Tuesday (December 8th), the White House released the Open Government Directive. For more information, view the announcement here:

You can also read more about it by reading the White House memorandum: Transparency and Open Government. Or you can check out the cool timeline on the Sunlight Foundation blog.

Yay for transparency...because government information needs to be free!

Sonnet

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has posted a first draft of their eGovernment Working Group's guidelines for governments putting data on the Web, Publishing Open Government Data. (And hey! It's not in PDF format.)

The W3C posted this notice on their website on September 9:

Today, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announces a draft work plan for the eGovernment Interest Group, whose mission is to document, advocate, coordinate and communicate best practices, solutions and approaches to improve the interface between citizens and government through effective use of Web standards. The draft charter, in review by the W3C community until the end of September, focuses on two topics: Open Government Data (OGD), and Education and Outreach. In line with its anticipated focus on Open Government Data, the group also announces today a first draft of Publishing Open Government Data, which provides step-by-step guidelines for putting government data on the Web. Sharing data according to these guidelines enables greater transparency; delivers more efficient public services; and encourages greater public and commercial use and re-use of government information. Learn more about the W3C eGovernment Activity.

[hat tip DB/eCitizen]

Carl Malamud (from public.resource.org) gave what was generally agreed was a rousing talk at Gov2.0 Summit this morning. The talk was entitled "By the people..." Please go to his site to access the pamphlet he created (and order it for your library!) and a live pre-recording of the address. I promise it'll be worth it!

If you are going to the ALA Annual 2009 Conference in Chicago next week, please come to the "ALA Unconference" where I will be leading a broad discussion on Friday, July 10th from 11:10-12:00 on the library's role in current & emerging trends of civic engagement, transparency, preservation and access to Government information. The supporting materials and presentation will be linked in the Unconference wiki.

Also, please come to the LITA BIGWIG Social Software Showcase to discuss and learn about Government Information Mashups! I will be presenting on this topic and would love to have you help out and/or join in on the conversation! The presentation will be posted on their website but the face to face portion of the BIGWIG Showcase presentations will take place Monday, July 13th from 10:30am - 12:30pm in the McCormick Convention Center West, Room W-184.

The White House Blog has a nice summary of Open Government Brainstorm sponsored by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). It says the brainstorm generated more than 1000 ideas.

• Wrap-Up of the Open Government Brainstorming: Transparency, White House Blog, June 2, 2009.

A few items of interest to whet your appetite:

• Convert Depository Libraries around the country into Regional Data Centers
• Use Data.gov as a repository of newly declassified information
• Make contributed data subject to a waiver of copyright and database rights
• Government should create permalinks on the paragraph level to make documents easier to cite
• Digitize all government research reports and make them available free

The 10th edition of the “Federal Open Government Guide” has been published by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP). The guide helps citizens to better understand and use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This new edition covers laws such as the Government in the Sunshine Act (GSA), the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), and the Privacy Act.

You can buy a copy from the RCFP for $10 or you can use the free online version. It includes an automated FOIA letter generator that creates requests and appeals.

Tip o' the hat to the OMB Watch Blog for the heads up.

The Sunlight Foundation has a new website called OOGL: Open Our Government List, for you to vote and submit ideas for what the Open Government Directive should address.

Shortly after President Obama's inauguration, he issued a memo on transparency directing his top officials to develop plans for an Open Government Directive to promote transparency, participation, and collaboration. The Sunlight Foundation has created this page in order to add a public element to the crafting of this Open Government Directive that is itself transparent, participatory, and collaborative.

So far, the highest vote goes to Ethics Information, APIs & Bulk Data Access, and Procedural Information.

Spread the word and vote!

There is an interesting article over at Wired magazine's website by Evan Ratliff, entitled "The Wired Presidency: Can Obama Really Reboot the White House?".

The various obstacles that Obama will have to deal with are discussed, including license agreements, purchasing rules, a ban on endorsements, and restrictions on revisions, among others. They even mention the Change.gov's CC license (which appeared after FGI and others wrote many many emails about why they had a copyrighted site initially!):

The Obama team was able to sidestep these kinds of troublesome rules on Change.gov, in part because, as a quasi-governmental site, it's not subject to executive-branch restrictions. They were able to post videos on YouTube, link to outside sites, and even publish content under a Creative Commons license, allowing it to be freely shared.

Here are some other good quotes from the article:

...turning his innovative campaign and transition into Government 2.0 won't be easy. The nimble Obama startup is about to be absorbed into a stodgy, technologically backward behemoth: the federal government...Ahead are bureaucratic obstacles the campaign never imagined, along with the political land mines that transparency brings.

"We know that there are a lot of people advocating for more open government," Godwin says. "We're saying, absolutely, put the data out there. But I think we have to be realistic."

The Sunlight Foundation, Open The Government and the Center for Democracy and Technology have done it again. They've created yet another cool initiative called Show Us the Data for you to "identify the 10 Most Wanted Government Documents, Reports or Data Sets that should be available on the Web"!

Is the federal government putting the information you need online? Are there categories of unclassified documents or data that you know exist–on paper or in government computers and databases–that would be of value to the public if posted and regularly updated on an agency's Web site? If so, then help Open The Government and the Center for Democracy and Technology identify the 10 Most Wanted Government Documents, Reports or Data Sets that should be available on the Web. Use this site to tell us what data you want and who has it, (“Request a Document”) or add your vote (up to three times) to the suggestions others have made.
The deadline to submit documents and vote is March 9, 2009

Thanks to Amy West's tweet for the heads-up about this video, "Tech Agenda 2009: Open Government." John Wonderlich turns a nice phrase (@ 3:10) in response to the question about defining what is open government. John says, "the Federal Depository Library Program is like the internet of the '40s and '50s." Check this one out while nibbling on your cheese (yes that's for you Rebecca :-) ).

