A chief counselor for the White House’s Open Government Partnership spoke at a Sunshine Week event on Monday and declared, “President Obama understands our government’s obligation to serve the American people to the best of our ability. He has made clear that citizens deserve accountability, and the opportunity to participate in their government – and that this will make our government better.”

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has been complying with a “no press release” clause added to its settlements by banks that break the law. The clause is added to keep the regulator quiet on reputation damaging legal settlements. Typically settlements are announced by regulators in hopes of deterring would be law breakers but the FDIC has changed its previous policy without explicitly stating why.

Whenever members of the US media have heard Pfc. Bradley Manning is about to testify or make some kind of statement in military court at Fort Meade, where his court martial is taking place, the press pool has ballooned. Suddenly, many media organizations want to cover pretrial proceedings in this historic case.

This happened again when news spread Manning would be reading a 35-page statement he had typed up in confinement at Fort Leavenworth. The few reporters, who have gained notoriety for always being at Manning’s hearings, sent messages on Twitter and posted that Manning would be reading a statement. Well-established United States media organizations then planned to be at proceedings on February 28 to hear him present the statement.

Frequently throughout the long and drawn out process that has become the court martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, reporters covering proceedings have complained or expressed frustration about the lack of access to court records. But, finally, the military has decided to allow a smidgen of transparency in the court martial to possibly avoid a major First Amendment ruling in a military appeals court that could find the United States military should be granting the press and public access to court martial records in the same way the press and public have access to federal court records.

Four days away from massive austerity that would result in cuts to the United States government, the Pentagon is suggesting the cuts would make it harder to fight cyber threats.

Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs appeared in his new role as MSNBC contributor on Sunday and acknowledged it was official policy within the administration of President Barack Obama to not acknowledge the existence of a drone program.

President Barack Obama’s administration, according to the New York Times, is reportedly in talks with Republicans on providing more information on the attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Administration officials hope this will secure enough votes so John Brennan can be confirmed to the position of CIA chief without the administration having to provide all the memos on the targeted killing program to Democratic senators demanding to see them.

Despite the stated commitments and professions on transparency, the Sunlight Foundation found talk of “government integrity, transparency, and influence” was mostly absent in President Obama’s “State of the Union” speech last night.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) raised nearly $200,000 for four different organizations, including WikiLeaks, which it collected donations to support because the media organization faces a banking blockade that makes it difficult for it to directly accept funds from supporters.

A recently published story from the New York Times reports a “secret legal review” has been conducted on the use of cyber warfare by the United States. It concluded President Barack Obama has “the broad power to order a preemptive strike if the United States detects credible evidence of a major digital attack looming from abroad.”