Obama Administration

Individuals seeking records under the federal Freedom of Information Act can immediately sue agencies that miss the statute's deadlines for properly responding to a request, a federal appeals court reaffirmed Tuesday.

More than 60 percent of federal agencies have not responded to calls by Congress or President Barack Obama to update their Freedom of Information Act regulations, according to a National Security Archive report released today.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has denied a request to order the U.S. government to publicly release photographs and video under the federal Freedom of Information Act of the U.S. military raid that killed Osama bin Laden last May.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg accepted the CIA’s assertion that release of any photos and video of the body of Osama bin Laden – former leader al-Qaeda – would pose a major threat to national security, and that he would not overturn the agency’s decision to classify the records.

Despite President Barack Obama’s promise for more transparency in government, the administration has a long way to go, according to experts at a open government conference held in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

An estimated 100 journalists, watchdog group employees, media lawyers and government representatives attended the day-long "Transparency in the Obama Administration" conference hosted by the American University Washington College of Law.

President Barack Obama today signed into law bipartisan legislation aimed at protecting authors and journalists from libel lawsuits filed abroad.

High-ranking officials within the Obama administration marked Sunshine Week by touting strides the administration has taken to increase government transparency, but open-government advocates used the weeklong event to point out areas where transparency efforts still fall short.

The Obama administration proposed substantial changes to the pending federal shield bill that would weaken its protections against compelling journalists to testify in the interest of national security, The New York Times reported.

The Obama Administration’s approach to transparency in government is, thus far, only a slight improvement over the Bush Administration’s policies, reports OpenTheGovernment.org in its annual Secrecy Report Card.

The Obama White House will begin posting online logs of its visitors for the first time in an agreement reached over a series of lawsuits for the records last week.

President Obama said today in a speech on the Guantanamo Bay detainees and national security that he remains committed to transparency in government despite his recent about-face on the release of photos documenting torture.

After discussing the decision to release the controversial Office of Legal Counsel opinions on torture, Obama spoke about the photos taken of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2002 and 2004.