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2Day in #OpenGov 1/29/2013

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NEWS ROUNDUP:

  • Data.gov, with help from a team of Presidential Innovation Fellows, is getting a citizen friendly redesign that will highlight how open data resources are already being used in the private sector. The new approach can be seen at alpa.data.gov (Fed Scoop)
  • Samsung is revving up its lobbying operation to go along with its move to the front in the smartphone wars. The South Korean company spent around $800,000 on lobbying last year, more than in any previous year. (Politico)
  • While speculation continues swirl about  Hillary Clinton's plans for the 2016 presidential race, multiple PACs have sprung up to support her when, and if, she decides to run. (Public Integrity)
  • Despite losing her lucrative gig at Fox News, Sarah Palin still has an avenue to push her political agenda. Her super PAC has over $1 million in the bank. Most powerful PACs keep smaller amounts of cash on hand unless preparing for a campaign push. (Public Integrity)
  • The FDA recently turned to table technology to improve its data collection. The new system helps streamline farm safety inspections, allowing for instant reporting of issues. (Government Technology)
  • After a local open government group filed a FOIA suit the Washington, DC Council changed its rules to ensure that council members and staff cannot avoid the FOIA by doing business on their personal emails. (NFOIC)

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2Day in #OpenGov 1/28/2013

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NEWS ROUNDUP:

  • Libya is backing off earlier pledges to deliver greater transparency and will not reveal details of its oil sales this year. New Libyan leadership had initially promised more transparency after widespread corruption in the pre-revolutionary government. (Trust Law)
  • Many of K Street's biggest firms saw revenues fall in 2012, but some smaller shops are bucking the trend and snagging new clients. (The Hill)
  • Dark money groups have turned their attentions, and wallets, towards defeating Chuck Hagel, President Obama's nominee to lead the defense department. (New York Times)
  • Many senior aides on Capitol Hill that work on energy and environmental issues have departed their positions in recent months, citing the partisan gridlock. (National Journal)
  • Google's flu data has captivated many this season, but it is only one of a variety of systems tracking flue trends. (National Journal)
  • A three year old task to evaluate 361 million pages of classified documents to determine which could be released to the public has been completed, according the the National Archives and Records Administration. 90 million historical pages have been released or reclassified. (Government Executive)

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2Day in #OpenGov 1/25/2013

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NEWS ROUNDUP:

  • Raymond Baker, founder and director of the advocacy group Global Financial Integrity, argues for financial transparency by explaining how illicit capital flows destabilize economies, threaten security, and hinder human rights. (Trust Law)
  • Makers of popular energy drinks Red Bull and Monster are turning to K street for a jolt of influence on Capitol Hill as regulators look at the possible health risks associated with their products. Both brands signed on with powerful lobbying firms for the first time near the end of 2012, spending over $100,000 in the year's waning months. (The Hill)
  • While an informal ban on earmarks has ruled congress with a frugal fist over the past few years, a bipartisan team of Senators wants to make it official policy. Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a measure to permanently ban the practice. A similar bill failed to pass during the 112th Congress. (Roll Call)
  • Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is playing host to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at a fundraiser at his California home. The two have had a relationship since Zuckerberg donated $100 million to Newark, NJ public schools in 2010. (National Journal)
  • Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are pushing President Obama to nominate an Inspector General for the State Department as the Senate considers John Kerry as the agency's next head. State has been without a permanent IG since 2007. (Government Executive)
  • A new report ranks the states on how well they provide online access to government spending data. Today, almost every state has a transparency website with state spending information, but some are better than others. (US PIRG)
  • The House Ethics Committee announced stricter disclosure requirements on Wednesday. Members and senior staffers will now have to disclose underlying assets in certain investment funds and accounts. (Roll Call)

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2Day in #OpenGov 1/24/2013

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NEWS ROUNDUP:

  • Nonprofit Common Crawl is following in Google's footsteps by indexing large amounts of the internet, over five billion pages so far. But, there is one important difference; they're making their database available for free. (Technology Review)
  • NextBus, a popular app that provides real-time transit information for Washington, DC, went down recently after the company behind it failed to update their API to a standard format promoted by the regional transit authority. (Slate)
  • Google dropped nearly $17 million on lobbying in 2012 as it fought anti-trust investigations and argued for internet freedom. The total is nearly double what the tech giant spent in 2011. (The Hill)
  • Former Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) is making nearly $1 million in his new career. As chief executive of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, he doesn't plan to lobby the government. He is technically allowed to lobby the administration now, but has to wait two years before making a decision about lobbying Congress. (The Hill)
  • New York City is launching a new searchable, machine-readable, programmatically accessible database of city financial data. Checkbook NYC 2.0 is an upgraded version of an existing tool.  (Tech President)
  • New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has invested significant resources from his personal fortune to advocate for new gun control measures. He has spread his largess between Mayors Against Illegal Guns and his very own super PAC, Independence USA PAC. (NPR)

