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Landmark Open Government Legislation Introduced
Landmark Public Online Information Act Jointly Reintroduced In House And Senate, by Daniel Schuman, Sunlight Foundation (April 4, 2011)
Today Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) and Representative Steve Israel (D-NY) reintroduced the landmark Public Online Information Act. If enacted, POIA would bring the government into the 21st century by requiring the government to embrace the presumption that government-held information, already required to be public, must be available online. Data should be free from the shadows of obscurity and brought into the sunlight of the Internet.More: Continue reading
Threats to Open Government
As noted here, many of the Obama administration's top open government initiatives (including USASpending.gov, Data.gov, FedRAMP, paymentaccuracy.gov, Apps.gov/now, and IT Dashboard) are set to be turned off in May or June. Here are two good articles that cover the issues very well:
- Why Cutting E-Gov Funding Threatens American Jobs, by Beth Simone Noveck, Huffington Post (March 25, 2011).
- Congress weighs deep cuts to funding for federal open government data platforms, by Alex Howard, GovFresh, (April 1, 2011).
OMB prepares for open gov sites to go dark in May
This is just too depressing! OMB prepares for open gov sites to go dark in May By Jason Miller Executive Editor Federal News Radio
Many of the Obama administration's top open government initiatives are set to be turned off by May 31. Government sources confirm that the Office of Management and Budget is planning to take seven websites dark in two months because of a lack of funding. One government official, who requested anonymity because they didn't get permission to discuss the topic, said funding will begin to run out on April 20 for public sites IT Dashboard, Data.gov and paymentaccuracy.gov. The source said OMB also is planning on shutting down internal government sites, including Performance.gov, FedSpace and many of the efforts related the FEDRamp cloud computing cybersecurity effort. The official said two other sites, USASpending.gov and Apps.gov/now, will run through July 30 but go dark soon after.[HT to John Wonderlich at Sunlight Foundation!] Continue reading
San Francisco passes open data law
This is an historic day for the open government movement and makes me proud to live in San Francisco! Yesterday, EB Boyd reported that the San Francisco Board of Overseers voted unanimously to approve the first municipal open data law in the United States*. This turns the executive order that San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom issued last year directing the city’s departments to make their data public into law. **Commenter Phillip Ashlock corrected the reporting by noting that "Portland passed the first open data law in the U.S. about a year ago and their law was largely influenced by the legislation passed in Vancouver about six months before that. The major difference (and a very important one) with San Francisco's new legislation is that it is more explicit about using open licenses with the open data."
In the year since Newsom opened the data treasure troves, 200 sets of data have been released, and at least 50 apps have been built using them. Among the apps: EcoFinder, which helps people find recycling locations for all sorts of odds and ends; SpotCrime, which plots crime incidents and sends alerts to residents; and, possibly the favorite of the city's transportation-beleaguered residents, Routesy, which lets people plan tips on public transportation and provides real-time information about when the next bus or train is coming.
Open government audit: agencies straddle the Mendoza line in meeting OGD goals
On January 21, 2009, as one of his first acts as President, President Obama released his Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government. The memorandum instructed that government should be transparent, government should be participatory, government should be collaborative. On December 8, 2009, Peter Orzag, the head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the Open Government Directive (PDF) establishing deadlines for application of those three principles of open government -- readers will remember that Federal CIOs were only lukewarm about the administration's transparency goals. The memorandum requires executive departments and agencies to take the following steps toward the goal of creating a more open government:
- Publish Government Information Online
- Improve the Quality of Government Information
- Create and Institutionalize a Culture of Open Government
- Create an Enabling Policy Framework for Open Government
We commend the President for his commitment to openness and for providing detailed elements in the OGD that can be used to hold federal agencies accountable. Many of the federal agencies have approached implementation of the OGD requirements with energy and enthusiasm and some have taken innovative steps in their plans. If implemented with spirit, vigor, and innovation, the Open Government Plans can serve as a vehicle for fundamentally changing the way the federal government interacts with the public. This, in turn, may prove to be a catalyst for shifting public trust in government. At the same time, many of the agency plans as unveiled on April 7 have a long way to go to create this transformational potential. As this audit demonstrates, there is wide variation in the agency plans. Some are exceptional; others are quite weak. Most are somewhere in between. Many of the plans that currently do not meet the minimal requirements identified in the OGD can do so with only modest improvements, such as providing more specificity on deadlines or identifying where certain items mentioned in the plans can be found. An overview of what we found is below.Continue reading
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