Welcome. There are many meanings of transparency. Im not going to get into all of them today, but im sure there will be many different aspects. Their widely divergent opinions on the successes of the Obama Administration and i hope to explore some of those today. President obama made a number of promises when he was running for president. A number are Still Available on change. Gov. During the course of the administration, new issues came up. Everything from Campaign Finance disclosure to dealing with the lawsuit and others on visitors logs. Theres been a lot of changes during the course of the administration. What i hope we will talk about today is wouldve occurred or not occur during the last four years am looking forward to what will happen over the next. I am joined by three experts. I have on my right, anne weisberg. I have sent through the Data Transparency Coalition and a former hill staffer. To my last is Josh Gerstein with politico. Theres more extensive biographies on your chairs. For those watching at home on transparencycaucus. Org. With that i will go to remarks by panelists and we will start with anne. Good afternoon, everybody. I look asian remarks on ethics and transparency issues. If i had to summarize how the Obama Administration has done, i would say that its efforts have been well intended, but not always well executed. I think they started out one into make a very strong statement. So one of the issues we had was a twoyear lobbying via the administration put in place commended for two years after leaving you could not lobby on an issue for the agency you have left. Now, one of the concerns i have with this effort is first of all i think its closer in the basic premise that lobbying is evil and that is not a view i share. I think that lobbying, dubuque municipal State Government places that wouldnt otherwise be heard to publicInterest Groups that speak on behalf of the Public Interest. Beyond that, it is both underinclusive and overinclusive. Its overinclusive because it is based on whether or not you are registered lobbyists and that meant it swept and Public Interest groups. These are groups that dont lobby for money and they lobby based on their expertise on behalf of the Public Interest. They are also people we should want in the government because of their interests, because they have the expertise, because they look out for the Public Interest, yet are included in this ban. It is underinclusive because if you werent a registered lobbyist. We had the perverse effect of causing people to deregistered because that is a single event that triggers the lobbying ban. It is very much controversy among lobbyists and the white house is trying to signal we need methods untrendy business. Its effectiveness could have been more nuanced. In a similar vein, the white house relatively early on made a decision tuesdays close all white house was. Again, they were trying to make a big, bold statement. I can, it has had mixed success. The fact that i was want to point out if they didnt do this on their own. They did it in litigation by my group to settle a lawsuit and they were in the midst of negotiating over obamacare and we wanted to know which Health Care Lobbyists had visited the white house. Going into court and having to lobby for not disclosing that information at that time wouldve been politically somewhat embarrassing for them. That said, they did it stopped this bold sweeping policy that the records online. Has it worked . You can read more news articles based on his record. At the same time, we had more suggestions. Recently everyone was focused on Paul Broadwell and her affair with david trias and the fact she bent to the white house a number of times. My understanding is some of them are not recorded and logged. So that suggest there is some gaps in the record. And then we had stories about white house staffers meeting at caribou coffee to avoid having records. I dont mean to sound negative. I am by no means now. To say what starts out as bold, dramatic gestures, the devil is somewhat in the details and they dont always work out to be a totally positive thing. We had some other things on a the transparency front. We had wonderful madness. Im not in all sincerity. They came for the president and attorney general on the foia front. Everyone in the Access Community was thrilled to see this is going to be such a high priority for the administration because i think you cant talk about ethics without talking about transparency because its the light of public scrutiny that keeps people at the goal. And i think the implementation has been quite mixed. What ive come to appreciate is that is very slow to turn the ship state. Its very hard to change cultures and agencies in there clearly have been a culture of secrecy. I think we are starting to gradually see change, but it has been slow. Unfortunately from my youth, the biggest offender is the department of justice, which itself continues to withhold a ladder theory significant documents, i will see opinions to name one. In litigation, we see the same position it always stayed. Again, what started out as a big, Bold Initiative and implementation has been somewhat mixed. The big question that i have is how often our discretionary disclosures can be made. We have the direct to, which has been again a positive step. The White House Administration saying to all the agencies, this is something you need to embrace. You need to make her wet disclosure data. I am sure hollister will talk about that. On the legislative front, we havent seen a whole lot. We did see the