USTR Wants More Transparency In Drawing Up EU Regulations -- But Not In Drawing Up TAFTA/TTIP

from the hypocrisy,-thy-name-is-USTR dept

As we've noted many times before, one of the biggest problems with TAFTA/TTIP and TPP is the almost complete lack of transparency about the negotiations. Although the politicians like to assert that this is "inevitable" during any trade agreement where tough haggling over numbers needs to take place, this deliberately ignores the point that TPP and TTIP are not just trade agreements: they touch on areas that are the domain of public policy and democratic decision-making -- things like regulations, standards, approaches to copyright and patents etc. According to the European Commission's own figures, reductions in trade barriers are only expected to account for around 20% of the claimed economic benefits that could flow from TAFTA/TTIP: the rest comes from reducing "non-tariff barriers" -- the rather loaded name given to things like health, safety and environmental standards.

Against that background of a total refusal to allow the general public access to negotiating documents -- even those that are tabled, and therefore no longer secret -- this story in the Financial Times about the US Trade Representative, Michael Froman, demanding greater openness is, at first sight, rather surprising (NB: subscription or free registration required):

The US push for greater transparency in EU regulations was first made in broad terms by Michael Froman, US trade representative, in a speech in Brussels last September. But in specific proposals put forward in closed-door negotiations in recent weeks the US has stepped up the campaign and made clear that it is one of Washington's main negotiating priorities, according to people close to the talks.

Evidently, the USTR is looking for greater transparency only in the process of drawing up EU regulations, not more generally. That's plainly because US companies intend to lobby Brussels even more vociferously in this area, and to do that they need full access to draft regulations. Here's how Froman wants that to happen:

The US has proposed that EU regulators be required to publish the proposed texts of regulations and open them to public comment. It also wants regulators to be required to consider comments and explain why they had adopted -- or failed to adopt -- outside suggestions when they finalise regulations.

If such an approach were adopted, it would give US companies far more scope to intervene in the EU regulatory process, and perhaps enable them to take legal action against EU regulators -- a threat that would boost US (and EU) corporate influence considerably.

Of course, what's striking about those demands is that the reasoning given in support of them applies equally to the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations: we need to have the proposed texts published so that the public can comment on them and argue against measures there that are likely to have negative consequences for society. We also need to require negotiators to explain why they adopted or failed to adopt suggestions. The FT article quotes US officials as saying:

there is a growing emphasis on transparency in regulation and greater public consultations are increasingly important.

Except, it would seem, when it concerns secretive regulatory agreements like TAFTA/TTIP and TPP.

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Filed Under: tafta, tpp, trade agreement, transparency, ttip, ustr

Another Area Where TPP Will Cause Problems: Internet Domain Names

from the even-worse-than-we-thought dept

Discussions about the flaws in TPP are severely limited thanks to the extreme secrecy under which it is being negotiated. Essentially, the only areas we can sensibly analyze are where we have leaked chapters. One of these is the text dealing with things like copyright and patents, which we wrote about back in November last year. One aspect of this that has not been discussed much if at all concerns Internet domain names; Susan Chalmers has put together an excellent post exploring why TPP is problematic here too. The relevant section of the TPP leak (Article QQ.C.12:) is extremely short, and reads as follows:

1.56 In order to address the problem of trademark [VN/MX propose: geographical indication and trade name] cyber-piracy, each Party shall adopt or maintain a system for the management of its country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) that provides:

(a) an appropriate procedure for the settlement of disputes, based on, or modelled along the same lines as, the principles established in the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy, or that is: (i) designed to resolve disputes expeditiously and at low cost, (ii) fair and equitable, (iii) not overly burdensome, and (iv) does not preclude resort to court litigation;

(b) online public access to a reliable and accurate database of contact information concerning domain-name registrants; in accordance with each Party's laws regarding protection of privacy and personal data.

2. [PE/SG/CL/AU/NZ/MY/BN/CA oppose; US/VN/JP/MX propose: Each party shall provide [VN: oppose adequate and effective] [VN propose: appropriate] remedies against the registration trafficking, or use in any ccTLD, with a bad faith intent to profit, of a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark [VN/MX propose: , geographical indication or trade name].]

