It's been busy week Washington, capped by a dramatic showdown in the Senate late last night that featured an abnormal legislative process. In today's newsletter, we look back at the new White House communications director's first week in Washington, share a read out from our trip to the White House to discuss open data, endorse bipartisan call for an email privacy overhaul, worry over an increasingly dire situation in Venezuela, and much more.

As we prepare to celebrate essential unalienable American rights tomorrow, we see fundamental values under siege around the world, from DC to the Phillipines. Our founding fathers enacted the First Amendment for a reason: free and independent press is critical in a healthy democracy, acting as an immune system against corruption, restricted rights, and tyranny. We will be taking tomorrow off to celebrate Independence Day, but will return on Wednesday with all the latest open government news.

Yesterday, Sunlight's Executive Director John Wonderlich explained how unprecedented and dangerous the Senate's secretive healthcare process has been. Many hot-button issues like " the filibuster or the debt limit show how positions on legislative process are often dictated by party rather than principle, with the minority favoring transparency and obstruction, and the majority defending secrecy." This process is fundamentally different with a procedure "designed, from start to finish, to minimize transparency. Read on for more on this, and other #OpenGov news from around the United States and across the globe.

Today in #OpenGov, we parse the White House's newly released ethics waivers, ask for your input on local open data policy, get excited about the Census Bureau's move to HTTPS by default, and more...

Today in #OpenGov, John Wonderlich talks about the threat that President Trump poses to data and how cities are responding, the president's budget proposal doesn't look good for the Census, the situation deteriorates in Venezuela, and more...