On his first day in Office, President Obama signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, based on the following principles:
- The Administration is reducing the influence of special interests by writing new ethics rules that prevent lobbyists from coming to work in government or sitting on its advisory boards.
- The Administration is tracking how government uses the money with which the people have entrusted it with easy-to-understand websites like recovery.gov, USASpending.gov, and IT.usaspending.gov.
- The Administration is empowering the public – through greater openness and new technologies – to influence the decisions that affect their lives