Transparency advocates gathered Monday to denounce secret lawmaking and restricted access to everything from municipal bicycle rules to documents supporting the targeted killing of Americans.

The Advisory Committee on Transparency, which works with the Congressional Transparency Caucus – headed by Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Mike Quigley, D-Ill. – hosted the event in the Rayburn House Office Building.

“Unfortunately, today, more law is locked behind doors than ever before,” said Matt Rumsey of the Sunlight Foundation, who moderated a panel discussion.

Gabe Rottman, legislative counsel and policy adviser in the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office, said there are three significant pitfalls to secret lawmaking at the federal level: Selective leaks that reinforce the government’s position, flawed decisions and a lack of legitimacy.

“With the targeted killing program, the [Obama] administration has repeatedly leaked information” to the press, Rottman said, “while at the same time fighting disclosure.” Selective leaks, he said, give the public access to only one side of an issue.

The targeted killing program was authorized by opinions from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. A partially redacted 2010 document authorizing the assassination of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was released by a court in June after years of controversy.

Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org, objected to the Department of Justice’s decision to withhold Office of Legal Counsel opinions sought in Freedom of Information Act requests on the basis that they are merely legal opinions, not binding laws.

“We all know that OLC opinions are binding and confer immunity,” Rottman said.

Daniel Schuman, policy director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said 39 percent of Office of Legal Counsel opinions issued between 1998 and 2012 are not available to the public.

In addition to secret opinions offered to the president, the transparency advocates took issue with the reinterpretation of laws by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which unbeknownst to sponsors of the Patriot Act interpreted that 2001 law as authorizing the bulk collection of all American phone records.

“With secret lawmaking, you can engage in very aggressive legal interpretation without having to pay the piper,” Rottman observed.

Though the policy advocates urged greater transparency from the surveillance court and administration, they offered more specific recommendations for enhancing public access to laws that aren’t actually secret, but might as well be because they’re so inaccessible.

Schuman said the text of many laws passed by Congress from Reconstruction through the early 1900s aren't posted online, but should be. Present-day federal court decisions, all agreed, are too difficult for the public to come by.

McDermott urged Congress to intervene to make free of charge court documents currently available for payment via the online Public Access to Court Electronic Records – or PACER – database, a tool primarily used by legal professionals and reporters.

“The courts are public bodies and that information belongs to us, but you wouldn’t know that,” she said.

Schuman and McDermott also pointed out some laws – including building codes and local regulations – feature “incorporation by reference.” Often, they said, people need to pay for access to standards set by a nongovernmental entity that are referenced in laws.

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V. David Zvenyach, general counsel to the D.C. Council and the only government worker on the panel, shared his experience improving online access to local laws. He was inspired when a resident unsuccessfully sought a link to bike regulations, and he's now working with a five-city initiative to improve access to laws.