A juicy tidbit of info over at the Sunlight Blog and ABC News: Stimulus Bill to go Web 2.0?

They’re planning a Google-like search function to show every program funded by the stimulus package, whether it comes in under or over-budget, whether it is meeting its intended purpose, and how many jobs it is creating.

Sounds interesting! Let's hope they follow through.

There are a few transparency bills that are up for debate in Congress today: The Presidential Records Act and The Presidential Library Donation Reform Act. The Sunlight Blog has a good write-up summarizing the importance of these two bills, as well as a post by Ellen Miller.

I just checked GovTrack.org and here are the House votes results:

On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass: H R 35 Presidential Records Act Amendments

On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass: H R 36 Presidential Library Donation Reform Act

If you are interested in learning more about the history of Congressional transparency reform, checkout Sunlight.org's project, The Transparency Timeline.

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.

Carl Malamud is at it again, this time shaking things up with the Obama transition team over at change.gov. He's submitted a letter to the "Department of Transparency" with 5 proposals for making government information more accessible to the public, thereby making government processes and workings more transparent. His proposals can be boiled down to: 1) make GPO "products" like the Congressional Record, Federal Register, US Code, etc immediately available online in bulk and with historical coverage; 2) create a .gov cloud; 3) wire for video all US Government hearing rooms; 4) train people in the art of both traditional and digital publishing and 5) get rural America access to broadband aka "internetification."

That takes care of the creation of and access to digital government information -- the bulk of the issues with which FGI is concerned. There's just one piece missing in Malamud's ingenious plan: preservation. The Library of the USA needs to include actual libraries in the process.

I'm not faulting the plan, because I really think it's far-reaching and radically elegant in its simplicity -- not to mention that malamud's M.O. has always been about access, "open sourcing America's operating system." And since the Obama transition team is increasingly talking about a "21st century New Deal" that includes a call for a huge job training program combined with an agenda of ethical and transparent government, this is a plan with real legs.

For the plan to work though, libraries and librarians will need to step up to the challenge. We'll need to work closely with GPO and each other and collaborate on the building of digital infrastructures.

Stay tuned. This is getting interesting!

The Honorable Office of the President-Elect
Attn: Department of Transparency
Washington, D.C. 20270

Sirs:

Pre the procedures and policies propounded by the Office of the President-Elect, Public.Resource.Org is pleased to provide for publication and posting the following policy papers and proposals which we have previously shared with your staff:

REBOOTING .GOV. How the Government Printing Office can spearhead a revolution in governmental affairs.

FEDFLIX. Government videos are an essential national resource for vocational and safety training and can also help form a public domain stock footage library, a common resource for the YouTube and remix era.

THE LIBRARY OF THE U.S.A. A book series and public works job program to create an archival series of curated documents drawn from our cultural institutions, with full-quality masters of the books and research materials made available for other publishers to draw on. The program would employ the GPO master printers and would recruit writers, archivists, artists, and other creative workers through a national call for participation.

THE UNITED STATES PUBLISHING ACADEMY. GPO should expand current training programs such as the Institute for Federal Printing and combine them with current workforce development efforts to create a national academy similar to the National Mine Academy and the National Fire Academy, training its own workforce, the government, and the local schools in the art, craft, and science of publishing.

THE RURAL INTERNETIFICATION ADMINISTRATION. Repurposing the Amateur Radio League, modifying spectrum policy, and injecting capital into rural coops can bring high-speed broadband to 98% of rural Americans just as the Rural Electrification Administration did in the last century.

All submissions are in the public domain and you may feel free to remix or mashup the ideas as you so wish.

Respectfully yours,

Carl Malamud
President & CEO
Public.Resource.Org

[Thanks for the tweet John Wonderlich!]

1. Recognize the importance of librarians and their institutions in the sustainability of a dynamic civic culture.

I think the toughest aspect of sustaining this kind of weeks long conversation is to try and keep all the different aspects of what we now call government information librarianship together into some kind of cohesive whole. In my last post I spoke about the underlying foundations of social capital shared by journalists and librarians that mediates between individuals or communities that want to know more about government institutions and sources of information produced by and about those institutions.

In the case of librarians, the cumulative social capital comes from centuries old traditions of gathering and organizing a community's information artifacts. As an outcome of this gathering and organizing, librarians might also choose to become familiar with the substance and dynamics of how government organizations function, study or address problems, communicate with the public (and other government organizations), and eventually how the government organization might stash its information stuff over the long haul (or not, as the case might be.) In an open and democratic society these librarians also take on the express purpose to proactively work with other organizations, groups, and interested individuals to keep the civic machinery of government as transparent and accessible as possible. The term civic machinery is not widely used in the library traditions, but is a term that constantly pops in the professional and popular press. example, see here, here, here and here.

