An article from the New York Times last week detailed the widespread use of the Caribou Coffee on Pennsylvania Avenue as a meeting place between White House officials and lobbyists. Now, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for an investigation.

The New York Times reported that because "the discussions are not taking place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they are not subject to disclosure on the visitors' log that the White House releases as part of its pledge to be the 'most transparent presidential administration in history.' The off-site meetings, lobbyists say, reveal a disconnect between the Obama administration's public rhetoric — with Mr. Obama himself frequently thrashing big industries' 'battalions' of lobbyists as enemies of reform — and the administration’s continuing, private dealings with them."

CREW is seeking to find out whether the White House staff violated the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and Federal Records Act (FRA) by using private email to correspond with lobbyists and by holding meetings with lobbyists outside of the White House. Read CREW's press release here.

Staff of the Sunlight Foundation went to Caribou Coffee to find any lobbyists that might have been planning to meet with White House staff. There is a video documenting their test. They were unsuccessful, but a blog from Sunlight asserts; "It shouldn't matter whether or not a meeting between White House officials and lobbyists happens at the White House or at Caribou Coffee. Releasing visitor logs is a step in the right direction, but it’s not sufficient."

UPDATE: The House passed the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175) on Thursday by a vote of 219 to 206.

House Democrats initially planned to pass it last week, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had to pull the legislation from the floor and scrap the vote due to backlash and differing opinions over an exemption for the National Rifle Association (NRA). After broad opposition to the exemption for the NRA, changes were made for the exemption to cover more groups.

According to The Hill, "the legislation’s chief sponsor, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), spent the weekend calling House members to try to salvage it. He also spoke with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the author of a companion bill in the Senate, said a Democratic aide who described the effort as 'an all-hands-on-deck' attempt to pass the bill."

The aide told The Hill that the hope was that the efforts would result in passing the bill in the House later this week.

The White House confirmed in a released statement earlier this week that it supports the bill, even with the exemptions.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released an ad on Monday that is designed to prevent the legislation from reaching the House floor. According to The Hill, the ad contains "an image of the First Amendment with the words 'abridging the freedom of speech' crossed out in red ink."

Congressional aides initially told Roll Call that the "Rules Committee [would] take up the measure Wednesday with floor action likely Thursday."

If you're reading this blog, you probably pay at least a little attention to the news, so you likely already know that Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Peter Orszag will be stepping down in the next month or so. Since this is the first "high level" Obama official to leave, it is predictably setting off a flurry of media attention about Orszag's potential replacement.

Despite our name, we don't talk much about Orszag (okay, well at least not the Budget Brigade). On our issues, it's the deputies that get more headlines, such as Jeff Zients. And Orszag is perhaps most famous for his crusade against health care costs, which we don't do much with.

But that doesn't mean that Orszag hasn't been important for the transparency movement, or that we don't care who the next OMB director is. The position is incredibly vital for setting the tone for the entire agency. Without a director committed to open government, for instance, I don't think we'd have the Open Government Initiative, of which the recently announced sub-award reporting on USAspending.gov is a part. And while we're still waiting for OMB to extend Recovery Act recipient reporting to all levels, OMB's recipient reporting guidance has steadily improved and has shown a strong commitment to improving data quality.

The director also has a central role in the budget process. While OMB works closely with the other federal agencies to create the president's budget request, perhaps Orszag's most important contribution could be through the Open Government Directive, which contains a budget transparency aspect, requiring a "long-range vision of how the government will achieve optimal transparency." We're hoping this vision will eventually drastically reshape how the federal government thinks about budget transparency, linking everything from agency budget requests through appropriations down to recipient spending, potentially making it Orszag's most lasting contribution to the movement.

Continuing this long-range vision, and the larger Open Government Initiative, will be one of the most important transparency challenges awaiting the next OMB director. When Orszag leaves in July, the vision will be nowhere near completion. A recent shortlist of nominees doesn't reveal anyone antagonistic toward transparency, and I don't think Obama will choose someone who isn't committed to this goal, but the next director will need to have a strong vision of how to make the federal government more open and accessible to its citizens. Over the next few months, as Obama announces his nomination for OMB director and he or she goes through the Senate confirmation process, it will be interesting to see how the nominee's qualifications will translate into a more open government.

Image by Flickr user Center for American Progress used under a Creative Commons license.

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that the government can ban all forms of aid to designated terrorist organization, even if that aid includes advice about nonviolent and legal activities. In Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, the Humanitarian Law Project (HLP) and other charities allege that sections of the USA PATRIOT Act violate the First Amendment. The plaintiffs said they only wanted to help the groups' nonviolent activities. For example, they wanted to provide training in how to use international law to resolve disputes peacefully.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, upholding federal law making it a crime to provide "material support" to foreign terrorist organizations, including training for peaceful conflict resolution. The ruling states that material support, even if it is in the form of speech, "frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends."

However, Roberts said the government's position did not take into account the free speech interests at stake. "The Government is wrong that the only thing actually at issue in this litigation is conduct." Yet, the government's interest in combating terrorism was enough to outweigh this issue.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Justice Breyer expressed concern regarding the decision's influence on other speech that can easily be said to threaten national security.

The New York Times reports that the "decision was the court's first ruling on the free speech and associations rights of Americans in the context of terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks." David Cole, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said, "This decision basically says the First Amendment allows making peacemaking and human rights advocacy a crime."

For more information on the case, visit the Charity and Security Network.