Historian: Obama Balks at Dismantling Secrecy

Posted by Terry Francke, General Counsel | Jul 20, 2009 | Legal Issue: Open Government | 0 |

OPEN GOVERNMENT — "President Barack Obama has made some laudable gestures towards reform
and transparency, but he has proved unwilling to make meaningful
changes in the oversight, accountability, and prerogatives of the
secret agencies he commands," writes U.C. Davis historian Kathryn Olmstead for the History News Network.

Despite his promise of a government
committed to operating with an unprecedented level of openness, he
exhibits reluctance to investigate or expose the potential crimes of
the nations secret warriors. If history can guide us in predicting the
consequences of this timidity, his unwillingness to fulfill his pledge
of transparency will feed conspiracy theories about the federal
government, and undermine the trust that he needs to accomplish his
most ambitious reforms.

About The Editor

Terry Francke, General Counsel

Terry Francke has a 39-year history of helping journalists, citizens and public officials understand and use their First Amendment and open government rights. With CalAware, Francke has authored comprehensive and authoritative guidebooks to California law on access to government meetings and public records and the news gathering and publication rights of journalists. Focusing on these issues in public forum law, he supervises CalAware's legislative and litigation initiatives; conducts workshops on legal compliance; helps design public records audits; supports local sunshine ordinance drafting efforts; writes CalAware Today, a blog on current developments and proposals in the law and best practices; and answers countless queries by phone and e-mail from citizens, journalists, public officials and employees, and lawyers. Francke previously served 14 years as executive director and general counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition, after a 10-year post as legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He has served as an advisory panel member to the National Center on Courts and the Media; taught journalism law at the Department of Communication at Stanford University; and served as an expert contributor to the 1994 major revisions to the Ralph M. Brown Act and the 2004 ballot proposition making open government a basic right of citizens under the California Constitution. Francke is a 1967 graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a 1979 graduate of McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. Prior to his legal career, Francke worked as a weekly newspaper editor and in military and local government public affairs positions.

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