Sunlight Foundation

Principles for Transparency in Government

Public oversight, civic participation and electoral engagement—the stuff of democratic accountability—all depend on a transparent, open government.

Indeed, transparency and openness are the very foundations for public trust; without the former the latter cannot survive. The Internet is making increased transparency cheaper, more effective, and in more demand every day as Americans come to expect instantaneous and constant access to all kinds of information. Given the rapid technological advances in how information can be captured, stored, analyzed and shared, the Sunlight Foundation believes it is time to update and expand government's transparency mandate:

• Transparency is Government's Responsibility:

  Transparency must first and foremost be understood as government's responsibility, since public demand and private/non­profit responses can reach only so far. Accordingly, both Congress and the branch must make broad changes in our federal information and technology policies to establish on­line, on­time public access as a priority for virtually all the operations of the federal government.

• Public Means Online:

  Whatever information the government has or commits to making public, the standard for "public" should include "freely accessible online." Information cannot be considered public if it is available only inside a government building, during limited hours or for a fee. In the 21st century, information is properly described as "public" only if it is available online, 24/7, for free, in some kind of reasonably parse­able format. Almost all of our public sphere is now online, and our public information should be there, too.

• Data Quality and Presentation Matter:

  The Internet has redefined effective communications and publishing. It is a 24/7 open medium, in which now­standard practices include continuous, contemporaneous dissemination, permanent searchability and re­usability, among other key features. The government must adopt the principles that all information and data that the government has decided or hereafter decides should be public must be (i) posted online promptly, (ii) complete and accurate, (iii) searchable and manipulable and (iv) permanently preserved and accessible. Among these four, timeliness is particularly vital for information concerning any ongoing decision making process, such as legislation or regulation. Disclosure should move at the same pace as influence over such decisions; thus arbitrary periodic filing requirements (e.g., annual, quarterly or monthly) violate this standard and render postings less useful to facilitate trust and participation. Fortunately, the Internet enables inexpensive real­time publishing, such as real­time updates we have come to expect for news and stock market transactions. These standards of contemporaneous disclosure are particularly important when it comes to disclosure of lobbying contacts, consideration of legislation, promulgation of regulations or awarding of grants and contracts.

Our government's role as an information provider has evolved along with our ability to communicate. Today, our newly networked citizenry has rising expectations of greatly expanded access to governmental information, so that it may play a fuller role in understanding, evaluating and participating in the workings of its government.

More open and transparent government can foster more competent and trustworthy behavior by public officials along with a more engaged public.

Executive Branch Transparency Agenda

• Public Equals Online:

  The executive branch should offer 21st century publishing practices, where public information is best accessible—online. Government records and data should be affirmatively designated for dissemination and publication online, in the same systematic manner as General Records Schedules or the classification system. Any public record should be posted online within 72 hours of its receipt or creation, made available in a parseable and downloadable format and permanently preserved, to serve as a resource for citizens and government employees alike. President Obama and his advisors should also consider options for systematic designation of records as public documents in real time, selecting data sources as priorities for open access, and even empowering whistleblowers to summon public oversight when necessary.

• Online Means Interoperable:

  Executive branch databases must be designed for interoperability with other similar databases. These databases often describe the same entities, but use different identifiers, rendering deep analysis essentially impossible. Most urgently, the executive branch should create a public database of unique identifiers for ethics information, including both individuals and corporate entities, to allow matching among different datasets across the executive, across the branches, and with databases outside government. Although data may be collected under carefully negotiated jurisdictions, its descriptive impact should not be limited by parochial design elements specific to each agency. The legacy started by the GILS and USA.gov initiatives can be fulfilled by well designed public databases.

• Influence Data Has Priority:

  Legitimacy, competence and trust should serve as a foundation for all of government's activities. Information pertaining to influence, corruption and oversight should take special publication priority over other data sources. Personal financial disclosure forms for all appointees subject to Senate confirmation should be posted online as soon as possible, after a reasonable amount of time for redaction of personally identifiable information. Documents pertaining to government oversight should be similarly centrally available, including reports from Inspectors General, agency planning and strategic vision documents, budgets, performance data and other government sponsored investigations. The executive branch should also publicly and proactively list the oversight reporting required of it by law. Also, the existing reporting mechanisms, including USASpending.gov and personal financial disclosure forms, should be strengthened and made more precise, through legislation if necessary.

