New York Times

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON — In his first full day at the White House almost 14 months ago, President Obama declared openness and transparency to be touchstones of his administration, and he ordered federal agencies to make it easier for the public to get information on the workings of government.

Indeed, Mr. Obama’s administration has posted White House visitor logs online, it has made public the once-classified memorandums on torture policies in the George W. Bush administration, and it has developed an internal system for archiving its own unclassified e-mail messages.

But a new report released Sunday by a private research group, the National Security Archive, suggests that the results of Mr. Obama’s push for transparency have been decidedly mixed across the federal government, with progress slow and erratic.

The report found that despite Mr. Obama’s directive for agencies to take “affirmative steps” to make more information public through the Freedom of Information Act, many agencies do not appear to have made any concrete changes. It also found little indication that most federal agencies were releasing information any more frequently or rejecting public requests for information any less often.

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