Blog Posts and Analysis / Open, Accountable Government

Park Service Superintendents Gagged by Agency

National Park Service (NPS) superintendents now must adhere to agency-prescribed "talking points" when speaking with the media. According to a May 12 press release by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the talking points try masking budget cutbacks by painting a rosy picture of national parks under the Bush administration.

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TSA to Expand "Sensitive Security Information"

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to expand the amount of information it can withhold from the public disclosure, according to a May 18 Federal Register notice.

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Bill to Extend Patriot Act Is Quietly Introduced

Secrecy News reported the next salvo in the debate about the Patriot Act: On May 21, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) [and others] introduced a bill to make the Patriot Act permanent. S. 2476 would repeal sunset provisions of the most controversial sections of the Patriot Act, which are set to expire in 2005. Speaking of Secrecy News, its editor, Steve Aftergood, was recently awarded a prize from the Playboy Foundation and the Creative Coalition for defending the first amendment with his unrelenting and undernoticed efforts to combat government secrecy.

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Mistakes and Terrorism Fears Jail the Innocent, Miss Employee Misconduct

When authorities in Philadelphia found a motion sensor along some railroad tracks, they worried terrorists might be installing triggering devices to launch an attack against trains along the busy eastern rail corridor between Boston and Washington. But they soon found out terrorism concerns overshadowed the real problem of employee misconduct.

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OMB Fast-Tracks Revised Peer Review Policy

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) appears unwilling to allow a sober and unhurried review of their revised proposal for government-wide peer review requirements. The revised proposal was published in the Federal Register April 28 with only a 30-day public comment period that is scheduled to end May 28. OMB rejected a request from various public interest groups for a 60-day extension to the public review period.

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eRulemaking Workshops

The School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University will host a series of half-day workshops on the federal eRulemaking Initiative June 2 to 4. The purpose of the workshops is to solicit input from various end-user communities with a stake in eRulemaking.

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One Week Remains for Comments on Critical Infrastructure Information Rule

Only a single week remains to submit comments to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the highly controversial Critical Infrastructure Information (CII) rule. DHS published an interim final rule in the Federal Register Feb. 20 with a 90-day public comment period that ends May 20. Even though the agency continues to accept comments on the CII program, the rule went into effect upon publication. DHS has reported to Congress that it has already received several submissions for the CII program.

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