Freedom of Information
Transparency on government spending: The missing links
“When I started reporting in Washington in the pre-Internet days, the first Monday in February brought a familiar ritual: Journalists rushed around town trying to squeeze in as many federal budget briefings as they could and returned to their offices with a huge stack of paper. . . Since then, documents have become digitized, and the Web has made data accessible around the clock. Hard work has gone into USAspending.gov and Recovery.gov to make spending details available to the public. But even with all the advances in IT in the past two decades, when I searched the Web last week to find out how much the Smithsonian Institution spent on digitization projects in recent years, I was out of luck. A helpful staffer gave me the available information over the phone. For now, the idea of a fully transparent federal budget publicly accessible online is just that — an idea. But a few people are trying to raise it to the next level.”
http://fcw.com/articles/2012/02/15/home-page-gov-20-transparency-spending.aspx
Video for Legislative Data and Transparency Conference now online
The Committee on House Administration held a Legislative Data and Transparency Conference on February 2, 2012. Video and presentation slides from the evnt are now available online.
Panel 1: Legislative Branch Initiatives
Panel 2: Legislative Branch Initiatives
Panel 3: What is data and what is available?
Panel 4: Extending XML and Metadata Standards
Panel 5: Integrating Video and Metadata
Panel 6: Defining Transparency Success Measures
http://cha.house.gov/about/contact-us/legislative-data-conference
Pentagon Discloses Military Intelligence Budget Request
“From a secrecy policy point of view, the Administration’s FY 2013 budget proposal that was released yesterday contained one surprise: The Department of Defense disclosed the amount of its request for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP). This is something that the Pentagon has never done before and indeed had refused to do.”
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/02/mip_request.html
First steps toward more trustworthy online state legal materials: UELMA is introduced in three states
“The years-long effort to address the reliability of online primary legal materials at the state level finally reached the floors of statehouses across the country when bills to enact the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) (pdf, 95kb) were introduced in Tennessee, Colorado, and California over a three week period from late January to mid-February.”
http://govdocsblog.kentlaw.edu/wordpress/index.php/2012/02/first-steps-toward-more-trustworthy-online-state-legal-materials-uelma-is-introduced-in-three-states/
The Department of Defense Needs Only One Paragraph to Illustrate Why the Declassification System is Broken
“Should a 29-year-old document about a military drill against the (no longer existent) Soviet Union really need to be reviewed by fourteen different declassification reviewers at fourteen different agencies and components? Under the current declassification system, yes. And that is why the current system is broken.”
http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/document-friday-the-department-of-defense-needs-only-one-paragraph-to-illustrate-why-the-declassification-system-is-broken/
Watch Senate Floor Video on Senate.gov
“Last fall I blogged about where you can watch Congress online. Now there is another place: the Senate’s website. From that site you can watch the Senate floor proceedings live, search and watch from the archive, and browse the archive by date. The Advanced Search options include captions, all words, exact phrase, or, not, and a date range. There is also a link to a summary of what was on the Senate floor for any given date. The available videos start in January with the beginning of the 2nd session of the 112th Congress.”
http://blogs.loc.gov/law/2012/02/watch-senate-floor-video-on-senate-gov/
An Open Innovation Toolbox
“The Obama Administration’s innovation agenda is aimed at finding, testing, and scaling new ideas that change the way government conducts business and delivers services through engagement with the American people. An innovative government incorporates an entrepreneurial mindset into its daily work – taking risks, building lean organizations, and developing innovative products and services faster than the rest of the world. On his last day in office, then-U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra released the Open Innovator’s Practitioner’s Toolbox. It contains 20 of the best disruptive innovation practices conceived and built by entrepreneurs across government. They provide a rich set of guiding principles that any Federal, state, and local government can use to support rapid innovation supporting economic growth and job creation.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/02/14/open-innovation-toolbox
Georgia Legislature considers overhaul of sunshine laws
“Georgia’s sunshine laws, used for decades to open up state and local governments to public scrutiny, expose corruption and let taxpayers know how their money’s being spent, could undergo a major overhaul this year for the first time in more than a decade. A key House subcommittee Wednesday heard testimony on legislation that has been months in the making and vetted by key stakeholders — representatives of First Amendment groups, the news media, and government commissions, councils and boards.”
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-government/georgia-legislature-considers-overhaul-1350505.html
EPA, Commerce take lead in developing “FOIA Portal”
“A buzz is growing in the federal Freedom of Information community about a new $1.3 million “FOIA Portal” under development and slated for launch this fall. Thursday we got a chance to look under the hood a bit, as part of a group organized by the Office of Government of Information Services.”
http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/blogs/exemption-10/posts/2012/feb/16/epa-commerce-take-lead-developing-foia-portal/
Help Open States Rate State Websites
“As Open States closes in on our initial goal of supporting all 50 state legislatures (just 3 more to go!) we’re also planning to put out a report card evaluating the availability of state legislative data across every state. . . In order to guarantee a high quality report we’d like to get several responses per state and that’s where you can help us out. Click the link below to head to a form that will ask you to evaluate the information that your state legislature makes available via their official website. By doing this you’ll help us ensure that our eventual report is as accurate and as complete as possible.”
http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2012/help-open-states-rate-state-websites/
Justice Department Wins Rosemary Award for Worst Open Government Performance in 2011
“The U.S. Department of Justice has won the infamous Rosemary Award for worst open government performance over the past year, according to the citation posted on the Web today by the National Security Archive. The award is named after President Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who erased 18 1/2 minutes of a crucial Watergate tape. The Rosemary Award citation includes a multi-count indictment of Justice’s transparency performance in 2011, including. . .”