This section is therefore trying to address what it calls "cyber-piracy"; the brackets in the text above show the differing positions held by the negotiating countries. In her post, Chalmers explains:

A ccTLD is "an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, a sovereign state, or a dependent territory," for example .nz for New Zealand or .cl for Chile. There are 246 of them. These two letter domains come from the ISO-3166 country code list, and the institutions that manage them range from governmental to academic, commercial to non-profit, to management by an individual, and different shades in between. Initial delegations of ccTLDs were made in the 1980s and 1990s, generally to individuals connected to the Internet, often University personnel. ccTLD managers determine their own policies, "according to the relevant oversight and governance mechanisms within the[ir] country," territory or geographical location.

Currently, each country can essentially run its own top-level domain as it wishes; TPP will change all that:

The TPP however would fix regulatory parameters, and limit the flexibility of the ccTLD in developing its own policies. By and through the Provision, the TPP collides with other ccTLD policy fora. It sets enforceable standards for ccTLD policies where such standards may not otherwise exist, or where the standards clash with pre-existing policy.

In her post, Chalmers runs through the details of how this will play out, and why it's unlikely to be a good idea. She also rightly emphasizes:

such [TPP] requirements may come about not out of consideration for what is best for ccTLD management, but as a result of a trade. Countries' concessions on IP issues may come as a result, for example, of their desire to export more sugar or beef to US markets.

In other words, the horse-trading that typically goes on during these negotiations may see a country's autonomy in the key field of domain names sacrificed in the hope of boosting some local industry. It's yet another example of how a trade agreement can have important implications in other areas -- in this case, how the Internet is run. The analysis from Chalmers is valuable not only for alerting us to this fact, but also emphasizing once more why it is imperative for us to see the draft text of the agreement in order to find its other pitfalls, and then try to fix them.

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Filed Under: cctld, domain name, tpp, transparency

AT&T's Transparency Report Offers Little Actual Transparency, Omits Millions Of Metadata Records

from the you-are-using-a-different-dictionary dept

When it comes to cozying up to the NSA, you'd be hard pressed to find a company that has been more cooperative with the agency's surveillance practices than AT&T. Long before Snowden, former AT&T whistle blower Mark Klein exposed (pdf) the fact that AT&T was effectively letting NSA have access to every shred of data that touches the AT&T network via live fiber splits. AT&T's involvement doesn't just stop at spying, information has indicated they have a history of giving the government advice on how to best bypass the law in addition to even acting as volunteer intelligence analysts when needed. Patriotism!

After remaining mute during most of the Snowden firestorm (with the exception of telling investors whom AT&T spies on it is none of their business), AT&T has since agreed to start issuing transparency reports. Unfortunately, as with all things NSA, the word "transparency" doesn't mean what anybody thinks it means. As Wired notes, given what we know about what AT&T is actually doing, their estimate of 301,816 total government requests for information last year falls tens of millions short of what AT&T actually collects and hands off to government agencies:

"AT&T's transparency report counts 301,816 total requests for information — spread between subpoenas, court orders and search warrants — in 2013. That includes between 2,000 and 4,000 under the category “national security demands,” which collectively gathered information on about 39,000 to 42,000 different accounts.

There was a time when that number would have seemed high. Today, it's suspiciously low, given the disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden about the NSA's bulk metadata program. We now know that the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is ordering the major telecoms to provide the NSA a firehose of metadata covering every phone call that crosses their networks.

An accurate transparency report should include a line indicating that AT&T has turned over information on each and every one of its more than 80 million-plus customers. It doesn't."

That's of course is because the new transparency guidelines (pdf) AT&T follows allow for total non-transparency in regards to disclosing metadata, using semantics to avoid disclosure:

"(EFF Attorney Nate) Cardozo believes that AT&T is correct that it is barred from disclosing the metadata numbers, because of the Obama administration's careful choice of language in the section relating to orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The guidelines allow for the disclosure, in chunks of 1,000, of “the number of customer selectors [phone numbers] targeted under FISA non-content orders.” Since the bulk metadata collection doesn't “target” any “selectors” it is, by definition, not subject to disclosure."

And while Wired remains focused on metadata (call times, IDs, call duration), they're failing to note that if what Klein said remains true (and people seem to forget Klein existed, for some reason), we're talking about not only metadata -- but real time data streams and voice monitoring that isn't being disclosed as well. As we noted with Verizon's transparency report, you're not being all that transparent when you're omitting bulk collection of surveillance data, and the data you do disclose operates in vague ranges designed to be intentionally misleading. So when we say transparency, we of course mean not transparent whatsoever.