I like the phrase "civic machinery" -- once used by Jane Addams to describe the critical role certain institutions might play in connecting a community to the democratic structures of their governments. Here is what Addams said specifically --

"As the policeman who makes terms with vice, and almost inevitably slides into making gain from vice, merely represents the type of politician who is living off the weakness of his fellows, so the over-zealous reformer who exaggerates vice until the public is scared and awestruck, represents the type of politician who is living off the timidity of his fellows. With the lack of civic machinery for simple democratic expression, for a direct dealing with human nature as it is, we seem doomed to one type or the other--corruptionists or anti-crime committees"

What the civic expansion of public digital information over the last 15 years now demands of librarians and their professional associations is simply this -- take advantage of the technology to preserve our traditions of sustainability and transparency.

See you on Day 44.

There is a lot going on during the current transition to a new Administration with regard to information policy, technology policy, and information-technology (IT) policy. Sometimes these overlap, but not always. I wanted to take this opportunity to bring together some resources relevant to government information and technology policies during this transition period.

John Shuler has begun some comments here on FGI, which I hope will spark comments and discussion.

• 75 days to Government Information Liberation

The Environmental Protection Agency has had an ongoing National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information since April, and they have issued a draft report:

• Draft Information Access Strategy (PDF) (22pp, 682K)

The Government Accountability Office has a website for it to provide "insight into, and recommendations for addressing, the nation’s major issues, risks and challenges" and information technology is mentioned there in relation to everything from the Agriculture, to Census, to Veterans.

• 2009 Congressional and Presidential Transition

As mentioned here earlier, the Obama-Biden Transition Project (a 501c(4) organization) has set up a .gov website, Change.gov, which they call the Office of the President-Elect. It has a blog, position papers, agendas, and includes a page on technology:

• Science, Technology and Innovation for a New Generation

Over at the Sunlight foundation, Gabriela Schneider, the Communications Director, interviewed several Sunlight staff members to get their opinions on how the next administration can be more open and transparent.

• Open Letter to the Obama Administration on How to Shine Sunlight

And John Wonderlich at Sunlight has a posting that, though not specifically about IT policy, is very interesting in terms of the transition. He has tracked down a number of most relevant CRS reports on Members of Congress in transition and the mechanisms of congressional authority, how Members are assigned to committees, to chairmanships, to status as ranking members; how leadership positions are determined, and so forth:

• Resources for a Congressional Shake-up

I will certainly be following John Shuler's comments here closely and invite everyone to add their comments here at FGI about the issues and opportunities that will affect access to government information.

Ok, Mr. President...fulfill your technological promises! I am very excited about some of his proposals, especially in regards to government information transparency and access.

Mashable.com posted "A Final Look at Presidential Technology Policy" earlier this week and they had this to say about Obama vs. McCain's plans:

Rather than focusing on anti-trust and and subsidies, as Barack Obama intends to do, what would be better would be focusing on creating an environment where corporate taxes were lowered, and other tax incentives were emphasized for start-ups who focus on better information infrastructure. Senator McCain’s tax plan is moderately favorable towards this theory, though it is likely simply a coincidence convenient to this argument rather than a well thought out technology policy.

When it comes to the basics, both presidential candidates are generally on the right track, and are generally in agreement as well. I’ve outlined above where they differ, though, and I think history has shown that Barack Obama’s desired policy directions would be more detrimental to innovation and growth for the tech sector.

Interesting that they believe Obama's desired policies may be detrimental to technology. I'm not well versed enough on the issues of Broadband/Anti-trust & subsidies to know whether or not I agree. What do you think?

Mashable also has a great blog post on "Government 2.0: The Presidential Transition". I agree with the author's sentiment that the new President must look to the needs of the entire nation, and we need to giver our input too.

...citizens should be engaged in the transition process,...In an increasingly fragmented media and information society, that level of engagement requires more than a press release and newspaper coverage. It means full multimedia engagement using blogging, speeches, informal gatherings, mobile technologies, podcasts, online video, and widgets. The outreach should also use social tools that allow bidirectional conversation, increasing citizen participation and interest in government.

There is a great blog post over at the Center for Democracy & Technology's Policy Beta Blog:

"Innovation, the Open Internet, and the Next President".

It gives an overview of what our new President should do (or not do!) in regards to encouraging innovation and openness of the internet. Some points include:

One of the new president’s first tasks will be to select top officials for executive branch positions. The FCC, the FTC, DoJ, NTIA, and the new Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (created by recently passed legislation) all will have a hand in policies with potentially significant impact on the Internet...

The president also should avoid new copyright policies that fail to protect emerging forms of free expression in the digital realm...

If the next president wants to encourage innovation, preserving the open character of the broadband Internet should be a top priority, right up there with the commonly cited goal of continuing to improve the nation’s broadband infrastructure.

I would also add that our new President needs to support digital preservation technologies and standards, as well as digital authentication of documents online.

