Obama team's finances hard to access
By KENNETH P. VOGEL 1/30/09 POLITICO
Even as President Barack Obama issued new rules to make government more open and transparent, his administration is relying on an antiquated and opaque disclosure system. Anyone seeking copies of the financial disclosure reports recently filed by members of his Cabinet and his top aides has to navigate an arcane and intrusive bureaucracy reliant on faxes, dense government forms, snail mail, or proximity to Washington, plus an insider's knowledge of an unpredictable schedule dictated by a host of government officials. Simply put, it’s a system that seems to run counter to Obama’s talk and his new rules about using technology to open the halls of the federal government to the public. To be sure, the process for filing and releasing disclosure reports is a legacy that Obama has inherited from previous administrations – and one not easily changed in the first days of the new administration. But it’s one that he could bring into the 21st century on his own – without congressional action – by executive order, which he was urged to do in post-election meetings that his team arranged with advocates for heightened government disclosure. (continues here...)
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