This is pretty disheartening. The Obama administration is continuing to use the same arguments the Bush administration used to block disclosure of visitor logs, even in limited cases. Both msnbc.com and, in a more limited request, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) were denied access to the logs by the Secret Service. The Service claimed that the logs are presidential and not agency records, thus not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This continues the policy implemented by the Bush White House as they tried to block disclosure of visits to the White House by leaders of the Religious Right and, later, corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Despite court rulings requiring the disclosure of the logs, the Bush administration continued to stonewall and appeal the decisions. The Obama adminsitration has continued those appeals, while also saying the policy is "under review." This looks like another example of the Executive Branch refusing to reliquinsh unnecessary secrecy that it seized in the face of a court order. This is also far more harmful to Executive Branch transparency than the failure to post bills on WhiteHouse.gov for five days. Hopefully, when the administration says that the policy is "under review" they actually mean it and this isn't like the Supreme Leader of Iran saying that he will investigate election fraud.

On Day Two, President Obama issued new Executive Orders and memoranda -- including an Executive Order on Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel, a memoranda on Transparency and Open Government and one on the Freedom of Information Act --  indicating a dramatic break in the executive branch's stance toward being held accountable to the public it serves. Roll Call called today's action by the new president "sweeping,"and we agree.

Clearly, creating greater transparency in government is a high priority for the new administration. This is a good beginning and it represents real change. Under these new directives, President Obama has prohibited executive branch employees from accepting gifts from lobbyists, and puts a stop to the revolving door, preventing any incoming staff who are former lobbyists to work on matters which they previously lobbied. It also prohibits any current staff who leave their positions from ever returning to lobby the administration while Obama is president.

But at least as importantly, if not more so because of the dramatic break from the past that it represents, we particularly pleased to see President Obama's focus on making government records more readily available under FOIA. The very same quote from Justice Brandeis that inspired our name ("Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants...") also inspired Obama, who referenced it in the opening paragraph of memorandum on FOIA. Under this directive, open government advocates (not to mention our own Real Time team) should see better responsiveness to FOIA requests. The administration aims to err on the side of transparency and requests to withhold information will be subject to review and approval by the Justice Department and the administration legal counsel.

Regarding the FOIA action, Columbia Journalism Review makes note that Obama used an executive order. This order in effect nullifies a 2001 memo John Ashcroft, then President Bush's attorney general, had issued overturning one Janet Reno, Bill Clinton's attorney general had issued years before. Obama's executive order has more legal force and symbolic importance, making it harder for future presidents to nullify.  CJR termed his action "a quick and prominent victory for government openness."

It's very encouraging that one of President Obama's first official acts in office was  to show a sweeping commitment to freedom of information, transparency and open government.

The irony is that, as of 6pm today, many hours after the announcement of these actions, they are still not posted on at WhiteHouse.gov. We know it's Day One but ...... Thanks to our friends at TechPresident, you can see them here.

While the administration's real challenge will come in implementing the details, today's announcement is a dramatic break in the executive branch's stance toward being held  accountable to the public it serves. To be sure, President Obama and his administration recognize the critical role of technology to create greater government transparency.

Of course, there's still more work to be done. We hope that moving forward, each agency should do an audit of its information and data how it makes it available. The new administration should also redefine the definition of "public information" to mean that government information is not public until it is posted online in an easy-to-download format.

In the winter of 2007, in between the two sessions of the 110^th Congress, Sen. Trent Lott, an institution in Congress since the 1980s, suddenly announced his impending retirement from the Senate. Lott had an illustrious career as a legislator rising all the way to the top of the Senate, serving as Senate Majority Leader from 1996 to 2001, until a misfired compliment led his party to toss him as leader. Lott’s luck continued to run a shore as Hurricane Katrina demolished his gulf coast home leaving the senator to wage a battle with insurers claiming that there was no evidence that his home was destroyed by a hurricane because there was no home left. These reasons may have been enough to drive Sen. Lott to retire from the Senate when he did, but it was actually the implementation of a simple ethics requirement that pushed him to give up the trappings of the Senate and embrace the cash cow that is K Street.

In October 2007, Congress approved new ethics and lobbying reforms, including an extension of the “cooling off” period for Senators. The “cooling off” period refers to the period of time that some government employees are restricted from lobbying the government after they leave office. The new rules mandated a two-year “cooling off” period – extended from one-year – starting at the beginning of the next session in 2008. Trent Lott avoided this new rule by retiring on December 18, 2007.

