The Obama administration announced the second Open Government National Action Plan that includes an initiative to make the Freedom Information Act more effective. (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, December 6, 2013, by Emily Grannis)
The new commitment to transparency includes the new interagency Classification Review Committee, to foster classification reform. “…because of its interagency character and especially due to its White House leadership, the new Committee has the potential to overcome the autonomous classification practices of individual agencies that have contributed to the explosive growth in secrecy,” writes Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News, December 6, 2013.
John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation, December 6, 2013, found the new plan lacking in respect to government spending, “More disappointing are the commitments around spending transparency, which would build on existing efforts to improve federal spending transparency in Congress and the federal government, but offer only vague commitments,” wrote Wonderlich.