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Kick-starting the 113th Congress speakers announced

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We are excited to announce the exciting lineup of experts and advocates from across the political spectrum that will be speaking at "Kick-starting the 113th Congress," the next Advisory Committee on Transparency event.  The sixteen speakers will each have 3 minutes to present their actionable ideas to make government more transparent. The lineup includes representatives of the Cato Institute, the Center for Effective Government, the Center for Responsive Politics, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Data Transparency Coalition, GovTrack.us, Judicial Watch, the New America Foundation, OpenTheGovernment.org, Princeton University, Robinson & Yu LLP, the Sunlight Foundation, the Sunshine in Government Initiative, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The event will be held on Monday, January 28th in room 2203 of the Rayburn House Office Building and start at 2:00 pm. Please RSVP to http://snlg.ht/ACTCongress Read more for a full list of speakers.

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2Day in #OpenGov 1/23/2013

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NEWS ROUNDUP:

  • 75% of the $306 million spent on state political campaigns in Florida last year went to political committees, which fewer disclosure requirements, instead of candidates. (The Miami Herald)
  • In her State of the State address on January 16, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley cited the Palmetto state's low grades in State Integrity Investigation while calling for major reforms. (Global Integrity)
  • Hadithi, a new platform for hosting open access academic content is scheduled to launch on January 24th. The platform is Kenya, but will aggregate articles from research institutions worldwide. (Global Voices)
  • The White House is partnering with Random Hacks of Kindness, Code for America, Innovation Endeavors, and several Federal agencies to host a National Day of Civic Hacking. The day of hacking will take place on June 1-2 and there are currently events planned for 27 cities. (Tech President)
  • Former Senator Ben Nelson became the latest recently retired lawmaker to settle into a new office on K Street with the announcement that he will join public affair firm Agenda as a senior adviser. (Politico)
  • The US Chamber of Commerce spent more than $100 million on lobbying in 2012, allowing the group to maintain its throne as the highest spending interest group in Washington. (Roll Call)

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2Day in #OpenGov 1/22/2013

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NEWS ROUNDUP:

  • A bipartisan group of lawmakers urged President Obama to enforce enhanced whistleblower protections that were included in the recent defense authorization bill. The President spoke critically of the provisions while signing the larger bill into law. (Federal Computer Week)
  • The 2012-2013 flu season has reached epidemic levels in the US, leading public health and local government officials to embrace new technologies to spread information and help citizens connect to health care. (GovFresh)
  • The Center for Technology in Government is looking at considerations that government's should take before releasing data to the public. A paper on the issue, The Dynamics of Opening Government Data, evaluates open data releases from New York City and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Government Technology)
  • Now that Obama for America is being converted into a 501(c)4 advocacy group many questions are being raised about the future of the group and its ability to focus primarily on politics. 501(c)4's are not supposed to have electoral politics as their main focus, but can run "issue ads". (NPR)
  • Government watchdogs have found much to be disappointed with after President Obama promised to lead the most transparent administration in history. His record on ethics, campaign finance, and transparency looks decidedly mixed. (Roll Call)
  • While few observers expect sweeping changes in the way that the Obama administration handles K street in its second term, many expect it to become easier for lobbyists to obtain waivers to work in the White House. (Roll Call)

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2Day in #OpenGov 1/17/2013

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NEWS ROUNDUP:

  • The still nascent Slovenian Pirate Party, founded with a focus on digital issues, may have an opportunity to compete sooner than they expected. Protests against austerity measures and rampant political corruption have swept the nation, leading some to call for new elections. (Tech President)
  • The Vietnamese government admitted to supporting up to 1,000 bloggers and "online tastemakers" to work as propaganda agents and push Communist policies online. The country, with a poor record of freedom of expression, has seen internet use explode over the past decade.  (Tech President)
  • After a month of silence from its K Street representatives, the NRA has started sending in its lobbying muscle to fight President Obama's gun control proposals. They'll be armed with a new argument; guns create jobs. (Politico)
  • Did you download the app created for President Obama's second inauguration? You might want to check out the terms of service, which apparently gives the Presidential Inaugural Committee permission to share data with a variety of political organizations. (Politico)
  • The gun control law passed in New York this week appears to limit access to previously public information about gun permits, giving gun owners the option to remove their names from a statewide database. (New York Times)
  • State revolving door laws vary widely across the country and at least 15 have no laws that would stop a legislator from resigning on Monday and registering as a lobbyist on Tuesday. (Public Integrity)
  • The White House quadrupled the threshold for a petition filed via its We The People website to get an official answer. New petitions will have to get 100,000 signatures in 30 days to be acknowledged by the White House. (The Hill)

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