Lawsuits increase despite White House transparency pledge, court records show – Washington Post

In today’s Washington Post there is an article entitled Lawsuits increase despite White House transparency pledge, court records show that more or less speaks to the problems of having an open government even when your President pledged to have one!

Governments by their very nature abhor openness.  They cherish the ability to hide things, to keep things from the citizenry.  Why?  Because knowledge, information, data is power.  And if the people have it, then they have power. If people are empowered they can change things, they can make decisions, they are in charge. We cannot have that!

Republican, Democrat or any other type of American politician is going to have a natural aversion to open government in any real sense.  The fact that Obama promised it only makes having less than we were promised only more frustrating.  Government beauracrats hate open government, I know, I was one. 

This gets to the very heart of efficient government for all and I can personally see based on my own experience in government why a civil servant would take his or her responsibility to grease the skids for access to information quite lightly.  If you have the information at your disposal, then why would you need him ?

I don’t think we have to look any deeper than job justification for this slow moving juggernaut called government openness and accountability.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)