Lawrence Lessig gave a lecture at the National Press Club on Thursday and introduced a plan designed to increase congressional transparency via the launch of Change-Congress.org.

The website provides a venue for data on earmarks, campaign financing, etc. and advocates an end to corporate and private interests. It organizes citizens to push candidates to make four commitments: No money from lobbyists or PACs, vote to end earmarks, support publicly-financed campaigns, and support reform to increase Congressional transparency.

Change-Congress.org has ambitious goals, that's for sure. Will it work? Greater transparency is needed, and this initiative will certainly help in that effort. But can "big money" every truly go away? Nevertheless, it is a noble effort, and I urge you to join their cause, take the pledge, and volunteer your efforts in contacting candidates to take the pledge!

The National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) will hold a national conference, entitled, "2008 FOI Summit", May 9-10, 2008 in Philadelphia, PA.

Here are some of the panels:

FOI Reform Efforts: Rewriting your state's laws?
FOI 2.0: Wikis and podcasts and blogs, oh my!
Sunshine Week Roundtable
Coalition Care and Feeding

"A document standards decision may not matter to you today, but as someone who relies on constant access to editable documents, spreadsheets and presentations, it may matter immensely in the near future." 

So says a post this week on the Official Google blog.

• A renewed wish for open document standards, by Zaheda Bhorat, Google Open Source Programs Manager, Official Google Blog, Feb 25, 2008.

There is a battle going on over open document formats that can affect the long term accessibility of government information. The battle is being waged by Microsoft, which wants its OOXML format to be adopted as an international standard instead of the truly open ODF format.

This week Google weighed in on the issue and summed up the complex issues quite succinctly, noting that:

Google believes OOXML would be an insufficient and unnecessary standard, designed purely around the needs of Microsoft Office.

...We join the ODF Alliance and many other experts in our belief that OOXML doesn't meet the criteria required for a globally-accepted standard.

Why? because OOXML attempts to make the functionality of Microsoft Office into the "standard." That would be bad because it elevates the importance of the software over the importance of the document.  Of course, the question about whether or not the government should release information in the form of "editable documents" at all is another question, but since it does, the issue of open formats for editiable documents is an important one for government information.

Here’s a list of pending legislation relevant to government openness and transparency maintained by The Open House Project..

• Pending Transparency Legislation

Perla Ni of VoterWatch says, "We just did a survey of what transcripts/audio/video is available from Congressional Committees. What we've found is pretty sad. Here's the state of available video/audio/transcript for House and Senate committees." (Transparency of committee hearings - transcript/audio/video , Perla Ni, Open House Project group, Sep 4, 2007)

• Congressional Committees - Secrecy and Delayed Transparency
  "You'll notice how many committees for which there is no audio, no video nor transcript available. Including the Ethics committee, ironically. Also, for the ones that do post video, either it's not posted until months after or it's posted, but not archived so if you miss it, you've missed it."

And Paul Blumenthal says, "Check out this study I did last year on this very topic. These two blog posts contain all my research from the 109th Congress." (reply Sep 5, 8:00 am)

• House Version: http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/node/1596
• Senate Version: http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/node/1617

What a great idea! Karl Fogel, an open-source software developer, writer and activist for copyright reform had this to say in a recent New York Times article:

Karl Fogel, president of the Subversion Corporation, which produces open-source version control software, He sees its power to shape public behavior.

Think of what version control software could mean for the Congress, he was quoted as saying recently at Tim O’Reilly’s blog . If bills were created under a system where strike-throughs and additions were carefully tracked, the public would know which legislator made which change to a proposed piece of legislation as it made its way through the Capitol.

At last, there would be transparency in the legislative process. Best-case scenario, it would shame legislators from inserting language against the public interest and only meant to reward political contributors; at worst, it would make such insertions public and allow the voters to punish the politicians who made them.

"Crossing Out, for Emphasis" by Noam Cohen. NYT 7/23/07.

Thanks to the Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch for sharing this story from the Sydney Morning Herald contrasting the low amount of transparency in Australia government with a high degree of openness in New Zealand.

Unlike Australia and America, NZ doesn't exempt whole catagories of information from disclosure:

The New Zealand Cabinet Manual states: "There is no blanket exemption for any class of papers under the Official Information Act 1982. Cabinet and Cabinet committee records are therefore covered by the Official Information Act in the usual way, and every request for Cabinet records must be considered on its merits against the criteria in the Act."

In this country, both Presidents Clinton and Bush have argued that forcing disclosure of advice provided to the executive branch would impair good government. But in New Zealand, they see things differently:

It's impossible to imagine any senior Australian public servant adopting the advice of Marie Shroff, the New Zealand's secretary of cabinet and clerk of the Executive Council for 15 years, and now the Privacy Commissioner, who said:

"If I, as a civil servant, write a Cabinet paper which I expect to be sought for public release I am going to be extraordinarily careful to get my facts right, to avoid trespassing into politics, to give comprehensive reasons for and against a proposal, and to think very carefully about my recommendations. My advice will therefore be balanced, accurate and comprehensive."

As far as I know, NZ hasn't been hit with an existential crisis since their FOI (Freedom of Information) act was passed in 1983. Maybe we should consider a higher level of transparency!