a safety net for struggling farmers were going to wealthy farmers and suburbanites presumption of disclosure our coalition spends considerable resources fighting defensively against the worst of these proposed exemptions we looked at agency reports over the last decade that count how many statutes there are similar to what dan did we found when you eliminate duplicates federal agencies cited at least two hundred and forty different statutes it may be over three hundred in denying foia requests for sunshine week propublica a nonprofit investigative journalism center took our data and created an searchable online database of these exemptions and launched it this week why protect the identity of honeybee handlers or watermelon growers or certain pigmy owls at a particular national park or more significantly losing contract bids submitted through competitive bids for federal contracts separate b statutes bar the disclosure of all these things our hope is to learn from readers when these exemptions are used and when they are abused we are crowd sourcing in the house this committee should receive limited referral of the particular provisions within legislation that affect foia including b statutes second in its regular review of legislation the office of management and budget should evaluate an agency's proposed b exemptions when they are proposed third any author sponsor or reviewer should first assess whether existing exemptions would suffice without a new exemption or the proposed exemption is justified or any foreseeable harm results from disclosure is greater than the public benefit from disclosure and if the statute is narrow in scope what is proposed is narrow in scope and specific and that there is adequate public notice so we can have an open debate about them these steps would go a long way to avoid cutting overbroad or unnecessary holes into foia let me finally turn to the use of technology to better track foia request responses and agency performance for the public to help improve foia the foia process itself should be more transparent we see ogis as an important part of this and they are already helping to clarify the process for requesters and provide best practices for agencies at a systemic level the justice department's new fo gov is a vast improvement we hope it grows into a more robust system so the public can view past requests and responses agencies can better manage caseloads and we all can track in real time the backlogs and whether agencies are chairman congressman cummings we appreciate the renewed focus on transparency by this committee essential to judicial watch's anti corruption and transparency mission is the freedom of information act we have nearly seventeen years experience in using foia to advance the public interest and judicial watch is without a doubt the most active foia requester and litigator operating today the american people were promised a new era of transparency with the obama administration unfortunately this against the administration to enforce foia law administratively agencies created additional hurdles and stonewalled even the most basic foia request during this administration the bush administration was tough and tricky but the obama administration is tougher and trickier for instance we recently asked the transportation security administration for documents detailing passenger complaints about tsa pat downs and imaging procedures at airports the response which is attached to my written testimony tsa asked us to define what we meant by complaint once we are forced to go to federal court the obama administration continues to fight us tooth and nail the litigious approach to foia is exactly the same as it was in the bush administration so one can imagine the difficulties we encounter litigating these issues in court against the obama justice department judicial watch has been digging hard into the role for instance of political corruption and its impact on congressional oversight of freddie which collapsed in two thousand and eight government has spent upwards of one hundred and fifty three dollars billion on these entities and they have taken complete control of them we have asked for documents about political contributions we have asked for other documents the administration's new position under the federal housing and finance administration is that fannie and freddie are not agencies subject to foia not one document those agencies have created over the time were subject to disclosure under the law which we believe scrutiny by the american people i am not only talking about fhfa on that fannie and freddie i am talking about the treasury department the federal reserve all the agencies involved in the bailouts this government is growing by leaps and bounds for better of two thousand and nine we were invited by the obama white house to visit and talk about this very issue we were told by then special counsel to the president norm eisen who was in charge of these issues will you please publicly praise our transparency said these records are subject to foia we even got these records under foia from the bush administration we know now from published reports white house officials have been meeting with lobbyists at a nearby caribou coffee shop across the street to avoid their trumpeted voluntary disclosure of logs they don't want these people visiting the white house so they meet them elsewhere because they don't want to tell the american people who they are visiting with we have asked for records about the obamacare waivers months not one document  we asked for records about that illegal alien who allegedly killed a nun in a drunk driving incident final report last fall we asked for the final report we sued they said they would give it to us in a week then they told us in the court that final report i a draft report you can't get the draft report we are still working on the final report we just got the final report it was dated november twenty four they told us they were working on a final report that had been dated three months previously this is the sort of to secure as national security information a comment from forty years ago by a state department official that ted kennedy was a brat it shows the fbi is not above politics in how it evaluates what transparency this government is too big and they are not as concerned as they should be about the transparency with the actual work our government is doing chairman issa thank you for the record i am sure i was a brat thirty to forty years policy at the project on open government oversight or pogo which is an independent nonpartisan watchdog that champions good government reform it is a particular pleasure to be here with you today to talk about foia the freedom of information act which for nearly forty five years has been a cornerstone for our democracy and for open government on day one president obama committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government this administration certainly has put  unprecedented energy into this goal but how is the government doing it takes time to build an openness infrastructure and change a culture resistant to change and scrutiny if the measure is proactive