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Ten Organizations Praise Federal Financial Transparency Efforts
FGI joined ALA and 8 other organizations in signing a letter praising congressional and administration efforts to improve federal financial transparency.
- Ten Organizations Praise Federal Financial Transparency Efforts, by Daniel Schuman, Sunlight Foundation (June 21, 2011). The organizations said the recently-introduced Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2011 (or DATA Act) would "revolutionize federal spending transparency," and also praised President Obama's June 13, 2011, Executive Order as an important transparency measure. The DATA Act would establish a federal transparency board -- a successor to the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board -- with the dual missions of expanding spending transparency to the entire government and identifying government-wide financial data standards... The Executive Order immediately establishes a Government Accountability and Transparency Board that, over the next six months, will develop a plan to integrate government spending data.
Update on status of e-government funding
Sunlight has an update on the status of funding for e-government programs:
- Draft H. Appropriations Bill Would Slightly Increase E-Gov Fund, by Daniel Schuman, Sunlight Foundation blog (June 15, 2011). In a legislative twist, funding for the Electronic Government Fund appears to have been combined with funding for the Office of Citizen Services, making it difficult to figure out how much money will actually go towards e-gov websites. My best guess is that the legislation would increase the money available for e-gov to $13m from the $8m appropriated in FY 2011, which is still far off from the $34m available in FY 2010.
GPO Releases 150th Anniversary History Book, Keeping America Informed
GPO Releases 150th Anniversary History Book, Keeping America Informed FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 15, 2011 No. 11-35 MEDIA CONTACT: GARY SOMERSET 202.512.1957, 202.355.3997 cell gsomerset@gpo.gov GPO RELEASES 150TH ANNIVERSARY HISTORY BOOK, KEEPING AMERICA INFORMED WASHINGTON-The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has released Keeping America Informed: The U.S. Government Printing Office: 150 Years of Service to the Nation as the agency observes its 150th anniversary. The first official GPO history to be released in 50 years, Keeping America Informed conveys GPO's history through text and photographs, many never published before. Created to bring an end to the costly and ineffective system of private sector printing originally used by the Federal Government, GPO opened its doors for business on March 4, 1861, the same day as President Lincoln's inauguration. Since then, through war and peace, boom and bust, GPO has produced countless historic publications for the Government, including the Emancipation Proclamation, as well as the vast range of documents that Americans have used for generations, such as passports, social security cards, census and tax forms, and others. The book focuses on GPO's role as the source of information by and about the Government for the past 150 years and the successive technologies used by GPO to carry out that role, from hand-set type to today's digital files. Keeping America Informed is available on GPO's Online Bookstore and GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys) at www.fdsys.gov. Link to Online Bookstore: http://bookstore.gpo.gov/collections/gpo-keeping-america-informed.jsp Link to FDsys: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-KEEPINGAMERICAINFORMED/pdf/GPO-KEEPINGAMERICAINFORMED.pdf Continue reading
The The United States Government Manual: XML and Print
The The United States Government Manual is available in a web edition as well as in print:
- Currently Updated U.S. Government Manual, by Michael White, The Federal Register Blog (April 4, 2011). The OFR developed the new edition with GPO to provide more timely access to the organizations, programs, and leadership of the Federal government. We will continuously update the new version to reflect changes in Government throughout the year – a marked improvement over the annual snapshot in the printed edition. ...The new web-based edition of the Manual presents information in a more standardized format, using extensible markup language (XML). ...The OFR-GPO partnership will continue to print and distribute the annual, paper edition of the Manual to the public and Federal Depository Libraries into the immediately foreseeable future, as long as public demand sustains it. The next hard copy edition is expected to be released by June 2011. From this point forward, the printed edition will cover a single calendar year, rather than two years. We will also make XML data available to FDsys to preserve bi-annual snapshots, and to prepare bulk XML data sets for access through Data.gov and FDsys.gov
- The new Manual is posted at: usgovernmentmanual.gov.
Pentagon Papers Now Online
The "Pentagon Papers," officially titled "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force," are now online at the National Archives in PDF format:
- Pentagon Papers, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
On the 40th anniversary of the leak to the press, the National Archives, along with the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon Presidential Libraries, has released the complete report. There are 48 boxes and approximately 7,000 declassified pages. Approximately 34% of the report is available for the first time.
What is unique about this, compared to other versions, is that:
- The complete Report is now available with no redactions compared to previous releases
- The Report is presented as Leslie Gelb presented it to then Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford on January 15, 1969
- All the supplemental back-documentation is included. In the Gravel Edition, 80% of the documents in Part V.B. were not included
- This release includes the complete account of peace negotiations, significant portions of which were not previously available either in the House Armed Services Committee redacted copy of the Report or in the Gravel Edition
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