Ensuring Transparency Through The Freedom Of Information Act

Ensuring transparency through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) : hearing before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, first session, June 2, 2015.

Ensuring transparency through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) : hearing before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, first session, June 2, 2015.

The Freedom of Information Act : ensuring transparency and accountability in the digital age : hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, first session, March 15, 2011.

Transparency in government operations is widely regarded as an important precondition for macroeconomic fiscal sustainability, good governance, and overall fiscal rectitude. Notably, the Interim Committee, at its April and September 1996 meetings, stressed the need for greater fiscal transparency. Prompted by these concerns, this paper represents a first attempt to address many of the aspects of transparency in government operations. It provides an overview of major issues in fiscal transparency and examines the IMF's role in promoting transparency in government operations.

The federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which recently turned 50, has been hailed as the primary means by which US citizens can know about how their governors operate in a democratic republic. Recently, however, it has been criticized as ineffective because it is cumbersome and full of loopholes. This book examines the role and effectiveness of the FOIA, comparing the FOIA world with the pre-FOIA world, rating its effectiveness compared to other access laws internationally, examining ways in which it can be improved, and questioning whether it should be dismantled and replaced. This book was originally published as a special issue of Communication Law and Policy.

If there has been a unifying theme of Barack Obama’s presidency, it is the inexorable growth of the administrative state. Its expansion has followed a pattern: First, expand federal powers beyond their constitutional limits. Second, delegate those powers to agencies and away from elected politicians in Congress. Third, insulate civil servants from politics and accountability. Since its introduction in American life by Woodrow Wilson in the 20th Century, the administrative state’s has steadily undermined democratic self-government, reduced the sphere of individual liberty, and burdened the free market and economic growth. In Liberty’s Nemesis, Dean Reuter and John Yoo collect the brightest political minds in the country to expose this explosive, unchecked growth of power in government agencies ranging from health care to climate change, financial markets to immigration, and more. Many Americans have rightly shared the Founders’ fear of excessive lawmaking, but Liberty’s Nemesis is the first book to explain why the concentration of power in administrative agencies in particular is the greatest – and most overlooked – threat to our liberties today. If we fail to curb it, our constitutional republic might easily devolve into something akin to the statist governments of Europe. President Obama’s ongoing efforts to encourage just such a devolution, and the problems his administration faces as a consequence, present a critical opportunity to defend the original vision of the Constitution.