This year's Sunshine Week finds us emerging from eight long years of darkness perpetuated by the most secretive administration in modern times. Signaling a sharp and dramatic shift from this past, President Obama on his first full day in office committed his presidency to "[t]ransparency and the rule of law," and promised to stand on the side "not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known." This promise of change gave Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and other Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requesters new optimism that once again FOIA would be a useful tool to "hold the governors accountable to the governed."
President Obama's decision to reverse the previous administration's ban on photographing caskets at Dover Air Force represents a welcome first step in making his new policy of transparency a reality. Attorney General Holder's subsequent decision to release nine of the most closely held Bush era Office of Legal Counsel opinions continues this march toward transparency and accountability. Reexamining, revealing, and reversing the discredited legal and policy decisions of the Bush administration will ensure our nation learns from rather than repeats the mistakes of the past. It is no accident that the National Archives, housing some of our nation's most significant records from the Declaration of Independence to the Emancipation Proclamation, bears the Shakespearean inscription "What's past is prologue."
The president was right to highlight his commitment to openness on his first full day in office; transparency is a fundamental issue allowing Americans to understand, consider, and judge all the government's actions. But there is so much more to do. The Bush administration's policy of secrecy resulted in a legacy of lawsuits challenging decisions to withhold a wide range of documents from public interest organizations like CREW, journalists, and historians. From abuses of power in the name of the war on terror to the role of Vice President Cheney in the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert identity, the Obama administration must decide whether to provide the public with documents explaining the bases for some of the most controversial decisions of the Bush administration. Inevitably, the new president will also make some controversial decisions that will force him to confront whether or not to grant access to documents that allow the public to judge for itself the wisdom of his policies. For example, although President Obama has promised transparency in how he addresses the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve Board to date has refused to disclose to Congress or the public those financial institutions to which it has given taxpayer-funded assistance.
Sunshine Week provides an opportunity for the Obama administration to continue to make good on its commitment to government openness. Now is the time to lift the lid of secrecy still concealing so much of our recent past and to shine the bright light of transparency on current policies and practices.