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20120214/index.htm
Department of Justice Increases FOIA Releases and Reduces FOIA Backlogs
“The Department of Justice continues to lead by example in its administration of the FOIA, closing out Fiscal Year 2011 with significant accomplishments. Despite three straight years of receiving record high numbers of FOIA requests — over 60,000 requests for each of the past three years — the Department processed a record number of those requests. In doing so, the Department released records in full or in part for 94.5% of requests involving responsive records, which marks the second straight year the Department has achieved such a high release rate. Even more significantly, the Department increased the number of responses to requests where records were released in full.”
http://www.justice.gov/oip/foiapost/2012foiapost2.html
Public Policy
New Hampshire Legislature Passes Open-Source Software Bill
“The New Hampshire state legislature recently passed a bill that makes open data and open source software included by default in the state’s procurement process. The bill, HB 418, requires government officials to consider open-source products when making new technology acquisitions and only purchase products that comply with open data standards. Last year, Nick Judd covered how the New Hampshire legislature changed with the addition of several “geeks” to the House of Representatives and the passage of this new legislation shows a growing culture of friendliness to the tech concept of “open” in the statehouse. It is currently on its way to the governor’s desk for signing. Open source advocates say the New Hampshire bill represents an evolution for open software in government.”
http://techpresident.com/news/21761/new-hampshire-legislature-passes-open-source-software-bill
State Integrity Investigation releases preliminary data on government transparency
“Do you ever get the feeling that you don’t know the first thing about your state’s government? More than likely, its by no fault of your own; U.S. state governments are notoriously closed-off, and even more difficult to compare to one another. So for the first time, extensive data looking at transparency in U.S. state governments has been made public. The State Integrity Investigation released its preliminary findings — a set of more than 300 indicators to determine the risk of government corruption — for all 50 states.”
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/02/14/8162/state-integrity-investigation-releases-preliminary-data-government-transparency
Electronic Government Fund Would Grow Slightly Under President’s Plan
“Important government transparency programs would receive a small boost if the President’s proposed budget for FY 2013 were enacted. The Electronic Government Fund, which supports Data.gov, the IT Spending Dashboard, and USASpending.gov, among other programs, would increase by $4.2 million in FY 2013, from $12.4 million in FY 2013 to $16.665 million in FY 2013. This is still far less than the $34 million appropriated in FY 2009 and FY 2010, but would make an appreciable difference in supporting or expanding transparency initiatives.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/02/14/electronic-government-fund-would-grow-slightly-under-presidents-plan/
Open Access
A Decade of Open Access (And the Challenges Ahead)
“Ten years ago this week, the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) was released to the public. This seminal document explained how technology could revolutionize academic publishing, and defined “open access” as the free and unrestricted availability of peer-reviewed journal literature online. Perhaps most importantly, the BOAI laid out a strategy for making open access a reality. In the decade since its publication, the 13 original signatories behind the initiative have been joined by a still-growing collection of over 5500 individuals and 600 organizations.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/decade-open-access-and-challenges-ahead
Intellectual Property
Loosen up copyright law, says Dutch government
“The YouTube generation has gained an ally in the worldwide “copyright wars.” The Dutch government wants to change copyright law so new media users can continue to do “creative remixes” of protected content. The Hague will no longer wait for the European Commission to find a compromise.”
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/loosen-copyright-law-says-dutch-government
ACTA Doubts Rampant In Europe; Industry Call For “Reasoned Assessment”
“Europeans came out by the thousands this week to protest the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), as it goes before the parliament and the remaining governments that have not yet signed on. But a large number of industry associations sent a letter pushing officials to carefully consider the agreement before dismissing it under popular pressure.”
http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/02/13/acta-doubts-rampant-in-europe-industry-call-for-%e2%80%9creasoned-assessment%e2%80%9d/
EU Court of Justice: Social Networks Can’t Be Forced to Monitor and Filter to Prevent Copyright Infringement
“In another important victory for Internet users’ fundamental rights and the open Internet, the highest court in Europe ruled yesterday that social networks cannot be required to monitor and filter their users’ communications to prevent copyright infringement of music and movies. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) found that imposing a broad filtering obligation on social networks would require active monitoring of users’ files in violation of EU law and could undermine citizens’ freedom of expression.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/eu-court-justice-social-networks
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The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.
