Reversing Bush policy, Obama eases requests for records under Freedom of Information Act

President Barack Obama this afternoon reversed Bush Administration policies that limited freedom of information. "The disclosure rules turn existing law on its head, requiring the government to err on the side of releasing information, not on the side of keeping documents and records secret," Michael Shear of The Washington Post wrote -- perhaps not realizing (though his editors should have) that the Obama policy mirrors the policy followed in the Clinton administration. Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times properly noted that Obama "effectively reversed a post-9/11 Bush administration policy."

The roles govern how federal agencies respond to requests made under the federal Freedom of Information Act, which Obama called "perhaps the most powerful instrument we have for making our government accountable and also transparent. ... The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is over now." Is eight years an era? Perhaps it seemed that long to some, certainly to many Democrats. In any event, we're for more freedom of information, and the FOI Act is a great tool for rural journalists to get data squirreled away in far-off places.

Obama's order was no surprise, since he spoke about government transparency in his campaign and sponsored open-government bills in Congress and the Illinois legislature. For a good rundown on the issue from Clint Hendler of Columbia Journalism Review, click here.