Today the White House unveiled its much anticipated Government Accountability and Transparency Board (GATB) under the leadership of Earl Devaney, who currently chairs the RAT board in charge of monitoring the use of “stimulus” funds. In the GATB’s first meeting, the members of the board approved their mission statement and bylaws, which basically restate President Obama’s Open Government Directive. Yet despite the new board’s name and avowed purpose, the first meeting of the transparency board was held behind closed doors.
President Obama took office promising a new era of openness. Three years later, those promises have gone largely unfulfilled and the irony of the first meeting of the GATB being closed to the public is not lost on the open government advocates who have been disappointed by the lethargic pace of transparency reform under this administration. The GATB’s purpose – like that of the similar board created by Rep. Issa’s DATA Act – is to recommend improvements to federal data reporting systems. And while any improvement upon the current mess of overlapping transparency websites is a step in the right direction, the lack of transparency at the GATB’s inaugural meeting is an inauspicious start.
