As many open access advocates, journalists, and government employees will tell you, broaching the subject of data disclosure can raise a lot of concerns for government data providers. Pioneers looking to move their government toward exploring information release have already come up with rebuttals to many of these challenges, but the collective knowledge is hard to share, usually trapped in email groups, discussion boards, blogs, and the memories and experiences of individuals. In the wake of re-releasing our Open Data Policy Guidelines, we wanted to probe these concerns and see what information we could share that data advocates could keep in their back pocket.
So, earlier this month, we shared a crowdsourced collection of the top concerns data advocates have heard when they’ve raised an open data project with government officials at the federal, state, and local level, and we asked for you to share how you’ve responded.
Dozens of you contributed to this project, sharing your thoughts on social media, our public Google doc, and even on the Open Data Stack Exchange, where 8 threads were opened to dive deeper into specific subjects. We also learned about resources akin to this one from our peers at the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and this awesome, bingo-card inspired round-up from the UK made by Christopher Gutteridge and Alexander Dutton. (The latter has even been translated into German!)
Drawing from your input, these materials, and our own experience, we’ve compiled a number of answers -- discussion points, if you will -- to help unpack and respond to some of the most commonly cited open data concerns. This is mash-up of expertise is a work in progress, but we bet you’ll find it a useful conversation starter (or continuer) for your own data advocacy efforts.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing challenges and responses from our list that correspond to different themes. You can follow along on our blog and on Twitter via #WhyOpenData. Today’s theme is Apathy.
DeMint leads from afar in Obamacare fight
"I personally believe I can do a lot more on the outside than I can on the inside," former Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., (pictured right) told reporters concerning his decision to leave his Senate post for the helm the conservative Heritage Foundation in December of last year.
While he may no longer claim a seat on the floor of the upper chamber, the 62 year old who was a tea partier before there was a Tea Party is still very much at the center of the congressional scrum over the Affordable Care Act and budget negotiations.
In his time ...
Continue readingToday in #OpenGov 9/30/13
National News
- Decisions about how to fund the government -- and whether the 2010 health care law would be impacted -- are expected to be tossed from the Senate back to the House today after a quiet Sunday at the Capitol. If the House and Senate cannot work out a deal on the budget today, the U.S. government is poised for the first shutdown in nearly 20 years. (Washington Post)
- The National Security Agency has been using the data collected on U.S. citizens to create charts of their social connections. The agency is using communication data along with information from social media profiles, bank accounts, passenger manifests, and GPS locations, among other things, to chart connections between people. (New York Times)
- The Justice Department is moving to sue North Carolina over the state's voter ID law, following a decision last month to sue Texas for a similar measure. (Washington Post)
- Saturday was International Right to Know Day, and events focused on improving access to information took place in countries across the world. There is a Google map tracking these events. (MySociety)
- The Washington-area economy could lose $200 million each day if the federal government does shut down. Mayor Vincent Gray is hoping to mitigate the impacts on the District's workforce by declaring all of its employees essential, meaning they would be able to keep working through a shutdown. (Washington Post)
- Census numbers show the total number of local governments increased slightly over the last five years, even as revenues shrank across every level. The Census showed more than 90,000 local governments in 2012. (Pew States)
- Civic hackers in Vermont are preparing to use approved datasets to make apps that they hope will improve the quality of government processes -- and the economy. The hackathon, HackVT, is scheduled for Oct. 11-12. (Motherboard)
- San Francisco is now home to a new headquarters for GitHub, the platform that is also hosting the city's newly opened municipal code. Posting San Francisco's code online in a more user-friendly format is the result of working with GitHub, OpenGov Foundation, and other groups. (GovFresh)
Supreme Court Could Snuff Out Last Ember of the Campaign Finance System
On Oct. 8, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case in which the plaintiff, Shaun McCutcheon, joined by the Republican National Committee, is challenging the constitutionality of the overall limit on contributions to federal candidates and political parties. If the court rules in favor of McCutcheon and the RNC, it might as well tie a big bow around Congress and deliver it to a tiny percentage of the very, very rich.
Plutocracy anyone?
The State of Local Procurement
This summer, Code for America, Omidyar Network, and the Sunlight Foundation joined forces to investigate municipal procurement trends, best practices, and potential areas of improvement across the country with a Local Government Procurement Survey.
The survey yielded 31 total responses, representing a total of 28 cities and counties, ranging in population from 13,881 to 2.7 million and hailing from every region of the continental United States. The majority of respondents (93%) were government employees working with or in the purchasing department.
The Local Government Procurement Survey asked cities about procurement process data disclosure, the formal and informal procurement process for IT contracts, and what challenges existed in their current procurement system. Check out more details on our initial results below.
Continue readingThe Library of Congress Really Really Does Not Want To Give You Your Data
It's 2013, and the Library of Congress seems to think releasing public data about Congress is a risk to the public.
The Library of Congress is in charge of [THOMAS.gov](http://thomas.loc.gov/), and its successor [Congress.gov](http://congress.gov). These sites publish some of the most fundamental information about Congress — the history and status of bills. Whether it's immigration law or SOPA, patent reform or Obamacare, the Library of Congress will tell you: *What is Congress working on? Who's working on it? When did that happen?*
Except they won't let you download that information.