• Information Policy Needs Centralized Authority:

  Without a strong central authority to control funding and standards, executive branch information policies fail. A toplevel office, near the president, should coordinate executive branch policy with national technology policies, and serve as a liaison directly to the president. This office could be a cabinet level office, a White House office, or be housed within OMB—perhaps working under a CTO. The General Services Administration must also play a strong advisory and guidance role, as the de facto champions of Web standards coordination. Without clear guidance from a nearpresidential level office, these bodies cannot effectively work with other agencies or outside databases to set the information policies necessary for public, interoperable data. All agencies also face legal uncertainty in dealing with new Web 2.0 tools. To address this, an executive order should designate Web use and social media as a governmentwide priority, identifying digital communications technology as a basic method for pursuing core agency goals. The administration should also create a nimble crossagency coordinative body to address technology issues, combining the existing expertise in the CIO Council, the Federal Web Managers Council, OMB, GSA and the CTO's office with internal champions from various agencies and NGOs eager to help coordinate governmentwide technology initiatives.

• Transparency Enables Participation:

  The CTO faces a host of other urgent public information challenges. The erulemaking system is in dire need of standards, funding and authority, despite its wellestablished participatory role. Proactively designating documents and databases for publication across the various agencies will take a thoughtful and assertive CTO operating in defense of the public's right to know. Collaborative pilot programs, like the successful Peer to Patent Project, should be encouraged governmentwide, and depend for their success on the carefully structured information access that is necessary for citizens to meaningfully participate in governance.

Legislative Priorities for the 112th Congress

• Enact policies that create a more transparent and accountable government.

  Create Meaningful Lobbyist Disclosure: Our lobbying disclosure laws need to be as powerful as the interests they regulate. We will work to amend the Lobbying Disclosure Act to require that all individuals paid to engage in advocacy disclose contacts with all covered officials online, and in real time.

  Illuminate the Money Flowing into Politics: We will work to ensure that Congress enacts a robust, targeted third-party spending disclosure bill that will shrink corrupting influence of dark money on our democracy. A new version of the DISCLOSE Act should identify donors to organizations that engage in campaign activities and strengthen disclaimers to prevent special interests from hiding behind shell organizations. Likewise, we will advocate for passage of the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act to ensure that campaign finance information is filed electronically and is immediately publicly available.

  Reset the Definition of Public to Mean Online: Sunlight will work to enact the Public Online Information Act (POIA), which requires all public executive branch information to be available and searchable online. We will also work to apply the same standard to the legislative branch.

  Codify Sunlight's Priorities throughout Government: We will seek to garner support for transparency legislation such as the omnibus Transparency in Government Act. The TGA creates meaningful change throughout the legislative and executive branch and includes many of the legislative initiatives listed here.

  Make the Fundamental Work of Government More Transparent: Democratic institutions are strengthened by public awareness of and participation in the work of Congress. We will continue to work to enact changes to House and Senate Rules so that information about Members of Congress and the work they do is publicly available online. That includes ensuring that a meaningful 72 Hour Rule is enacted so that all non-emergency legislation is posted online, in its final form, at least 72 hours before consideration.

  Strengthen Congressional Ethics: We will work to ensure the continued existence of the Office of Congressional Ethics and that it has adequate funding. We will continue efforts to ensure that congressional ethics filings are available online and contain all the information necessary to unveil potential conflicts of interest. We will address limitations in disclosure by the Federal Election Commission to ensure the most complete and timely public access to campaign finance information.

  Strengthen Disclosure of Spending: We will continue to work to enact the Earmark Transparency Act, which would require detailed, timely information about all earmark requests to be made available online in a centralized database. We will also work to have legislation introduced that will expose Executive branch spending decisions to more scrutiny. We will work to make improvements to USASpending.gov, and seek to enact comprehensive disclosure of influence peddlers seeking assistance for government contracts, grants and other forms of financial assistance. We will also continue to work for increased transparency for the budget process.

• Encourage productive oversight.

  Congressional oversight is irreplaceable, and Sunlight is well positioned to encourage meaningful oversight for the 112th Congress, of both Congress and the Executive Branch. We will pursue oversight of the disclosure of grants and contracts, new lobbying policies and enforcement, and work with key staff to identify elements of the Open Government Directive that should be codified into law or otherwise made permanent. We will pursue letters and hearings to exert pressure on issues of lobbying, influence, and data transparency.

• Build Congress' competence to address transparency issues.

  We will continue the important work of the Advisory Committee on Transparency to educate Congress on transparency issues. We will also support the efforts of the Congressional Transparency Caucus, whose formation Sunlight has long encouraged. We will continue to build on our reputation as a trusted resource to which Members and staff can turn for transparency-related issues.