Keeping the window into government business open.

The Open Government Committee works with national media organizations supporting the free flow of government information. Its primary responsibility is weighing whether to lend NCEW's organizational signature to specific open government measures and occasionally composing letters of direct support from NCEW. The committee generally avoids signing onto letters that include non-media signatories and those that deal with specific freedom of information requests as opposed to broader policy issues.

The committee also serves as a clearinghouse for open government issues.

As chair of the Open Government Committee, I would urge anyone interested in serving on the committee and having early access to the latest updates should contact me at the email address below.

The NCEW decided in December to sign onto a letter from the Coalition for Open Government (cjog.org) supporting a bill by Senator Mark Dayton, D-Minnesota. The bill would clarify for federal agencies that the personal privacy exemption in the Freedom of Information Act does not cover basic information about government employees.

Dayton's office, however, chose not to introduce the bill during the year-end flap over the Patriot Act. Subsequent agency objections caused further delays, and CJOG withheld support pending any rewrites prior to bill's introduction.

Many agencies exercise an exceedingly narrow interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act's personal privacy exemption.

Even without Dayton's bill, the subject remains ripe for editorial comment.

A near-final draft of the letter, which I helped write, is reproduced below. The committee will provide updates through the listserv as they are appropriate.

Christian Trejbal, is an editorial writer for the Roanoke Times in Virginia. E-mail chris@ nightmare.org