disclosed acts get past. Im sorry, it did not get passed. There has not been any effort on that front. The stock act to get past when it was undercut to some extent. One provision without its very important would have barred members from getting pension. They were convicted of certain felonies and that was taken out. I think what legislation has come through has been watered down and we havent seen that many comments any legislative initiatives from the white house. Cert is nothing on the foia front but there is much room for improving the statute and the best evidence is the fact that every four years when an attorney general comes in, they are april to affect on the statute. The statute says disclosure is a matter of right. And that is what he said turning to you. Let me close with the fact that i dont realize ive probably come across as quite negative and is it really my intent . I think it is the responsibility of groups like mine to be always constantly badgering the administration no matter who it is to do a better job. I think there have been important changes. The fact we have more and more dialogue about transparency is a very important and significant step. There is a long way to go and in the next four years, we will really get a sense of just how committed the administration has two goals announced at the beginning of his administration. Host thank you, anne weismann. This microphone works very well. And the executive director of the transparency coalition, which is the only trade association of forprofit companies focusing on what the government does with its own data. We have 11 and growing Innovative Tech Companies with numbers that i data corp. , are the committee member. Roughly speaking, our Coalition Supports policies that result in the publication in standardization of Government Data. Policies that align quite well with the Government Strategy and the stated direction of the Obama Administration. In our opinion, Government Data must be published and must be publishing an useful that means it has to be standardized, machinereadable and up until now, we havent done a very good job with that. Does someone have a phone . Up until now we havent done a good job with the publication. What is our view of what the Obama Administration has accomplished in his first four years . Has the Administration Made strides towards publishing the Government Data . Yes, absolutely. Has the administration published the most valuable Government Data . Now. The data from the core of government, the information that Staff Members at executive Branch Agencies reliant to make their decision has not been published. Our coalition think says government in five categories. The Transparency Community we spend time categorizing beautiful policy categorization, so i wont spend too much time on this. Broadly speaking the outside but its usually talk about. Spending, management and performance, regulation, legislation and judicial documents. In each case, certain data is at the core of government, the meat of what we are talking about. In the spending category, the questions are how much the government is spending, with the spending on contracts and what is spent internally . How dispatching reported the white house compared with transactions i reported to the Treasury Department in the area spanning, as many of you in this room know im a landmark legislation digital accountability and Transparency Act was proposed in june 2011. Both sides of the hill by both parties and to be blunt, the Obama White House has actively opposed the data act. The administration has testified against the legislation on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and they try to prevent congress from passing legislation that would require standardization of spending information. Lets talk about the Management Category and performance, the second category. The most important data in the second category is why programs does the government have, how does their performance compared to past performance . In this area has been more progress. Congress passed the results act modernization act. How is that for a mouth full, two years ago, which requires administration to come up with federal programs. As far as we all know, well have a published list of programs machinereadable that will allow us to electronically track performance. Thats great. Third category, regulation. This is a category where progress has been mixed. To be sure we have half a million data published unjaded. Gov. Many are machinereadable, but the most Important Information isnt published and has not moved towards getting it published. Lets take for example a National Regulatory information. As many of you know, the securities and Exchange Commission requires companies to file in a format for the first time Financial Statements are machinereadable, the sec has not moved to take any other information they require and that they put in a machinereadable format. The sec has 600 different forms and submission types. The tagging, although its great, only applies to two out of the 600 forms. The administration hasnt taken steps to encourage agencies to adopt more tagging such as asking the sec to extend to everything else. Those are the most important categories. Out into judicial documents later on. Ive got one suggestion for why this hasnt happened. Publishing the most data is very hard. It requires a lot of people to change their jobs and frequently requires legislative action as we see with the data act. The administration has been reluctant to pursue legislation to get some things done. Theyve