Filed Under: mark klein, nsa, surveillance, transparency
Companies: at&t

USTR Thinks A Non-Transparent 'Public Interest' Committee Will Mollify Critics; It Won't

from the not-going-to-cut-it dept

We've been pointing out for years how the US Trade Representative is creating all sorts of problems for itself by its insistence on secretly negotiating trade agreements, in which only industry insiders and lobbyists are a part of the process and have access to the documents. The USTR has ridiculously tried to argue that it's transparent because it will meet with anyone who asks, never acknowledging that hearing from people is quite different from sharing what the USTR is actually negotiating in our name. As we've said before, if the only way the American public can find out about what the USTR is negotiating in our name is because Wikileaks has released the documents, then the USTR is not being transparent. A few weeks ago, we noted some signs that the USTR was beginning to panic, as it realized that its bogus claims about transparency weren't sitting well with Congress, and its hope to tie Congress's hands via "fast track" or "trade promotion authority" is on life support.

For the first time, the USTR has kinda sorta admitted that its current process of only sharing the negotiating documents with industry lobbyists -- something that even the strongly pro-business Bloomberg referred to as a "corporatist power grab" -- isn't necessarily in the public interest. In a speech, USTR Michael Froman announced the creation of a new "Public Interest Trade Advisory Committee" (PITAC):

I’m pleased to announce that we are upgrading our advisory system to provide a new forum for experts on issues like public health, development and consumer safety.

“A new Public Interest Trade Advisory Committee (PITAC) will join the Labor Advisory Committee and the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committees to provide a cross-cutting platform for input in the negotiations.

“We are calling on NGOs, academics, and other public interest groups to submit their candidates to be founding members of the PITAC.

Of course, just the fact that they think they need a "public interest" advisory committee begs the question: are they admitting that until now, they just didn't give a shit about the public interest? Aren't they effectively saying that all of those other advisory committees they have, made up of big industry lobbyists, have been pushing them to screw over the public interest, in favor of short term protectionism and profits?

You'd think that the entire point of what the USTR does is that it should be negotiating agreements in the public interest, and yet as far as I can tell, they've now admitted that was never the case before, and now they seem to think that rather than being an overreaching aim of all trade agreements, that it's one of multiple "competing interests." In fact, this new proposal is actually exactly what the corporate lobbyists themselves had pushed for a few years ago, when the USTR started considering adding non-corporate representatives to the other advisory committees. The lobbyists balked at that suggestion, saying that, if anything, a separate second-tier public interest committee should be created. And that's what's now happened, with Froman pretending that this is some sort of huge move to benefit the public interest.

But, more to the point, this seems much more like a way to try to mollify critics by attempting to bring some of the most vocal critics of the lack of transparency "into the fold" (which will include strict confidentiality agreements), hoping that this shuts them up.

It takes an astounding amount of cluelessness to think that the proper response to a lack of transparency is to create another committee with secret access to the negotiating text.

While Froman also insists that he will be taking "new steps to broaden public information on the progress of negotiations," including "an update on the status of negotiations," that's not the transparency people are asking for. They're not asking for status reports. They're asking for transparency on what the USTR is negotiating in our name (though, as now admitted, without any concern for "the public interest").

Other parts of Froman's speech were equally problematic. In it, he quotes the ridiculous statistic that "Intellectual property-intensive industries account for nearly 30 million American jobs" -- ignoring, of course, that this number has been totally debunked multiple times over. The study this is based on lumped all sorts of jobs that have nothing whatsoever to do with intellectual property protections into the category of "intellectual property-intensive industries," such that the leading such employer is grocery store employees. And, sorry, but the kid putting your canned veggies into a bag doesn't have his job because of intellectual property law.

He also pretends that the USTR is supporting the exporting of fair use with the following statement:

... for the first time in any trade agreement, we are asking our trading partners to secure robust balance in their copyright systems – an unprecedented move that draws directly on U.S. copyright exceptions and limitations, including fair use for important purposes such as scholarship, criticism, news commentary, teaching, and research.

That's misleading, at best. While it's true that this is the first time the USTR has included any such provisions in a trade agreement, the actual language shows that it's more about limiting fair use than expanding it.

He also tries to dismiss the concerns that TPP is somehow "related to SOPA." He's right. It's not SOPA, but this statement is again misleading in the extreme:

The United States will agree to nothing in TPP that goes beyond existing U.S. intellectual property law.

