Opening shot.(Brief article)

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The New Deal marked a dramatic expansion in the scope and complexity of the federal government. This increased complexity heightened the need for a more transparent bureaucracy, as evidenced by the creation of the Federal Register in 1935, the first attempt to collect and publish a comprehensive list of executive-branch regulations. Since then, the U.S. has moved steadily, if unevenly, toward an ever-more open system of government. The Bush administration aggressively bucked that trend, rolling back measures designed to allow public and journalistic scrutiny of government operations and using the terror attacks of 9/11 as a rationale to maneuver in secret. Today, at the end of those eight dark years, facing the most significant economic crisis since the Great Depression, with our new president promising a public-works program that echoes The New Deal, the need to restore and broaden government transparency is again on the agenda in Washington. Our cover package, which starts on page 26, surveys the damage done to transparency by the Bush White House with an eye toward what needs to be fixed and how; examines whether the financial press could have been out in front of the economic implosion and how a lack of transparency complicated the task; detours to India for the compelling story of that country's young Right to Information Act; and explains how technology is making it far easier to make government more open. We hope you enjoy it.

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