Press Releases

Bill to ban facial recognition demands bipartisan support

Note: On the introduction of bicameral legislation banning federal entities from using facial recognition technology by Senators Markey and Merkley, and Reps. Jayapal, Pressley, Lisa Rosenberg, executive director of Open   Read Full

June 26, 2020

League of Women Voters’ CEO, Virginia Kase Joins Open The Government’s Steering Committee

Open The Government (OTG) is pleased to announce Virginia Kase is its newest steering committee member. Kase has served as the chief executive officer of League of Women Voters since   Read Full

Finally: Amazon’s Rekognition Moratorium Long Overdue

Facial Recognition Technology Regulation: A Practical Guide for Congress

Note: On Amazon’s one-year moratorium on police use of Rekognition, Lisa Rosenberg, executive director of Open The Government, issued the following statement: Amazon’s decision to implement this one-year moratorium on police   Read Full

June 11, 2020

Long-Lasting Police Reform Must Embrace Transparency To Be Effective

George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police is the most recent in a spate of African-Americans dying in encounters with police officers around the country. As protests over   Read Full

June 3, 2020

Not Fine: Trump continues target on IGs

On the removal of Glenn Fine as acting inspector general of the Department of Defense, and chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee appointed to oversee $2 trillion coronavirus relief   Read Full

April 13, 2020

Trump a King in His Mind

Note: On Trump’s firing of Michael Atkinson as inspector general of the intelligence community, Lisa Rosenberg, executive director of Open The Government, released the following statement: Trump’s decision to fire   Read Full

April 8, 2020

Jared Kushner’s Coronavirus Response Shows White House Incapable of Prioritizing American Lives

Note: Following Jared Kushner’s comment late last week that the Strategic National Stockpile is meant for federal use and not intended for states’ need and the Department of Health &   Read Full

April 6, 2020

New OTG Report Finds Abuses Persist at DHS Fusion Centers

Open The Government today released a new report on state and local “fusion centers,” created to share counterterrorism intelligence across government agencies to prevent the communication and coordination failures that   Read Full

March 26, 2020

Statement on ICE’s secretive facial recognition searches and Clearview AI Data Breach

Open The Government, in collaboration with MuckRock, uncovered that a secretive company, Clearview AI, was scraping billions of publicly available photos from social media accounts and selling them to law   Read Full

March 2, 2020

Congress Must Reassert Check on Executive Branch After Trump Airstrike Against Iran

Statement of Lisa Rosenberg, Executive Director, Open The Government. Note: The U.S. drone strike that recently killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Iraq stirred talk of war as Iran,   Read Full

January 9, 2020