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Two principles to avoid common data mistakes

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If David Brooks is correct, the “rising philosophy of the day” is “data-ism.” But you don’t have to believe David Brooks. Just look at the big data (e.g. Google Trends) on “big data.” For the political junkies, data became sexy in 2012. First, the New York Times’ Nate Silver’s meta-analyses of polling data triumphed over the pundits’ “gut feelings.” Second, the Obama campaign successfully used data analytics to increase voter turnout. This caused people to pay attention (witness, for example, David Brooks’ new devotion to the subject as prime column-fodder). Of course, for those of us in the transparency and accountability advocacy community, data has long been a prized commodity. And as governments around the world increasingly commit to open data promises, more and more data is becoming available. At its best, data allows us to transcend our personal anecdotal experiences, giving us the big picture. It allows us to detect relationships and patterns that we wouldn’t otherwise see. Using data smartly can help us to make better decisions about both our own lives and our society. But it’s important to understand that data and data analysis are merely tools. They can be used well, or they can be used poorly. It is remarkably easy both to mislead and to be misled by data. Hence the old adage: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” For many people, data can quickly overwhelm and confuse. It’s easy to misinterpret data, or to use it irresponsibly. We as humans are not particularly good at intuitively grasping large numbers, and our educational system generally does a poor job of helping us to counter this problem. For that reason, I want to offer two basic principles that I think could prevent a majority of the data mistakes that I observe:

  1. Cherry-picking works better with fruit than data
  2. Correlation provokes questions better than it answers them
Let’s go at these one at a time.

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GPO is Closing Gap on Public Access to Law at JCP’s Direction, But Much Work Remains

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The GPO's recent electronic publication of all legislation enacted by Congress from 1951-2009 is noteworthy for several reasons. It makes available nearly 40 years of lawmaking that wasn't previously available online from any official source, narrowing part of a much larger information gap. It meets one of three long-standing directives from Congress's Joint Committee on Printing regarding public access to important legislative information. And it has published the information in a way that provides a platform for third-party providers to cleverly make use of the information. While more work is still needed to make important legislative information available to the public, this online release is a useful step in the right direction. Narrowing the Gap In mid-January 2013, GPO published approximately 32,000 individual documents, along with descriptive metadata, including all bills enacted into law, joint concurrent resolutions that passed both chambers of Congress, and presidential proclamations from 1951-2009. The documents have traditionally been published in print in volumes known as the "Statutes at Large," which commonly contain all the materials issued during a calendar year. The Statutes at Large are literally an official source for federal laws and concurrent resolutions passed by Congress. The Statutes at Large are compilations of "slip laws," bills enacted by both chambers of Congress and signed by the President. By contrast, while many people look to the US Code to find the law, many sections of the Code in actuality are not the "official" law. A special office within the House of Representatives reorganizes the contents of the slip laws thematically into the 50 titles that make up the US Code, but unless that reorganized document (the US Code) is itself passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, it remains an incredibly helpful but ultimately unofficial source for US law. (Only half of the titles of the US Code have been enacted by Congress, and thus have become law themselves.) Moreover, if you want to see the intact text of the legislation as originally passed by Congress -- before it's broken up and scattered throughout the US Code -- the place to look is the Statutes at Large. In 2011, GPO published 58 volumes of the Statutes at Large, covering 1951-2009, but did not break the volumes down into their constituent documents. Up until that point, the public laws were available as individual documents on THOMAS from 1989 to present as HTML (and PDF in some instances), and from 1789 to 1875 as TIFF (unwieldy image) files from the Library of Congress. Even with this recent release, 76 years of federal law are still unavailable online in any format from any official source; and the files released for the years 1789 to 1875 by the Library of Congress are difficult to use.

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It’s Complicated: State and Local Government Relationships

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Crafting useful transparency recommendations for local government requires taking the time to understand the complexities of policy-making at this level. To engage thoughtfully in this, we have to better understand the relationships between municipalities and states. Understanding how governments function and interact with each other is essential to understanding where and how transparency reforms will make a difference. When we look at local governments, we have to consider not only how that government is structured, but also how it operates in relation to the state structures that surround it. We use cities as an example in this post for the sake of consistency and clarity, but these different relationships can apply across the spectrum of municipal governments and municipal government structures. There are two basic types of interaction between cities and states:

  • A general law city has a structure largely shaped by a state's law or constitution. The municipality can adopt local ordinances setting rules for its residents, but only within the range allowed by state law. This format can also be shaped by Dillon's Rule, which essentially means that local governments only have the powers granted to them by the state. There is debate about the challenges and benefits of this system. Some local governments feel the rule restricts them when they try to deal with evolving issues such as a growing population with changing needs. A general law city would have to seek power from the state to deal with new problems if that authority hasn't already been explicitly granted, and that's where this system can be seen as a constraint.
  • A charter city or home rule city functions more autonomously from state laws and regulations. These cities have a charter establishing how government will be structured, what its duties are, and what local ordinances will be. The process for creating a charter or revising an existing charter varies from state to state. Any municipality with a charter is still subject to state laws, however. It might have more authority to deal with local issues, but any laws it sets are subject to the state law and constitution. Even in the places that have home rule, they might sometimes feel more like a general law city if the state is aggressive with the amount of legislation it passes impacting local policies and authority.

