Major agencies cited the exemption at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, up from 47,395 times during President George W. Bush's final full budget year, according to annual reports filed by federal agencies. Obama was president for nine months in the 2009 period.
The government's track record under the Freedom of Information Act is widely considered a principal measurement of how transparently it makes decisions. When Obama promised last year to be more open he said doing so "encourages accountability through transparency," and said: "My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government."

Among the most frequently cited reasons for keeping records secret: one that Obama specifically told agencies to stop using so frequently. The Freedom of Information Act exception, known as the "deliberative process" exemption, lets the government withhold records that describe its decision-making behind the scenes.

Obama's directive, memorialized in written instructions from the Justice Department, appears to have been widely ignored.

I'm sort of surprised to learn that Obama doesn't have control of the Executive Branch.

I'm sure you could say the same thing happened during the last administration, DE.

The government's track record under the Freedom of Information Act is widely considered a principal measurement of how transparently it makes decisions.

I'm sure you could say the same thing happened during the last administration, DE.

I doubt very much that it occured to enough people to matter to spam GWBs administration with FOIA requests to drive up the apparent rejections because "openness" wasn't the major campaign issue during either election.

How does that have anything to do with the point DE made?

The number of requests went down from 2008 to 2009.

Agencies often cite more than one exemption when withholding part or all of the material sought in an open-records request.

From the article:

DE:

It's entirely possible that legitimate requests have gone up while spurious requests have gone down, but hey I can only go on what I've seen.



And? Obama's agencies must be citing more exemptions than Bush's did; yup, got it.

DE:

It's entirely possible that legitimate requests have gone up while spurious requests have gone down, but hey I can only go on what I've seen.



And?

...and they could conceivably require fewer exemptions.

The administration has stalled even over records about its own efforts to be more transparent. The AP is still waiting — after nearly three months — for records it requested about the White House's "Open Government Directive," rules it issued in December directing every agency to take immediate, specific steps to open their operations up to the public.

I can't get over the feeling of being the fool for believing (part of) the hype.