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2Day in #OpenGov 12/6/2011

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Here is the Tuesday's take on transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency-related events. News Roundup: Access to Information

  • The United States and India teamed up in an effort to make the open data platform data.gov open source. There are currently 28 international open data platforms, the effort aims to help more countries introduce their own platforms. (O'Reilly Radar)
  • Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced a bill to allow Supreme Court proceedings to be televised. The Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts is holding a hearing on the bill today. (Roll Call $)
  • Sarah Kaufman, one of the driving forces behind the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority's embrace of open data and partnerships with third party software developers, is leaving for a position at New York University. (techPresident)
  • Good-government groups called for the Super Committee to retroactively embrace transparency by posting its unreleased proposals online for the public to vet. (Politico)
Lobbying
  • New recordings show representatives of one of Britain's largest lobbying firms boasting about its use of "dark arts" to bury bad coverage and influence public opinion. Notably, they suggested that they could manipulate Google results to hide coverage of human rights violations. (The Independent)
  • Billions of dollars worth of tax breaks and credits are set to expire this month. Lobbyists are working overtime to try and squeeze them through before the end of the year. (Politico)
Campaign Finance
  • Newt Gingrich is looking to match his fundraising to his rising poll numbers. In order to compete past the early state contests Gingrich will have to raise significant funds. He is setting his sights on K street and Manhattan to achieve this goal. (New York Times)
  • A Super PAC, previously dedicated to electing Herman Cain, is searching for a new candidate to support with their unlimited fundraising abilities. As long as they notify the FEC, the 9-9-9 Fund can easily support a new candidate. (Politico)

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2Day in #OpenGov 12/5/2011

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Here is the week's first look at transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency-related events. News Roundup: Government

  • Several federal agencies have recently started blogs on the Tumblr platform. Agencies with successful Tumblr blogs include the GSA, the departments of Defense and State, the Peace Corps, the National Archives, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. (Federal Computer Week)
  • A new dashboard created by Expert Labs, a nonprofit, ranks 125 federal agencies based on their public engagement via Twitter. (Nextgov)
  • The Obama administration launched a new dashboard to track priority infrastructure projects. (Federal Times)
State and Local
  • The American Legislative Exchange Council creates model legislation that is introduced, and sometimes passed, in states around the country. ALEC does its best to hide information about its 300 corporate, think tank, and trade group members, who fund 99% of the group's yearly activities. (Business Week)
  • Sacramento County, CA launched a new website in November that aims to help residents stay informed and connected with elected officials. (Government Technology)
  • Maryland joined California in allowing campaign contributions via text message. Contributions are limited to $10 per message. The State Board of Elections' director hopes that the change will allow more people to give small donations. (Lobby Comply)
International 
  • India is asking internet companies, notably Facebook and Google, to screen user generated content and "remove disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content before it goes online." The companies are expected to argue that the request is unfeasible. (Yahoo/ The Atlantic)

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Food and media companies lobby to weaken guidelines on marketing food to children

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A major lobbying push by a powerful group of food and media companies appears to be working, with a federal agency indicating it would back off on parts of proposed voluntary guidelines for marketing food to children. The guidelines are meant to combat childhood obesity.

Also, language in a pending congressional spending bill, one of several that Congress must approve before the end of the year to keep the government running, threatens to prohibit the agency, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), from issuing a final version of the nutritional guidelines at all without doing a cost-benefit analysis first.

Big companies ...

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