This is the second in a series of town halls, "Tech Agenda 2009: Creating New Opportunities for Open & Participatory Government" focused on how technology can help government become more accountable, transparent and participatory. Panelists for Panel II, "Changing Policy to Promote Open Government," include Chris Barkley, Meredith Fuchs, Karina Newton, and John Wonderlich. The discussion was moderated by Andrew McLaughlin of Google. This event took place on December 12, 2008 at Google's offices in Washington, D.C.

Lawrence Lessig launched the website An Open Transition which offers President-elect Obama three principles to "guide the transition in its objective to build upon the very best of the Internet to produce the very best for government".

These principles include:

- No Legal Barrier to Sharing
- No Technological Barrier to Sharing
- Free Competition

Read more about these principles, view the video, and sign the petition at open-government.us.

I love love love This_American_Life. It's at the top of my podcast list (along with Studio_360 and Radio_Lab). The 3.28.08 episode, "The audacity of government" is particularly interesting from a govt information viewpoint. Ira Glass once again takes the strange but true anomaly, tells it in the first-person humanly and humanely to show the absurdity of, in this case, bureaucracy and governments. You can download it to your favorite audio player or listen online.

Act One. The Prez vs. The Commish.
Ira Glass tells the story of a little-known treaty dispute with far-reaching ramifications for our understanding of executive power. The dispute is between the President and one of his appointees...to the International Boundary Commission with Canada.

Act Two. This American Wife.
This American Life contributor Jack Hitt uncovers a strange practice within the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. If a foreign national marries a U.S. citizen and schedules an interview for a green card, but the U.S. citizen dies before the interview takes place, the foreign national is scheduled for deportation with no appeal—even if the couple has children who are U.S. citizens.

Act Three. 44.
Ira Glass interviews Charlie Savage, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Boston Globe, who's written a book called Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy about the ways the Bush Administration claims executive powers that other presidents haven't claimed.

Last month we posted about OMB Watch's survey to choose 5 (and only 5) favorite questions on government openness and transparency for congressional and presidential candidates. Last week, OMBWatch released their report (PDF) of the survey. Given the way things have been going over the last 30 years -- but especially over the last 8 years of the imperial presidency! -- it's no wonder that those surveyed feel that presidents should be more accountable, the public should have increased access to administrative information from both the legislative and executive branches (especially health, safety, and environmental information), and that those within the government should have increased legal protections when they report on government wrong-doing.

I think PublicMarkup's first effort at drafting openness legislation -- the Transparency in Government Act 2008 -- jibes perfectly with this effort.

Five questions to ask the presidential candidates to gauge where the candidates fall on the openness-secrecy spectrum:

1. Manipulation of Facts: "Do you support disclosure of all communications between the White House (including the Office of Management and Budget and other executive offices) and agencies regarding administrative decision-making and information disclosure?"
2. Executive Privilege: "What do you believe are the appropriate limits of executive privilege in the disclosure of information to Congress and the public?"
3. Whistleblowers: "In order to strengthen accountability against corporate crimes, would you support pending legislation that expands whistleblower protection rights to private sector workers who report violations of any federal public health and safety laws?"
4. Presidential Records: "Do you commit to reversing Executive Order 13233 to restore public access to presidential records after twelve years?"
5. Health, Safety & Environment: "Given the importance of health and safety information, how would you ensure that the public has easy access to understandable information about the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the products they use?"

The National Security Archive published Mixed Signals, Mixed Results: How President Bush's Executive Order on FOIA Failed to Deliver. The briefing claims that two years later, the FOI Executive Order still hasn't produced all that is promised. The FOI system did improve customer service at federal agencies, but has failed to make progress on backlogs and improved compliance with electronic FOIA requirements.

"Many of the same old scofflaw agencies are still shirking their responsibilities to the public," said Tom Blanton, director of the Archive. "I'm reminded of how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb — only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change."

Monday, March 17: American University's Washington College of Law's Collaboration on Government Secrecy hosted its first Freedom of Information Day, featuring panels and speakers addressing new FOIA legislation, the state secrets privilege, and transparency. They also presented the first "Robert Vaughn FOIA Legend Award" to Thomas M. Susman, a government openness advocate and initial drafter of the 1974 FOIA Amendments.

Tuesday, March 18: Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley discussed Freedom of Information and other open government issues during a Sunshine Week dinner event at The National Press Club. The speech looked ahead to priorities in the new administration, an update to Curley's 2004 Hays-Enterprise Lecture, which many view as a defining moment in moving forward efforts to preserve and protect access to information. The full text of Curley's speech can be found at the Sunshine Week website.

Wednesday, March 19: OpenTheGovernment.org, among others, sponsored the 3rd annual Sunshine Week National Dialogue on Open Government and Secrecy. This year's panel discussions focused on "Government Secrecy: Censoring Your Right to Know". The webcast is archived and will also be available soon at OpenTheGovernment.org and the event will be on a DVD available for purchase. They also compiled a list of legislation and resources about government secrecy and related issues.