“Cooling off” periods, or revolving door reforms, do not solely apply to Congress. The executive branch faces similar problems of conflicts of interest arising from appointees leaving to pursue private sector gigs and private sector employees entering government service. This problem has become increasingly acute over the past decade and that’s why the Project on Government Oversight includes revolving door reform as a key plank in their Presidential transition recommendations:

POGO Recommends: The President should issue an Executive Order that executive branch employees, including political appointees, must consider their position a matter of public trust and service, not a stepping stone for personal gain. Once they leave government service, there should be a three year prohibition against public employees and officials working for or representing industries or other private interests that they regulated, contracted with, or otherwise oversaw. Similarly, the President should exercise great caution in appointing individuals with ties to the industry they will oversee. The Office of Government Ethics and agency ethics offices should be given administrative enforcement power over violations of ethics, as well as the necessary resources to execute this new mandate.

These recommendations break down as follows:

1) Extend “cooling off” period from one- to three-years. 2) “[E]xercise great caution in appointing individuals with ties to the industry they will oversee.” 3) Give enforcement power to the Office of Government Ethics.

All of these are welcome recommendations as they will help stop conflict of interest abuses that have become all too common in government. The new restrictions proposed by POGO go a long way to making those employed by government focused more on their current service than the future payout in the private sector.

Of course, there are ways that the lobbying industry and the private sector have of circumventing these rules. By acting as an advisor, a former employee can help clients in their lobbying campaign without making actual contacts with government officials that constitute lobbying. These kinds of loopholes are likely impossible to close.

The brightest side to POGO’s recommendations is that they are incredibly likely to happen, as they have been embraced by President-Elect Barack Obama.

In the case of extending the “cooling off” period and exercising “great caution in appointing individuals with ties to the industry they will oversee,” President-Elect Obama’s plans, as told on Change.gov, are:

Close the Revolving Door on Former and Future Employers: No political appointees in the Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.

On giving the Office of Government Ethics more enforcement ability:

Enforce Executive Branch Ethics: The Obama-Biden administration will give the Office of Governmental Ethics strong enforcement authority with the ability to make binding regulations, and it will work with inspectors general in all the federal agencies to enforce ethics rules, minimize waste and ensure federal officials are not using their offices for personal gain. The OGE will also be the clearinghouse of all public records relevant to ethics in the Executive Branch and place this information on its website. Finally, the OGE will promulgate rules and procedures to record all oral and in-person "lobbying contacts" between registered lobbyists and political appointees and make those records available to the public in a searchable computerized database.

The key now, for POGO and others supporting their recommendations, will be to make sure that promises like these are enforced.

Yesterday, the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior released multiple reports revealing widespread corruption in the Mineral Management Services agency, which handles mineral extraction, leases, and royalties for the Department of the Interior. The allegations show employees receiving illegal gifts, graft, filing false statements on ethics forms, using illegal drugs, and having sex with both subordinates in the agency and with agents of oil and gas companies with business before the agency.

Here are some of the allegations:

Lucy Denett, former associate director of minerals revenue management: accused of steering a contract to one of her aides after he retired.

Gregory Smith, former director of the royalty-in-kind program: accused of doing outside consulting work that included using his position to help the company paying him gain access to clients doing work with the royalty-in-kind program; billing Mineral Management Services for trips made in conjunction with his outside consulting work; accepting over $1,000 in gifts from oil and gas companies; using cocaine with a subordinate; having sex with two subordinates, where one episode is clearly a sexual assault.

Eight other employees: Socialized with and received gifts from companies with business before the royalty-in-kind program. Two of these employees are also alleged to have used drugs and had sexual relations with various agents of oil and gas companies with business before the program.

Here's CNN reporting on the report:

The IG reports are available at ProPublica where Paul Kiel is providing running coverage.

Since 2001, when President Bush took office, the Department of the Interior was beset by problems arising from the appointment of officials who previously worked in or with the industries that the Department is intended to oversee.

Both the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, and the Deputy Secretary of the Interior, Steven J. Griles, came from the extraction industries. Norton worked for a law firm that lobbied for a variety of companies, including oil, gas, and metal companies. Griles previously worked for a natural resources company and later provided public relations advice to a variety of extraction companies doing business with the government. Both Norton and Griles wound up caught in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Norton resigned her post as the scandal encroached into the Department of the Interior, while Griles wound up pleading guilty.

Ethical standards trickle from the top on down. Some of the officials involved in this current scandal expressed the opinion that they "didn't think ethics rules applied to them because of their 'unique' role in the agency and that they needed to socialize with industry representatives for 'market intelligence.'" The Mineral Management Services scandal has been brewing for a long time and highlights a lack of oversight that occurs when a Department is staffed with individuals who are used to making money from the business they are charged with regulating.

The House appears to be on the ball in pushing back against the kind of executive branch secrecy that Ellen wrote about here. Just a couple of hours ago they passed a bill, H.R. 6575, the Over-Classification Reduction Act, by voice vote. The stated purpose of the bill is to "increase Governmentwide information sharing and the availability of information to the public by applying standards and practices to reduce improper classification." Now if only the Senate could get on board and pass the numerous anti-secrecy bills passed out of the House.