disclosure of information there have been leaps in innovation just this week the administration launched foia gov which has terrific potential for improving public access to information like data gov recovery gov and usaspending gov however if foia is the yardstick for openness then we haven't gotten very far yet some mixed but overall disappointing reviews were delivered this week through independent studies the knight survey found that the number of agencies that make concrete foia reforms jumped form thirteen in two thousand and nine to forty nine in two thousand and ten however they included ninety agencies in their survey and seventeen were still working on the survey's foia requests after one hundred and seventeen business days four did not even acknowledge that they had received a request the new analysis from the associated press also yielded mixed results on a positive note those studies showed that the use of withholding for inter and intra agency information or exemption five decreased which the administration reported this week was a twenty six percent drop last year also the administration noted that ninety three percent of requests were leased in full or part however the ap also noted that the dhs department of homeland security cut its backlog by forty percent in part by referring thousands of cases to the state department state ended up with a backlog twice as big as they had last year not only is this a shell game but referrals are a major cause for delays  sum the overall picture does not look markedly better for foia operations and the bottom line is as chief justice roberts recently acknowledged there are a large number of foia requests and it takes forever to get the documents however there are many ways in which this committee can improve the status quo through oversight and legislation first it is time for foia to move fully into the digital age making most requests a relic of the past a first step to better serve the public and save money over time would be to put online in a common database all foia logs request tracking and the responses a guiding vision for the future should be making all public information available online in a timely manner secondly we need better information on how foia is working pogo supports the faster foia act reintroduced by senators lahey and cornyn this week to create an independent bipartisan body to study how to improve foia in addition we need to know more about who is reviewing foia requests and why and how this impacts disclosure chairman issa is investigating possible political interference in foia at dha if founded these issues are of great concern foia should never be used for political purposes and the identity or affiliation of a request should never impact the response pogo however is also concerned with the involvement of government contractors in foia at dhs and at other agencies as well as the interference with ig independence all of which should be examined and perhaps independently investigated third this committee should take a closer look at statutory exemptions gone wild pogo has long been concerned about the proliferation and scope of these statutory exemptions or bs as well as the lack of oversight last year pogo helped to repeal an extremely broad statutory exemption for the sec along with the chairman and the ranking member that was enacted in the dodd frank bill the financial reform act the controversy and ultimate repeal of the secrecy provision is illustrative of the potential dangers of statutory exemptions that sweep too broadly hopefully it also serves as a cautionary tale to agencies that might seek unnecessary exemptions fourth as proposals to replace the exemption thrown out by the supreme court surface this committee must resist the pressure to substitute it outright a thoughtful approach must be taken if there is a demonstrated need to protect information that existing exemptions no longer cover it must be very carefully considered pogo hopes that you will be vigilant in balancing the public's right to know with other interests too often overt secrecy has not only impaired the promise of foia but also has put the american people at risk abuse of  classification quasi classification and the suppression of whistleblowers are the most common tools of secrecy in conclusion while foia is the central mechanism for open government there are several other openness issues ripe for legislative reform including the transparency in government act introduced today by ranking member cummings which we support lastly to fulfill a pledge to america this congress must begin to proactively disclose congressional information serving as a model for the new paradigm of foia i thank you and i look forward to the discussion and your questions chairman issa i thank you and i was with you right up to that last part then it got a little confusing first of all  thank you all your statements were great and obviously there is some additional material each of you will be placing in the record i now recognize myself for five minutes i would begin on a sad note for all of you the whistleblower  responsibilities changed or eliminated the very next morning so it is this committee's opinion at least on the majority's side this constitutes a demotion in violation of the spirit of the whistleblower act and it is our intention and at least at the latest new stated truth i always call it new stated truth because i wouldn't want to say someone lied but the original truth was they didn't do it then they didn't do anything other than send them for information were now down to they didn't delay them or than three days and we have not yet gotten to exactly how much changes or denials came as a result of sending otherwise completed foia requests to political appointees that is a a year five hundred and forty one cases our records show that for example in fiscal year two thousand and nine you mediated five hundred you is in addition to what you said if you would provide the committee with additional materials as to specific areas in which we could use our powers either through cooperation or subpoena to get some of the information you believe should most be brought to the attention of the congress not be brought to you around litigation but it is one in which we would be particularly interested in seeing what it is they are not showing you i would appreciate i way that we don't always appreciate what we do i wanted to give you something for the record and ask your interpretation we do not make these public out of my office currently but it is a possibility that we would my office received thirty one thousand one hundred and thirty eight inquiries from constituents in calendar year two thousand and ten we did that with one legislative respondent who answered all of them they centered around three hundred major issues obviously they are not all different the department of justice received sixty three thousand six hundred and eighty two they used four hundred and twenty five full time is that once you answer a question you now it should be answered for one it should be answered for all how much of that cost across government do you believe would be eliminated if in