Comments on the USA IRM Report

The release of the IRM Progress Report for the United States is very timely – but not necessarily for good reasons.  Civil society is, at the moment, pretty much in the dark about the US Plan to be presented in London.  We had a very good start this summer; civil society created a Model National Action Plan (in May –July of this year) and gave it to the White House in late July. It was well-received and the process described by the officials was promising. Between work inside the government on a new President’s Management Agenda, though, and the recent two and one-half week shutdown of the government, we really don’t know where things stand.  A well-done and thorough report on the US’ implementation of the first National Action PlanAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen..., such as this, will hopefully spur a renewed focus on creating a strong 2nd National Action Plan on the part of the (now re-opened) government.

As noted, the IRM Progress report is very thoughtful. Although the US civil society groups who participated in the evaluation of the first US National Action Plan might take issue with a few of the assessments of the level of actual completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... More, I find the overall assessments fair and encourage readers to go beyond the boxes and to read the thoughtful comments in What Happened?, Did it Matter?, and Moving Forward. I look forward to sharing the report with civil society partners and getting their responses. The report would be improved, however, by more thoroughly exploring the role of civil society participation and collaboration in the implementation of the plans. For us, that is key to building solid commitments that serve the public.

I am also very pleased, and know much of the openness community will be as well, by the attention paid to the issues of national security secrecy and the Obama Administration’s pursuit of government employees (and a contractor) for the unauthorized disclosure of classified information to the public through the press.  As Danielle Brian (who is also the Chair of OpenTheGovernment.org’s Steering CommitteeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru...) notes in the quote cited in the report, these are the areas that stand to seriously undermine the president’s legacy on openness. 

Borrowing inspiration from our counterparts in the UK, we are challenging President Obama to make a bold commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... that truly expands the US government’s commitment to openness and accountability: a stretch commitment to finally rein in secret law – to make sure that the public has access to information that allows them to understand and have a rational debate over our nation’s laws and policies. Such a commitment would an opportunity to address an issue that has recently sparked controversy domestically and abroad: how secret legal interpretations of the law have allowed government programs to grow well beyond the bounds of what it was thought the law permitted.

This IRM report provides an opportunity to take a final, fresh look at the first National Action Plan as the presentation of the new plans approaches. The U.S. would do well to take one of the IRM’s framing questions to heart when assessing what to include in the new plan: Will it matter?