Except... that Congress is currently debating major copyright and patent reform -- and while the leaked proposals are mostly (though not entirely) consistent with US law, they would effectively lock in aspects of current law that many have suggested should be changed. That is, while it may not change that much today, it clearly would serve to block Congress from fixing the massive problems in today's copyright and patent law. And the USTR doesn't seem to even understand this -- in part because the folks that it spends the most time discussing intellectual property with -- the intellectual property trade advisory committee (ITAC 15) are pretty much all copyright/patent maximalists.

The speech is more of the same from the USTR. It makes a bunch of false and misleading statements, either out of ignorance or with the intention of directly misleading the public. The inclusion of this new "public interest" committee is a cheap ploy to try to buy off some critics with increased access, but does nothing to address the fundamental problems with the process and the agreement.

Filed Under: pitac, public interest, trade agreement, transparency, ustr

Learning From ACTA: Will TAFTA/TTIP Be More Transparent Than TPP?

from the hope-springs-eternal dept

Recently we wrote about the growing calls for transparency during the TPP negotiations. It's still early days for TAFTA/TTIP, but already there are some signs that senior politicians are becoming aware that transparency is no longer some minor aspect of these trade talks, but a hugely important issue in itself. We know this thanks to an earlier fight by the European Digital Rights (EDRi) group to obtain from the European Parliament various documents relating to ACTA -- the result of an infamously opaque process. Its complaint was directed to the little-known European Ombudsman:

an independent and impartial body that holds the EU administration to account. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about maladministration in EU institutions, bodies, offices, and agencies. Only the Court of Justice of the European Union, acting in its judicial capacity, falls outside the Ombudsman's mandate. The Ombudsman may find maladministration if an institution fails to respect fundamental rights, legal rules or principles, or the principles of good administration.

However, in this case the European Parliament explained that it was bound by a confidentiality agreement that had been negotiated by the European Commission, and was therefore unable to release the requested ACTA documents. Here's what the EU Ombudsman had to say on this:

The Ombudsman accepted this explanation, but advised Parliament to ensure that the Commission and the Council do not sign confidentiality agreements in the future that could undermine Parliament's ability to deliberate openly on such issues.

That advice in itself is noteworthy, since it specifically discourages the use of confidentiality agreements that might hamper transparency. In reply, the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, explained:

in the context of the TTIP negotiations, no confidentiality agreement has been signed with the US. The negotiators instead committed to implementing the EU's access to documents rules. Schulz wrote that the Commission took the unprecedented step of publishing important documents at the start of the TTIP process and invited stakeholders to submit their views. He promised to keep reminding the Commission that a pro-active approach is needed to keep the public informed about the state of play in all such negotiations.

What exactly "keeping the public informed" about the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations means in practice is open to interpretation. But again, there's no denying that at least some progress is evident here. For a start, unlike with ACTA, there is no formal confidentiality agreement that politicians can point to as an excuse for not releasing documents. And more generally there is a recognition that transparency is a vitally important aspect of the negotiations that can no longer be ignored, even if it will still be resisted.

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Filed Under: acta, tafta, trade agreement, transparency, ttip

NYPD Foils FOIL Request For NYPD FOIL Handbook

from the in-other-news,-NYPD-denies-it-exists,-forwards-requests-to-Mailboxes,-Etc. dept

The NYPD's approach to transparency has been negatively compared to the CIA, FBI and NSA by prominent investigative reporters, who noted that these other agencies will at least respond even if they're not particularly interested in kicking the requested documents loose. The NYPD often won't even respond, and when it does, it tends to drag the process out to the point of absurdity before finally deciding that no, it won't release the requested information.

Muckrock points out that NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton once stated, "there should be no secrets in the NYPD." The NYPD, under Ray Kelly (and apparently, going forward as well), has responded with, "Move along. There's nothing (EVER) to see here."

In what can only be described as a new low for the NYPD, it has denied Muckrock's FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) request for the NYPD's FOIL handbook.

I have written a number of times about ongoing difficulties with the New York Police Department's FOIL Unit. From rejecting routine requests to claiming "inability to locate" documents even when provided with a form number, NYPD seems hellbent on obstructing access to its records.

Last week, NYPD's freedom of information squad determined that its own handbook is exempt from disclosure under FOIL, New York's public records statute.

Somehow, the NYPD feels that attorney-client privilege applies to its internal handbook on FOIL requests and has used that exception to reach this illogical, Heller-esque nadir in department transparency. If Muckrock's challenge of the NYPD's rationale is denied, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for the tight-lipped department, as Shawn Musgrave points out.

