My taxes = my info, right?
Let's talk about Open Access to taxpayer funded government information. The open access movement wants nothing less than "Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature on the internet. Making it available free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Removing the barriers to serious research." The argument for open access to government information is fairly simple: tax money has already paid for this work, restricting access to it through copyright, fees, print-only publication or other complicated access or licensing requirements is antithetical to the idea of scholarship and the purpose of government. This is an Internet-era desire since the costs associated with publication can now be mitigated down to something manageable. Read much more about Open Access here. There are recognized exceptions, of course, such as classified, military research, research that leads to patents, and research published in some royalty-producing form, such as books. The Office of Management and Budget has a publication that describes the value in maximizing access to information, but stops short of mandating that access to government information be free. In OMB Circular A-130 they state that
"In determining whether and how to disseminate information to the public, agencies will: (i) Disseminate information in a manner that achieves the best balance between the goals of maximizing the usefulness of the information and minimizing the cost to the government and the public;"Federal Computer Week argues that this "maximizing usefulness" clause allows for the distribution of raw data to the private sector who can repackage and "value add" to the data making the government's cost of distribution lower while not totally restricting non-fee-based access. As one example mentioned briefly here earlier, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had been technically providing access to their weather data to the public all along, but it was in a proprietary format and difficult to work with. People who wanted easy to understand weather data had to use commercial weather providers. At the end of 2004, NOAA began making their digital forecast database available in standard XML format. Who likes this? The public. Who doesn't like this? Private sector companies that resell this data. However, since they often have the ears of our elected representatives, we have seen our own government trying to legislate restricted access to government information in order to benefit the private sector. What other hurdles are there to open access? The NOAA example includes a few: non-proprietary data formats, unfair leveraging of private sector's "rights" to value add and resell data, and legislators themselves. There are also the restrictions mentioned above: web and accessibility standards for information (requiring people to use one browser, or one type of computer), copyright and restrictions on distribution, and fees for obtaining copies of government information. Of course, the major hurdle is often mental, or perhaps ideological. We don't know we have the right to this information. We will take no for an answer. The people with the information have their own reasons for not making it as easy as humanly possible to obtain. Many of those reasons are even prosaic (though possibly obstructionist) and reasonable-seeming. In the wake of 9/11, with the government's increasing tendency to want to circle the wagons in the name of cautiousness, now more than ever it's important to continue to say "That's my information, and I'd like some more." [thanks to libwitch for the inspiration] Further Reading
- Open Access Librarian blog
- Open Access News blog
- OMB Watch - Access to Government Information Post September 11th
- Open Geodata project
- Public Library of Science
New Presidential Signing Statements purport to suspend reporting requirements
Free Government Information writers have reported on Presidential Signing Statements before. In the past two months, two new statements have been issued and are available through the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents:
- Statement on Signing the Coastal Barrier Resources Reauthorization Act of 2005 from the May 29, 2006 compiliation.
- Statement on Signing the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery, 2006 from the June 19, 2006 compiliation.
Sections 1209 and 2202 of the Act prohibit use of certain funds appropriated in the Act to initiate new start programs unless the congressional defense committees receive advance written notice. The Supreme Court of the United States has stated that the President's authority to classify and control access to information bearing on the national security flows from the Constitution and does not depend upon a legislative grant of authority. Although the advance notice contemplated by sections 1209 and 2202 can be provided in most situations as a matter of comity, situations may arise, especially in wartime, in which the President must act promptly under his constitutional grants of executive power and authority as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces while protecting certain extraordinarily sensitive national security information. The executive branch shall construe these sections in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President.Section 1209 is:
SEC. 1209. None of the funds provided in this chapter may be used to finance programs or activities denied by Congress in fiscal year 2005 and 2006 appropriations to the department of Defense or to initiate a procurement or research, development, test and evaluation new start program without prior written notification to the congressional defense committees.Section 2202 is:
None of the funds provided in this chapter may be used to finance programs or activities denied by Congress in fiscal year 2005 and 2006 appropriations to the Department of Defense or to initiate a procurement or research, development, test and evaluation new start program without prior written notification to the congressional defense committees.The signing statement also says:
The provision under the heading, ``Joint Explosive Device Defeat Fund,'' Department of Defense-Military, that calls for the reporting to congressional committees of information that may include highly sensitive and classified national security information, will be construed consistently with the President's constitutional responsibility to control the dissemination of such information.That provision states:
For the ‘‘Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Fund’’, $1,958,089,000, to remain available until September 30, 2008: Provided, That such funds shall be available to the Secretary of Defense, notwithstanding any other provision of law, for the purpose of allowing the Director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization to investigate, develop and provide equipment,supplies, services, training, facilities, personnel and funds to assist United States forces in the defeat of improvised explosive devices: Provided further, That within 60 days of the enactment of this Act, a plan for the intended management and use of the Fund is provided to the congressional defense committees: Provided further, That the Secretary of Defense shall submit a report not later than 30 days after the end of each fiscal quarter to the congressional defense committees providing assessments of the evolving threats, individual service requirements to counter the threats, the current strategy for predeployment training of members of the Armed Forces on improvised explosive devices, and details on the execution of this Fund:The full text of the supplemental bill is available on Thomas. Continue reading
Can we rely on the private sector to give us open content?
Google's Complete Plays Of Shakespeare Less Than Compleat by Phil Bradley, Search Engine Watch, Jun. 14, 2006.
The Google blog 'Inside Google Book Search' announced ... that it is now possible to explore Shakespeare with Google - The complete plays of Shakespeare now at your fingertips. Well no, not exactly.... I could read 13 of the plays Google listed, but was unable to do so for another 24.Continue reading
Please participate in our new FGI poll
Please take a moment and participate in our new FGI poll. This time around, we'd like to know what you think of our blog, on the topics we cover, and the issues we raise. We'd really appreciate your input! Our older polls are also available to look through, although they are now closed. Continue reading
Happy 40th anniversary FOIA!!
40 years ago (July 4th, 1966), the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was enacted despite the opposition of President Johnson to the legislation. Documents from the LBJ Library show that Johnson refused to hold a formal ceremony for FOIA. The National Security Archive created a site called Freedom of Information at 40 and lists copies of the key legislative history documents for the FOIA. Also National Sercurity Archive site has a complete FOIA legislative History.
In a related story, according to a report published by OpenGovernment.org., many federal agencies are still lagging behind in their efforts to comply with FOIA.
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