OpenGov Voices: Data provides constant revelations for central Illinois communities
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation
or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.
Brant Houston is the Knight Chair in Investigative Reporting at the College of Media at the University of Illinois and Editor in Chief of CU-CitizenAccess -- a community online news and information project devoted to investigative and enterprise coverage of social, justice and economic issues in east central Illinois. He can be reached at brant.houston@gmail.com
CU-CitizenAccess.org, an award-winning online newsroom, was launched with public data and it continues to thrive and grow with data about the central Illinois region.
Conceived as a digital platform for university students, faculty and journalism professionals, the project began with a review of basic Census data for the communities of Champaign and Urbana, Illinois in 2008. (Thus, the “C” for Champaign and the “U” for Urbana.) The data revealed what seemed like a surprisingly high percentage of people living in poverty – about 20 percent – in a county that is home to the University of Illinois, a top public educational institution.
But as we scanned the data, we knew there were questions about whether college students, with low earned income, were distorting the numbers. So we looked at the percentage of subsidized school lunches and saw that more than half the school children were receiving lunches. We also read news stories and talked with the staff at the local newspaper and realized there was more than a story to pursue – that there was an ongoing project.
While collecting more data and information, we worked with colleagues to raise funds from a local community foundation, matching money from the Knight Foundation’s Community Information program, and from the University. By the spring 2009, work was underway by Illinois journalism alum Pam Dempsey and Shelley Smithson. In December 2009, the website was up and running and alum Acton Gorton, was helping administer the website while reporting too.
Today in #OpenGov 9/27/2013
National News
- Big data gets bigger every day, but for the government to make the best use of its growing stores of information data governance structures need to be put in place. (Federal Computer Week)
- A new analysis of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Congressional Republicans have long hated and recently vowed again to destroy, finds that the agency has made strides in its first three years, but its best actions happened in a transparent, iterative manner. (Government Executive)
- There are more women serving in the halls of Congress than ever, but women haven't changed the amount of money they've given to political causes all that much over the past 25 years. (Open Secrets)
- Early next month the Supreme Court is set to hear the latest attack on campaign finance regulation. McCutcheon vs. FEC deals with limits on the overall level of contributions that individuals can spread around to various federal candidates. (National Journal)
- Newly declassified documents show that the NSA spied on prominent American critics of the war in Vietnam, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and two powerful member's of Congress Sen. Frank Church (D-Id) and Rep. Howard Baker (R-TN). (Georgetown Security Law Brief)
- The UK's Independent Reporting Mechanism has a new report out about Britain's first OGP National Action Plan. The timing is appropriate, as the country is prepping its second NAP, to be revealed next month at the OGP meeting in London. (Open Government Partnership)
- The Somali central bank signed a lobbying contract with the Podesta group as corruption allegations swirled around it earlier this month. Abdusalam Omer resigned as head of the bank a week after signing the deal, but claimed his resignation had nothing to do with the allegations. (The Hill)
- The National Association of Manufacturers is building itself a new arm. The new legal center will help its members when they want to lobby on the local, state, and federal levels. (POLITICO)
FDA Regulations Point to Need for Strengthened Lobbying Disclosure Laws
As my colleague Nancy Watzman reported, the Food and Drug Administration proposed strict new rules to ensure the cleanliness of food production, distribution and warehousing facilities. At the same time, the American Bakers Association announced “a major victory" because somehow they had ensured the new rules would not apply to their warehouses. To find out how and why the ABA secured an exemption to the rules was no straightforward task. A search of the lobbyist disclosure database yielded few results. Instead, it took a Freedom of Information Act request, digging through law firm websites and other sources in order to piece together who the influencers in Washington were and how they managed to ensure their clients were not subject to rules that, on the surface, would appear to be designed to impact their industry.
Continue readingToday in #OpenGov 9/26/2013
National News
- Big data is having some big impacts on government according to this piece, which highlights three. Data is helping to enhance security and prevent fraud, it is improving service delivery and emergency response, and finally data is democratizing information access. (Federal Computer Week)
- Jim Messina, one of President Obama's right hand men, was named to the board of directors of LanzaTech, a green energy firm that recently snagged millions in federal contracts and has financial backing from a major Obama donor. In addition to serving in a top White House job and running Obama's reelection campaign, Messina heads up Organizing for Action. (The Washington Times)
- The House Ethics Committee is about to lose its staff director. Dan Schwager, who has served in the position since 2011 and overseen investigations into the actions of several high profile members of Congress, is expected to step down by the end of the year. (POLITICO)
- Many public companies are being proactive about the reporting the money that they spend on politics, with firms from the pharmaceutical, IT, chemical, health, and defense industries ranking highest in a new survey. It's not all good news those, plenty of companies still refuse to share any information. (Public Integrity)
- Ghanaian deputy finance minister Cassiel Ato Forson spoke in favor of stronger and more transparent public financial management systems at a workshop devoted to pushing the topic forward in West Africa. Official's cited the global economic crisis and its continuing fallout as reasons to explore more transparent financial systems. (Ghana Business News)
- Thailand is taking inspiration from I Paid a Bribe for their new corruption portal. The new website, launched by the Office of the Auditor General, allows citizens to report bribery and other corruption that they encounter. (Future Gov)
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