I very much hope that a competent lawyer who is familiar with NYPD's obligations under FOIL prepared the department's records request manual and training materials. But just because something was prepared or reviewed by an attorney does not mean that an agency can withhold it. If this were true, the vast majority of policy documents prepared by any agency counsel would be immune from disclosure, as would most talking points memos, reports and communiques that endure lawyerly vetting. This is simply not how attorney-client privilege is meant to work.

It may be time for the DOJ to declare the NYPD a "rogue agency" (or whatever) and start steering the department back into the calmer waters of public service. It certainly fits the description. It apparently answers to nobody, routinely rewrites laws and guidelines to justify unconstitutional behavior and sends its uninvited personnel to the scenes of terrorist attacks around the world. Ray Kelly called it the seventh-largest standing army in the world, but it behaves more like a law unto itself.

Filed Under: bill bratton, foi, nypd, ray kelly, transparency

Amid Growing Calls To Release TPP Text, NZ Says Transparency Would 'Destroy' Agreement, While USTR Won't Even Talk If Journalists Are Present

from the really-not-getting-it dept

As happened with ACTA, the lack of transparency in the TPP negotiations is emerging as one of the key issues there. Here's a very interesting initiative by politicians from many of the TPP countries:

Senior legislators from Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand and Peru today issued a joint letter seeking the release of the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) before it is signed, to enable detailed scrutiny and public debate. The signatories include political party leaders and legislators who currently or previously held senior political office in their national governments.

On the www.tppmpsfortransparency.org site, there's a list of the politicians who have signed up, and it's interesting to see the variation across the different countries. For example, there's just one politician each from Australia and Mexico, two from Canada, but 21 from Peru and no less than 44 from Malaysia. That gives a rough measure of where resistance to TPP is strongest -- Techdirt noted that Malaysia's support for TPP was wavering as far back as 2012.

Despite these widespread concerns about the lack of transparency, the USTR shows no signs of addressing them. Here's what happened recently in the US:

Vermont lawmakers are refusing to meet a demand from the office of the U.S. trade representative that they conduct secret talks over the impacts of a proposed international trade agreement.

An ad hoc group of House members was to have a telephone meeting with officials in the USTR on Thursday about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. But state Rep. Mike Yantachka says that office stated in an email the media should be barred from attending.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, politicians are resorting to desperate justifications of secrecy. Here's what Tim Groser, the country's trade minister, had to say on the subject:

the idea that doing all this in the glare of publicity would help the process is naïve, except that my view is that ... actually these people (TPP opponents) are smart," said Groser. "They want this to be done in the full glare of transparency to increase the controversy to the point where it's unmanageable and will destroy the agreement.

The key concern should not be about helping the process at all costs, but making sure that it is in the interests of the public -- here, the New Zealand public. Keeping it secret might well make it easier to sell them down the river, but that's hardly a benefit. And if the "full glare of transparency" does increase the controversy, that suggests there isn't much support for the negotiations in the first place.

In other words, Groser's comments simply confirm what everyone fears: secrecy is being used to push through a bad deal that would never be accepted if negotiated out in the open as happens routinely for other, more democratic discussions.

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Filed Under: new zealand, tpp, transparency, ustr

USTR Finally Realizing Its All Encompassing Secrecy May Be A Problem, Calls Frantic Meeting For All 'Cleared' Lobbyists

from the you're-doing-it-wrong dept

It's been funny for years watching the USTR continue to repeat the same laughable line about how they've had "unprecedented transparency" concerning the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement -- an agreement that is still completely secret, other than a couple chapters leaked to Wikileaks. Here's a hint: if the text of the agreement is only available thanks to Wikileaks, you're not being transparent, precedented or not. Even the NY Times slammed the USTR's lack of transparency, and multiple members of Congress have been arguing that they're not at all comfortable with the lack of transparency from the USTR. Because of this, it seems that the USTR's desire for fast track authority, which would let it route around Congressional review, is on life support and close to dead.

Given that, it appears that the USTR is in panic mode, and has frantically called an all day meeting for all "cleared advisors" (i.e., the corporate representatives who actually do get to see the document) concerning the whole transparency issue.

In an apparent effort to defuse mounting criticism that the Obama administration is being too secretive about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on short notice has called an all-day briefing for all cleared advisers on Feb. 11, according to sources familiar with a memo sent by USTR announcing the meeting.

