As the Supreme Court continues its assault on campaign finance limits, we have a modest proposal for more informed citizens and a more accountable government.
Continue readingSunlight Supports Effort for Greater Lobbying Disclosure in the UK
The Sunlight Foundation is supporting lobbying transparency efforts across the pond - will you join us?
Continue readingThe DATA Act and Beyond: An Event Exploring Government Spending Transparency
We are excited to announce "Government Spending Transparency: The Data Act and Beyond," which will take place on Monday, December 16, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. in Room 2203 of the Rayburn House Office Building. You can RSVP here.
Continue readingThe Landscape of Local Asset Disclosure
Many local government officials have to disclose information about potential conflicts of interest, but this information is difficult to find released as open data.
Continue readingHow to Read The US National Action Plan
Today, the Obama administration released its second National Action Plan (NAP), the administration’s plan to promote transparency for the coming two years - but does it really commit to open government?
Continue readingSunlight files FOIA request for full list of agency databases
The Sunlight Foundation has filed a new FOIA request, seeking information on which agencies truly complied with the White House's open data executive order -- and which are keeping their data secret.
Continue readingMontgomery County’s Open Data Town Hall, the Town Hall of the Future
On Thursday November 21st, Montgomery County, Maryland hosted an Open Data Town Hall to solicit feedback from citizens about what data they would like to see prioritized for release online under Montgomery County’s open data law.
Continue readingDC Approves Campaign Finance Reforms
In a legislative meeting today, DC council members unanimously approved a bill that moves campaign finance in the District toward greater transparency. The legislation requires electronic filing of campaign finance information and the publication of that information online within 24 hours -- language that Sunlight's local team recommended in the bill's drafting process.
Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, who moved the bill through Council, thanked Sunlight for our role in this win for transparency:
Thanks also to the @SunFoundation for their input on transparency reforms that are cornerstone of this DC campaign finance reform
— Kenyan R. McDuffie (@CM_McDuffie) December 3, 2013Open Data Executive Order Compliance: The Bad and The Good.
The first major deadline for agency compliance with President Obama's open data Executive Order arrived this past Saturday. Agencies were required to, among other things, provide the Office of Management and Budget with an "Enterprise Data Inventory" and release a list of all their public data via a /data page on their websites.
We had hopes that some agencies might choose to publicly release their entire Enterprise Data Inventories, providing a full picture of their data holdings. Unfortunately, so far, that does not seem to have happened. Until the full inventories are available, the public will still be stuck in the dark, not knowing what we don’t know about government data holdings.
Nonetheless, most cabinet level agencies, as well as a number of independent agencies that were not required to comply, have taken steps to publicly fulfill the other aspects of the Executive Order. Levels of compliance have been varied, but we will try to highlight some of the worst and best examples below.
Continue readingAnnouncing Sunlight’s international lobbying disclosure guidelines
With more and more civil society organizations in the open government universe recognizing that “thorny issues” -- such as political finance transparency or surveillance -- need to be tackled somewhat more vehemently, we are eager to seize the momentum and start a hopefully constructive dialogue around an embarrassingly under- or unregulated area: lobbying disclosure. A few weeks back, with the support of our friends at the Open Knowledge Foundation, we took the first steps to create a community of interested advocates, activists and academics, and launched a public working group around the world of influence.
Today, we are excited to announce our draft lobbying disclosure guidelines and invite the community to provide input on these recommendations.
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