searchable data form every answer once was made simultaneously available to anyone who wanted to search a database so that those questions would not come in again and take a plethora of study to give substantially the same information depending upon how clever the questioner was versus the answer person ms nisbet certainly millions and billions i would say over time very quickly it would add up to a huge amount of savings and allow the government to do other things  you in any order but ms nisbet since you see so many of these and obviously you saw cases in your five hundred and forty one that were substantially the same as other cases so you were arbitrating or mediating cases where different people were asking for substantial do exactly as you suggest which is to have one place where people can make requests where they can track the responses to them and ultimately all the records that are released  threshold that threshold being the first request is processed records are disclosed and then if the agency either believes or receives two more requests at hand then it is obligated by law to make it affirmative available there is a mechanism in the law that is at that number congress could of course lessen that number from two or three down to zero chairman issa thank you thank you all mister cummings mister cummings thank you very much  one of the things i said from the beginning when we first began this congress is that we want to be fair to the folks i think we can put out allegations they sit out there and the  employee was demoted in fact she had competed for a new senior executive service promotion and she did not receive it a panel of senior career and non career employees conducted a detail competitive process and the person who was selected was better qualified according to dhs we will discover that later on i am sure and look into that committee staff were aware of this because they discussed it in several interviews they fact because they were told on a joint conference call with dhs the day before you sent your letter finally as a result of these factual inaccuracies your letter assumes conclusions that are not supported by the into the hearing record chairman issa i object based on the fact that we have not yet received that letter we certainly will be happy when we receive the letter apparently the minority and the administration wrote we look forward to seeing it when it arrives and then back to their families people look at this see it on c span see their names in the washington post and then if there is no clarification it is just out there it is just a headline and that person can be ruined for the rest of their lives without the ability to get a job or  highlighted the importance of a world that fosters openness this is what he said the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies open societies and open governments in all parts of the world we see the promise of innovation to make government more open and accountable when we gather back here next year we should bring specific commitments to promote transparency to fight corruption to energize civic engagement to leverage new technology so that we strengthen the foundations of freedom in our own countries while living up to the ideals that can light the world mister metcalfe in your experience has any other american president done anything at this level to personally promote government openness on the world stage no congressman cummings as a matter of fact i think it is fair to say that action by president obama is not only unprecedented but it goes much further than any other president has gone to be involved in fostering transparency internationally and promoting the u s leadership role in that area not only did he do that in september but he also in november of last year while in india entered executive director of your organization the project on government oversight made this statement about president obama's efforts she said there is no question this is the first president in my experience who has personally elevated open government issues he said about the president's efforts president obama is the first president to invite transparency advocates into the oval office to talk about open government in addition the organizers of the national freedom of information day conference are giving president obama an award this week to honor his deep commitment to an open and transparent government i want to be clear everyone i just quoted also believes much more can be done i want to make it clear that i believe much more can be done our job is to promote these gains through continued oversight and to push for even greater transparency measures in congress that is why today we introduced the transparency and openness in government act ms canterbury our legislation consists of foia itself it is the long delays we have one reporter i know of who was working during hurricane katrina literally in the floodwaters trying to figure out the chemicals that were in those waters because his readers were asking him  can we come back can we come home can we start getting on with our lives he was trying to give them that answer through foia he couldn't get an answer in fact he actually moved because he had to evacuate and  documents that you have received under foia you make these documents electronically available to any member of the public do you think the government should also provide electronic access to already released records yes but that only goes so far my concern is that these document dumps that the administration is highlighting are documents that you largely can get if you know where to look otherwise and are not a matter of great public on that issue that is where we face the most resistance we appreciate the additional information on the internet the government is doing so much the more on the internet the better but on issues of political controversy or corruption allegations you are not going to find that on the internet no agency is going to put it up there normally i would think you would get the email traffic for instance that you want about a specific decision that is not necessarily going to be posted on the internet i don't know if it is a good idea to do that mister walberg should they  but the accountability is lacking especially given the dramatic expansion of government we have seen recently mister walberg do you have some examples of cooperative agencies and how they have worked give you a response the response they give you is usually something that you are asking for the department of justice is terrible as i said in my testimony the financial agencies are the worse the treasury department is probably the worst in our experience which is the most troubling given the financial crises we have gone through and all the decisions that have been made related to the spending of our money to the tune of one dollar trillion or so that have gone through both yours and corresponding letters be placed in the record along with any supplementals you might want to put in so there may be a complete review of what quite frankly is a disagreement about somebody getting a demotion but more importantly of interest to all the people