President Obama: Let freedom of information ring

ON his first full day in the Oval Office, President Obama signaled a new approach to government transparency that will help restore trust in government.

As if opening the Bush administration's musty drapes in the Oval Office, Obama issued a memo urging agencies to err on the side of disclosure rather than on the side of secrecy, when responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Also, he directed the Office of Management and Budget to issue recommendations on making the federal government more transparent.

Perhaps as dramatic as closing Guantánamo Bay detention center, the government-transparency changes are significant after eight years of the Bush administration's exceptional secrecy.

If the Bush administration could be characterized as the Government That Knew Best, Obama has set the tone for the Government Not Afraid to Be Held Accountable.

On Oct. 12, 2001, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a memo saying the Department of Justice would defend any federal agency's assertions of FOIA exemptions "unless they lack a sound legal basis." In other words, agencies were discouraged from releasing information.

Ashcroft's memo represented a 180-degree reversal from his predecessor Janet Reno's view that requested information should be released unless the agency could make a case of "foreseeable harm."

No wonder a March 2008 Sunshine Week poll found that 74 percent of American adults thought the federal government was too secretive. That was up a dozen points from two years earlier.

Obama is inviting accountability. The president's decision to set this tone of transparency on his first day bodes well for restoring citizens' trust in government.