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2Day in #OpenGov 2/19/2013

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NEWS ROUNDUP:

  • Both major Democratic candidates vying to fill the Massachusetts Senate seat recently vacated by Secretary of State John Kerry have taken a page from previous contenders Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown and signed the "peoples pledge" to try and keep outside money out of their race. However, their Republican counterpart has refused to sign. (Common Cause)
  • Changes in Yemen's government that came in 2011 have led to firsts in the way that citizens interact with their leaders. Last October, a series of live televised town hall meetings allowed citizens to discuss issues with their leaders. (NDI)
  • A group of volunteers spread out across Abuja, Nigeria's capital city, to help flesh out the city's presence on Google maps. The planned city is still being built. (Tech President)
  • A small group of special interests has spent money over the past decade to push the federal government to track near-earth asteroids and other space objects. The issues is getting fresh scrutiny following a widely publicized meteor landing in Russia last week. (Public Integrity)
  • Former Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) is set to plead guilty to charges that he illegally spent $750,000 in campaign funds for personal expenses. Some of his purchases include fur coats, flashy watches, and Bruce Lee memorabilia. (Politico)
  • Opinion: The People's Pledge taken by Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown was effective, leading to a more positive tone and significantly reducing the outside spending in the race. (Politico)

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Sharing Some Ideas to Improve Congressional Operations

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On January 30th the House of Representatives' Bulk Data Task Force held its second public meeting to outline its efforts and hear from interested members of the public. Yesterday, Daniel Schuman recapped the meeting and discussed some of the many excellent steps the task force has taken, and is planning to take, to make House operations more open. Recently, the House has shown a deep commitment to making its operations open and accessible to the citizens that it serves. But, there can always be room for improvement. At the recent Advisory Committee on Transparency event three speakers presented ideas that, they argued, would improve congressional operations and make the Legislative branch more effective and transparent.

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OpenGov Voices: Innovative Investigations — How a Watchdog Group Uses the FOIA Process to Push the Limits of Transparency

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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 Mary-Beth-Hutchins-Cause-of-Action_Thumbnailguest blog. Mary Beth Hutchins is the Communications Director at Cause of Action. Prior to joining Cause of Action, Hutchins spent several years at an Alexandria, VA-based public relations firm where she managed press outreach for a number of national non-profit groups. The need for government transparency has never been greater than it is right now and at Cause of Action, we’re working to make sure it happens. As a nonprofit government accountability organization, Cause of Action works to expose cronyism, waste, fraud and mismanagement in the federal government through a combination of investigations, education and litigation. With our staff of investigators, lawyers and communications professionals committed to government transparency, Cause of Action frequently uses Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to shed light on otherwise opaque facets of the Federal Government.

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2Day in #OpenGov 2/15/2013

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NEWS ROUNDUP:

  • The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has some new members and subcommittee heads. Notably, Claire McCaskill (D-MO) will now have oversight of financial transparency, procurement, and contracting issues. (Federal Computer Week)
  • Many major lobbying firms are facing shortfalls in their PACs following the 2012 election compared to previous cycles. The firms appear to have spent big while trying to keep up with the torrent of outside cash that flooded what was the most expensive campaign ever. (Public Integrity)
  • Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) is planning to re-introduce the Federal Research Public Access Act. The legislation would require researchers who receive federal funds to make their final papers available for free online. Companion legislation will likely be introduced in the Senate. (National Journal)
  • The IRS paid $125.4 million to whistleblowers in 2012, significantly more than in 2011. The boost was mostly due to a $104 million payout to former UBS banker and whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld. Over the past five years the IRS has collected almost $1.5 billion as a result of its whistleblower program. (Wall Street Journal)
  • The OMB is pledging to improve the accuracy of spending data on USASpending.gov. Dan Werfel, OMB's Controller, highlighted transparency and the need for standardized data across government at a speech on Wednesday. (Federal Computer Week)

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House Convenes Second Public Meeting on Legislative Bulk Data

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On January 30th, the House of Representatives held a public meeting on its efforts to release more legislative information to the public in ways that facilitate its reuse. This was the second meeting hosted by the Bulk Data Task Force where members of the public were included; it began privately meeting in September 2012. (Sunlight and others made a presentation at a meeting, in October, on providing bulk access to legislative data.) This public meeting, organized by the Clerk's office, is a welcome manifestation of the consensus of political leaders of both parties in the House that now is the time to push Congress' legislative information sharing technology into the 21st century. In other words, it's time to open up Congress. The meeting featured three presentations on ongoing initiatives, allowed for robust Q&A, and highlighted improvements expected to be rolled out of the next few months. In addition, the House recorded the presentations and has made the video available to the public. The ongoing initiatives are the release of bill text bulk data by GPO, the addition of committee information for docs.house.gov, and the release on floor summary bulk data. It's expected that these public meetings will continue at least as frequently as once per quarter, or more often when prompted by new releases of information. As part of the introductory remarks, the House's Deputy Clerk explained that a report had been generated by the Task Force at the end of the 112th Congress on bulk access to legislative data and was submitted to the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee. It's likely that the report's recommendations will become public as part of the committee's hearings on the FY 2014 Appropriations Bill, at which time the public should have an opportunity to comment.

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