been reluctant to take the principles mentioned in the over government directive in the digital Government Strategy this past spring and translate those two real action and exercise the bully pulpit to make sure that happens. Rate, thank you, hudson. Josh. Banks. I thought it would give a reporters perspective on issues related to transparency and for me where the rubber meets the road specific stories where the fight to get more information, where the administration has substantial discretion to do more than it is currently doing a concert or discuss why is falling short in some of these areas. The first one is topical, which is a fiscal click discussions going on right now. You have meetings taking place with stakeholders, ceos, smallbusiness leaders, what you call liberal Interest Groups and others. All those meetings have taken place behind closed doors. They didnt tell us it was there, but they wouldnt allow to see them. When members of congress came to talk about issues, the price was brought in for two minutes and shoot up before any substantive discussion took place if there was one. So who would think it should be any different . You can go back and look and find out one person who thinks they should be done differently as a fellow by the name of barack obama. If you go to mr. Destiny campaign with background dealings or you look at what he said as the Health Care Reform talks on legislation came to fruition in the beginning of 2010, he made a significant mistake by abandoning transparency and too much was done behind closed doors and Going Forward they would do things differently. Seems to me were forward and not doing things differently in connection with health care. I dont know whether promises are realistic or unrealistic, but it does seem we are somewhat short of the mark of what he promised. In the area of one other story ive been covering as a courtmartial related proceedings for Bradley Manning accused of being a source for wikileaks. This interesting manner if it is somewhat like covering a Court Proceeding as one might have done in the early 1800s. Thats the way strikes me. You can go up there and see what happens in the courtroom when things happen in the courtroom. Beyond that, there is no transparency whatsoever. You cant get any documents related to the case. Nothing but the evidence they talk about, legal filings, prosecution motions, judges rulings when she makes her when she reads rapid fire from the bench and good luck if you cant shut it all down because he wont be getting it anytime soon certainly. It is sort of a bizarre way of perceiving or anyone familiar with federal or state courts, where these things are routinely available. Who would think at that kind of a preceding, maybe things could be done differently. In another context when the issue is military commissions taking place at Guantanamo Bay and what anne was saying to push the process forward the administration basically made a concession and set in this proceeding smiled and courtmartial is, they would make the filings by the within a short period of time in a government website. They paid a fair amount of money to set that up and they now pose most violence within a reasonable period of time after they are filed. When a senior incumbent theres a transcript within 24 hours. For some reason the administration, despite saying theyre committed to transparency was able to do that after some deliberation with respect to them many proceedings now underway, but with respect to a courtmartial proceeding in the United States, where it is an american citizen or soldier to find themselves paralyzed and unable to provide any of the transparency. Those are a couple examples of my disappointments in areas where the administration couldve done more. Yes me to Mention National security. We have seen some interesting efforts by the frustration to discuss things related to drones and their targeted killing policy, the legal principles behind it. Again, resistance to discuss the nittygritty. They will come out and say what they think we should know and it usually amounts to a few sentences at principles. To the extent you want to flesh out more than noncomedy on the info you look at this information they will leak when they see it in their interest. Thats always a bit disappointing to those of us who would like to see these things debated in a more open fashion. Theres my thought is a reporter off the bat. Thank you very much. This gives us food for thought i did invite the white house to join this discussion as well, but unfortunately no one was able to attend. There are critiques they might be useful for a moment to channel the white house and if they were here, would you say they have actually done a good job on . There are some things like the initiative and direct dave, parts of the partnership, efforts around the first creation of chief Information Officers there are things that have gone well. It might be worth taking a look at that. Josh, to want to to start there with tanks you have seen have gone better . Sure. Number one, big advance with the white house visitor log is a substantial thing. It seems to me in a lot of these areas, the way we will make progress towards more transparency is to institutionalize profits because when it is up to individuals for their discretion, ive grown pessimistic over the years that will make any progress. It seems to go against human nature. It will be hard for the next administration, whether it be republican or democrat to reverse the Obama Administration on the white house visitor logs and do some