Here is another post on a similar vein: "Next President Has 'Open' Opportunity".

The Center for Democracy & Technology also has a page entitled "The Internet in Transition" with a blueprint for keeping the internet open, innovative, and free.

I've caught the widget bug, thanks to Daniel Cornwall, who mentioned on Twitter that he found some nifty EPA Widgets.

So, out of curiosity, I did a search for other Government Agency widgets and widgets that use government information (such as those found on Govtrack.us or the Sunlight Foundation website). I found quite a few but I know there must be more out there.

I've compiled a "government widget guide" at my Gov Docs 2.0 wiki page. Please feel free to suggest others by commenting here or on the wiki page.

I thought it would be nice to have a guide so you can quickly browse widgets that you may want to add to your blog or library webpages. For example, see my Environmental Law guide (a work in progress, mind you) for ideas!

According to an article in today's Los Angeles Times, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice have appealed a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that would give consumers more access to Medicare healthcare data.

Specifically, the August 2007 ruling, based on a FOIA request and then a subsequent lawsuit by the advocacy group Consumers' Checkbook/Center for the Study of Services, would have allowed disclosure of a subset of Medicare billing records for four states (Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington) and the District of Columbia. The information requested would not have contained any patient identifying information, but could have potentially allowed consumers to get more understanding of the operations of Medicare and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), as well as make decisions about physician expertise and efficiency, according to the Times. As the judge's decision put it, "The public interest at stake is the interest in obtaining information that would help the public make more informed Medicare decisions and the interest in more information of how government funds are spent."

However, the American Medical Association opposed the ruling, and has also petitioned to join the appeal. The HHS appeal is based on a 1979 federal court ruling that blocked release of Medicare physician reimbursement data. HHS states that it shares the goals of Consumers' Checkbook in providing a transparent health care marketplace for consumers, but says that the 1979 ruling conflicts with the 2007 ruling. Observers quoted in the Times article said that the HHS was under pressure from the AMA to keep the data from being released and that it wasn't just a matter of conflicting legal opinions.

The HHS news release announcing its decision to join the DOJ appeal against release of Medicare data is here.

Last summer's ruling on the release of the data is here.

Recent statistics released by the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) show that consumer satisfaction with federal government websites and e-government in general have fallen in the first quarter of 2008 as compared with the final quarter of 2007. The score represents the third quarter of decline in consumer satisfaction in a row and is the lowest level of consumer satisfaction with e-government websites in three years.

There are a couple of possible factors in the decline. Consumers seem to be dissatisfied that government websites are not evolving into more than information dumps. Consumers want to see government websites that allow them to do business online, to take care of required paperwork, and to control their experiences of the website -- which is something that many commercial websites allow, at least on a limited scale. So far, that is not happening with government websites as much as consumers expect.

Another factor: presidential candidates on the campaign trail are mentioning transparency in electronic government and improving citizens' experience of e-government either minimally or not at all. Consumers aren't getting the sense that e-government is a priority, or even a secondary interest, among any of the presidential candidates.

"What used to take hours to dig up and analyze is now laid bare for you to see in seconds or minutes," so states the homepage of MAPLight.org, a new website that brings together campaign contributions and how legislators vote, creating more transparency of the connections between money and politics. This includes:

- How each legislator voted on each of the 5,000 bills in the 2003-2004 California legislative session.

- All campaign contributions made to each legislator from 2001-2004, categorized by the interest or industry of the contributor.

- Supporters and opponents of each bill, and the industries and interests those supporters and opponents represent.

- A brief description of each bill, and the subject the bill is about.

- The full text of each bill, including committee reports and amendments.

So far, MAPLight.org currently includes all 5,000 bills in the 2003-2004 California legislative session and all California campaign contributions from January 2001 through December 2004. They are seeking donations and support to extend MAPLight.org to include data for other states and U.S. Congress. This is a very promising project, so let's give them our support!

Well lookee here...a website that tracks petroleum industry campaign contributions, called Follow the Oil Money.

I did a zip code/name search, and not surprisingly, Texas and Louisiana congressmen received quite a bit of campaign funds from the oil industries and they voted for "big oil" 65-100% of the time.

And did you know that George W. Bush received $2,649,725 in oil contributions during the 2004 election campaign? John Kerry received $184,037. In 2008, Rudy Giuliani received $659,158 and Barack Obama received $163,840. The presidential races page told me so.

Their visual charts are pretty amusing. They compare them to Facebook or MySpace, "in which companies and politicians have become 'friends' by giving money".

For more information, including how they get their data, go to FAQ page.

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!

Just a reminder that Lawrence Lessig will lecture at the National Press Club on Thursday, March 20th at 1:30 pm. The lecture will also be available via webcast. Lessig will introduce a plan designed to increase congressional transparency, called "Change Congress". More information about Lessig and this event can be found at the Sunlight Foundation website.