Secrecy: The Bane of Democracy

That the Bush Administration is authoritarian, anti-democratic, and secretive is neither news nor a surprise to anyone, but that doesn't mean we ought to just shrug off its actions when they're put on public display, whether it's George Bush's grotesque FY 2009 budget or his sleight-of-hand regarding funding for the OPEN Government Act of 2007.
When the president signed the act on December 31, 2007, he did so without public comment due to, it now seems clear, the bill's establishment of an "Office of Government Information Services in the National Archives and Records Administration to review agency compliance with FOIA."
He never intended to fund this office but rather has insisted in his FY 2009 budget that the funds be moved to the Justice Department.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), a co-sponser of the legislation and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in response to the decision, "the White House has shown they intend to act contrary to the intent of Congress by removing the Office of Government Information Services from the non-partisan, independent office of the National Archives and Records Administration and moving it to the Department of Justice. The President signed legislation into law to establish the OGIS to respond to long outstanding FOIA requests. Now the President has repealed part of the law he signed just over a month ago."
As Ralph Lindeman of the Coalition of Journalists For Open Government put it, the move "would shift the office from a politically neutral National Archives to the Justice Department, which defends the government against requesters in lawsuits under FOIA." Of course, the conflict is obvious in a fox-guarding-the-henhouse-way: if the DOJ defends the government against requesters' petitions, it's hardly the appropriate department to monitor requests in the first place.
**
But, sad to say, the Bush Administration isn't alone in insisting upon anti-democratic secrecy. OpenTheGovernment.org highlighted this problem at the Congressional level in letters to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
The letter to Reid noted that the passage in August 2007 of the Protect America Act, saw "substantial changes to FISA, crafted by the administration, [which] were passed by Congress without any public hearings with anyone other than administration witnesses speaking to Senators."
In the October 2007 letter to Pelosi, OTG said that "we are now faced with a law [PAA] that allows massive untargeted collection of communications into and out of the United States, without court review, and without any limit on how those communications can be distributed or used. This new legislation has serious Fourth Amendment implications and eviscerates the longstanding protections for Americans in FISA. There is substantial work to be done to put this law back in line with the Constitution and our values, work that should not be done in secret or behind closed doors.
We believe Congress cannot fulfill its constitutional responsibilities by voting on legislation making the PAA permanent, extending the law’s sunset or giving immunity
for past warrantless surveillance of Americans, without a public discussion about these very controversial proposals. The rights and civil liberties of Americans are too important to proceed without one."
**
How effective can a democracy be when the leadership of both parties work against open government?