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June 23, 2010 by
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We’ve written before about how governments are sponsoring contests to better deliver government data.
The outcome of these contests has been positive. The contests have resulted the data released on becoming useful, data previously criticized as being low quality, into maps that display geographic clusters of asthma, for example. In Washington, D.C., the value of the software created by the first Apps for Democracy competition is estimated to be in excess of $2.2 million. That contest gave out $20,000 in cash prizes.
David McClure of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies for the Obama Adminsitration stated that the government must learn to accept the notion that will increasingly occur beyond the government sphere. In other words, he is urging governments to get used to the fact that they benefit from, and need to, collaborate with citizens in order to maximize the good we get from innovation. And, as noted, that is a good message. The benefits of giving citizens a key to open data are many.
However, that statement doesn’t go far enough. Citizens are important in helping government deliver information in usable, innovative ways, but they are also the most important part of the equation. Government isn’t doing us a favor by collaborating with us; it’s the government’s job to have an ongoing discussion with its citizens.
Innovation in transparency is a great means of ensuring this discussion happens. Ealier this week, the , inviting experts and citizens to testify on how the city can make good use of data released by every city agency under a new bill.
Now, private companies are providing a means for beating government to the punch. Bing.com has just launched an app contest, and . The trend of citizens taking advantage of information the government allows us to have is only growing, and we look forward to the continued positive outcomes.
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June 17, 2010 by
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Over at the WikiFOIA blog, they’re talking about the :
This issue of justifying the recording of open meetings came up during one of our weekly Friday FOIA chats. During this chat, the participants of FOIA Friday also developed a laundry list of reasons most of which help to overcome the justifications of the Chicago area school boards [who have stopped posting meetings].
The blog includes a long list of reasons governments should archive their videos online. The reasons taken together should be enough to help governments overcome anxiety about making their meetings easily accessible.
Be sure to checkout for updates on issues and legislation. Also, join us on Twitter every Friday from 2-3 EST for , our live conference on FOIA issues and the original source of the discussion on open meetings.
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June 11, 2010 by
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is the combination of innovation by government, transparency of its processes, collaboration among its members, and participation of citizens. Mark Drapeau notes that these steps taken together “constitute a huge transformation of government, at any level.”
That transformation hasn’t happened yet. But it is starting.
The Obama Administration’s open data initiative, , has been criticized for the lack of value of the data sets disclosed. But the innovators on the net have made it so these data sets are actually useful.
The has summarized five of the top innovations they have seen inspired by the data sets. While the apps and websites are just really cool in the fact that they look sleek and they offer ways of interpreting information that weren’t available to us before, there’s a very practical aspect to them. They make data relevant to our lives. Specifically using health data, new apps and websites unveiled at the were able to create an “asthma map” detailing occurences of asthma by geography, for example, and Sonoma County integrated the data to gauge the health status of different communities. The . The training in itself is not what is newsworthy, but rather what it symbolizes: a real government commitment to understand how citizens communicate, and a commitment to attempt to better disburse information.
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April 28, 2010 by
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The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Doe v. Reed today, a case from regarding the confidentiality of names of petitioners attempting to repeal Referendum 71.
expanded the state domestic-partnership law to further grant certain marriage benefits to gay and lesbian couples.
The issue in question is whether . If the court rules it does, that would keep private all referendum and initiative petitions in Washington, and potentially those in the 12 other states that allow citizens to put measures on the ballot.
The has never ruled on the implications of signing a ballot-measure petition. It can either be private, political speech deserving of protection, or it can be considered the equivalent of legislators making law, an action with no expectation of privacy.
Those who oppose making the petition signers’ names public include traditional-values organizations, think tanks, and individual-rights groups like the ACLU. They oppose making names public for several reasons:
* Signers could face harassment if their identities are revealed. This happened to supporters of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008.
* Harassment or the threat of it could discourage citizens from actively participating in government.
* The jobs of petitioners could be put in jeopardy if petitioners hold different beliefs than employers
* It’s an example of government-regulated, limited speech.
Stewart Jay, a University of Washington law professor, thinks the court will decide to keep names private. The Supreme Court has ruled before that gathering petition signatures is core political speech protected under the First Amendment, Jay said, and he added the court has a tradition of protecting anonymity for political actions such as leafleting, especially when related to elections.
Those who support making names available include gay-rights supporters, the , 23 states, and media organizations (including the Seattle Times and most of Washington’s daily newspapers). The arguments for making petition signers’ names public include:
* The fact that such information is subject to disclosure upon request, as required by the , according to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed
* Along the same lines, names should be public because it is a part of transparency needed for people to trust their government.
* Out of 24 states that allow citizen referendums or initiatives, 23 disclose petition signatures as public records.
* There is no evidence that petition signers face harassment when names are public.
Supporters say the burden placed on petition signers is inconsequential compared with the “very compelling, very strong government and public interest in transparency, accountability and fraud protection.” Eugene Volokh, an attorney specializing in First Amendment law, says the state could tell its citizens that their signatures will be public if they want to sign.
Looking at it one way, transparency would dictate that all information be public. This would of course include petition signers. On the other hand, when we at speak about transparency, we mean transparency as related to the actions of government bodies, officials, and representatives. The actions of private citizens, whether political or not, are not included in our transparency project.
We’d like to know what you think: is making referenda signers’ names public important to transparency? Or is it an invasion of privacy, completely unrelated to transparency? We certainly await the Court’s decision.
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April 2, 2010 by
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We always like to encourage citizens to get angry and demand the information that is due to them, because the government will hardly ever . Usually, citizens have more at stake in demanding information than public officials, who often see open records and open meetings laws as burdens.
In and around Vermont, however, public officials stepped up to the plate to make government open.
When the (NRC) scheduled a closed-door meeting with public officials to discuss the recent safety problems at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in New Hampshire, it was congressional leaders in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont who sent letters and made calls to NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, expressing and asking him to consider making the meeting open. Vermont officials expressed their concerns, as well. Attorney General Deb Markowitz called plans for the closed meeting “legally questionable and ethically repugnant,” given it dealt with public health issues. Senators Bernard Sanders Patrick Leahy and Representative Peter F. Welch, issued a joint statement saying they were “committed to open and transparent government and to honoring both the letter and spirit of Vermont’s open meeting laws,” and urged the commission chairman to move the meeting back to Vermont and comply fully with Vermont’s open government law. “Avoiding Vermont’s open meeting laws by holding this meeting in New Hampshire will only add to the growing public skepticism about the handling of oversight at Vermont Yankee, and could curtail participation from Vermont officials,” they wrote.
The congressmens suspicions are well founded, as Vermont citizens do not have the most positive view of the openness of their government. An editorial appearing in the Burlington Free Press makes the charges that :
* Too many exceptions to the and , , , , , , ,