Frequently Asked Questions Open Government

The United States is regarded by many as a pillar of democracy for the modern world. It is, in actuality, deeply flawed. The U.S. touts the principles of freedom, independence, and justice, while at the same time only haphazardly, if at all, meeting the requirements for these ideals. Despite the systems of checks and balances in place to prevent abuse of power, the United States does not have an effective democracy because of a distinct lack of transparency and a blatant disregard for the rule of law.

The United States does an excellent job of controlling the abuse of power. One of the major systems in place to protect this signpost is the system of checks and balances which “is set to be a sentry over the separation of powers, balancing the

According to the United States Office of Personnel Management, transparency involves “providing online information in open formats that make the information easy to retrieve, organize, search, and use...publishing data sets of high value to the public and…making available on the Web information about how [the government] goes about doing things” (Frequently Asked Questions Open Government). Efforts to improve government transparency are aimed at making information about the government more accessible to the public, in order to keep U.S. citizens informed and up to date, as well as to make the government more accountable to the people. The Freedom of Information Act, created in 1967, gives the public the right to access records from U.S. federal agencies provided the records don’t threaten “personal privacy, national security, [or] law enforcement” (Freedom of Information Act). The FOIA has been instrumental to helping journalists across the country investigate properly, and it allows citizens to requests records at any time, even though there are several issues with how the request forms are processed, and several frustrating roadblocks in place to make accessing the records more difficult (Manzo). Despite attempts by the government to be transparent through FOIA, one of the government bodies not included under the Freedom

The World Justice Project’s definition of the rule of law is made up of four principles: accountability, just laws, open government, and accessible and impartial dispute resolution. Essentially, this means that the government is also accountable under the laws, just like any average citizen, the laws are clear and visible, applied fairly, and protect basic rights, the process of enforcing and using laws is out in the open, and that justice is ethical and neutral (What is the Rule of Law?). Clearly, the government is at least attempting to adhere to these ideas. In the Federalist #78, Alexander Hamilton explained that the role of the federal courts was “to be an intermediate body between the people and their legislature” and that they were designed to make sure that the rule of law was upheld (Overview - Rule of Law). However, these concepts are poorly executed. In 2016, Brock Turner, an athlete at Stanford, sexually assaulted a woman who was unconscious, but received an very short sentence of six months. He was released after only three months in jail (Lewis). Many have argued that his sentence was unusually lenient “because he was affluent and white” while others think that the judge was biased because “he, too, had been a student-athlete at Stanford” (Wootson). A judge should not be allowed to preside over a case where there is a possible conflict