The only way they're going to defuse such criticism is to actually be transparent instead of secretive. Anyone taking bets on the likelihood of that happening?

Filed Under: cleared advisors, lobbyists, secrecy, tpp, transparency, ustr

Twitter Says DOJ's Settlement On National Security Requests Not Good Enough; It Will Fight For The Right To Disclose

from the good-for-twitter dept

We've pointed out in the past that Twitter deserves kudos for standing up to the government when it asks for info on users, something it has done multiple times. And now it's making it clear that it intends to keep doing that.

We pointed out last week that the feds had reached a settlement with a bunch of tech companies that had sued the government on First Amendment grounds over their ability to release details of numbers of FISA requests and National Security Letters they had received. Twitter was not a part of that lawsuit, and while it has released its own transparency report, it has also come out strongly for more transparency, saying that the settlement deal is not nearly good enough and that it is pushing back on the government's limitations and considering picking up the First Amendment fight that Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo and Linkedin dropped.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice and various communications providers reached an agreement allowing disclosure of national security requests in very large ranges. While this agreement is a step in the right direction, these ranges do not provide meaningful or sufficient transparency for the public, especially for entities that do not receive a significant number of – or any – national security requests.

As previously noted, we think it is essential for companies to be able to disclose numbers of national security requests of all kinds – including national security letters and different types of FISA court orders – separately from reporting on all other requests. For the disclosure of national security requests to be meaningful to our users, it must be within a range that provides sufficient precision to be meaningful. Allowing Twitter, or any other similarly situated company, to only disclose national security requests within an overly broad range seriously undermines the objective of transparency. In addition, we also want the freedom to disclose that we do not receive certain types of requests, if, in fact, we have not received any.

Unfortunately, we are currently prohibited from providing this level of transparency. We think the government’s restriction on our speech not only unfairly impacts our users’ privacy, but also violates our First Amendment right to free expression and open discussion of government affairs. We believe there are far less restrictive ways to permit discussion in this area while also respecting national security concerns. Therefore, we have pressed the U.S. Department of Justice to allow greater transparency, and proposed future disclosures concerning national security requests that would be more meaningful to Twitter’s users. We are also considering legal options we may have to seek to defend our First Amendment rights.

Obviously, Twitter is used more for public communications than private communications, so it's likely that it receives less attention on these issues, but it's great to see the company continue its strong history of standing up for its users' right to basic due process, and being quite explicit about its stance. Once again, Twitter deserves kudos where other companies have fallen short.

Filed Under: first amendment, fisa orders, fisc, government requests, transparency
Companies: twitter

Most Transparent White House? No, NYT Exec Editor Says It's The Most Secretive

from the well,-duh dept

We've been among those who have pointed out how laughable the Obama administration's claims to be "the most transparent administration in history" are, when, from nearly every angle, it appears that the Obama administration is ridiculously secretive -- beyond any previous administration. So, it's interesting to see that it's not just us who thinks that. The NYT's executive editor, Jill Abramson, who worked in Washington DC for decades, has noted that the Obama administration is, by far, the most secretive she's ever dealt with.

"I would say it is the most secretive White House that I have ever been involved in covering, and that includes — I spent 22 years of my career in Washington and covered presidents from President Reagan on up through now, and I was Washington bureau chief of the Times during George W. Bush's first term," Abramson told Al Jazeera America in an interview that will air on Sunday.

"I dealt directly with the Bush White House when they had concerns that stories we were about to run put the national security under threat. But, you know, they were not pursuing criminal leak investigations," she continued. "The Obama administration has had seven criminal leak investigations. That is more than twice the number of any previous administration in our history. It's on a scale never seen before. This is the most secretive White House that, at least as a journalist, I have ever dealt with."

I guess that's what happens when you declare that whistleblowers are "aiding the enemy" even as you pretend to support them. Your administration clams up.

Whenever this issue comes up, I keep going back to the speculation from Daniel Ellsberg a few years ago, in which he noted that while President Bush (the younger) abused his power and bulked up the surveillance state in secretive ways, when push came to shove, he believed that Bush was proud of doing that. President Obama, on the other hand, seems to be embarrassed about the way he's abused the power of the Presidency, and goes to tremendous lengths to try to hide those abuses and excesses. It's pure speculation on the part of Ellsberg, but it certainly rings true on multiple levels.

Filed Under: jill abramson, journalism, obama, reporting, transparency