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 Presidential Tax Returns and Financial Disclosure Forms

The White House has also released the President's and the Vice President's tax filings, as well as their annual financial disclosures forms. Both of these are also posted prominently on the White House website. The public thus has easy access to the President's and Vice President's income and other financial interests. Ethics and Financial Disclosures of White House Staff The White House has also posted all waivers of strict new ethics requirements for White House personnel. President Obama's Executive Order 13490, "Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel," imposes new rules on how executive branch appointees are to conduct themselves, and restricts appointees' pre-government and post-government employment. The Order also requires every political appointee in every executive agency to sign an Ethics Pledge, while it allows for a waiver when the literal application of the Ethics Pledge does not make sense or is not in the public interest. All such waivers are posted online in their entirety for the public and media to review.

White House staff salary and financial disclosure forms are publicly available as well. Here again for the first time, interested parties may submit requests online for the staff financial disclosure reports they would like to review. The records and distribution process have been streamlined, so that each report is available in pdf form for transmission via email. Requested reports are e-mailed as quickly as possible.

White House Visitor Logs

The White House has also made the security log of all White House visitors publicly available, posted online on a rolling basis. The public can now browse the names of everyone who visits the White House. The visitors log can be searched by name or by date, and log records can be downloaded as well. The White House has released over 1,250,000 names so far.

Presidential Records

President Obama has also ensured that White House records, even sensitive documents, will become more readily and more quickly available to the public in the future. In January 2009, the President issued Executive Order 13489, promoting greater access to Presidential Records. That Order rescinded Executive Order 13323, which had restricted the disclosure of Presidential Records by allowing former presidents and their descendants to delay indefinitely the release of information. This new Order also gives the Archivist, the Attorney General, and the White House Counsel roles in determining the use of presidential privileges. Executive Order 13489 thus promotes openness for the near and far future.

VIII. CRITIQUES

Public feedback is an intended and valued consequence of open government. Just as the Administration has directed agencies to solicit the public's views about their Open Government Plans, so too has it welcomed the public's assessments of its larger open government efforts. As