Data.gov: A Critique

We spoke of the government's launch of data.gov the other day, but I thought it might be interesting to look at a general critique of the project from a technological standpoint.

Sunlight Labs developer Clay has written about what he would like to see on the site in order to make it into the federal government data clearinghouse it seeks to be.

His first problem is that most of the data comes from one source (the USGS) and lacks significant amounts of other kinds of data (campaign finance reports, financial disclosure statements by administration officials, census data, and labor statistics). While info on copper smelting is good, knowing who recieved the most campaign cash from the pharamacology industry is better.

The second problem is that the data listed on data.gov sometimes points to third-party websites. While there are perfectly logical reasons for this, cleaner solutions do exist. Data.gov can (and should) design URLs which allow application developers to create tools that work with datasets on data.gov. For example, imagine being able to download census data from 2000 from this easy to understand URL: data.gov/data/census/2000/xml. Want it from 1999? data.gov/data/census/1999/xml. Another format? data.gov/data/census/1999/json.

Finally, there is the issue of engagement. Data.gov can learn a lot just by maintaining a blog. As Clay puts it:

So much of dealing with data is narrative, and telling the story of Data.gov on an ongoing basis has so much value to it. We want to know what's going on on the inside, who is working on it, what the process is and who is building it. How are you talking Federal Agencies into putting their data online. What software challenges are you facing? When there's new data, how will we know?

So there you have it. More data, cleaner URLs and more engagement. Sounds good to us.

The Five Day Wait

TransparentNevada readers will recognize our disappointment with the Obama administration's continuing refusal to post bills online and wait for five days before signing them.

Well, the Washington Times has looked into the issue and attempts to see what justification the administration is using.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has stated the "clock starts ticking" when a link is posted to bills "in their final version, such as a conference report, even if they haven't passed Congress."

Really?

In the case of a Defense Department weapons acquisition bill, the White House posted its link to the Library of Congress Web site, www.Thomas.gov, on May 14, even though the conference report wasn't done until May 20. Congress passed that bill on May 21 and Mr. Obama signed it the next day.

On the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights Act, the White House posted a link to Congress on May 14, but the Senate didn't finish its work until May 19; the House agreed to the Senate's version on May 20, and Mr. Obama signed it two days later.

No matter how you parse it, the dates just don't add up.

To the average American, President Obama's pledge of ...

"When there's a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government's doing," Mr. Obama said in a major campaign speech laying out his goals for transparency. (Emphasis mine)

can only mean one thing: Once the bill has been passed by both houses of Congress, the American public can read through the legislation over a period of five days. The President then either signs or vetoes the bill. It really is that simple.

I believe the reason this particular broken promise is so tough to swallow is because of how easy it would of been to follow it. Instead of making the President do anything extra, all he would of had to do is wait five days before taking his pen to it. There really is no excuse.

Transparency through the ages

With the recent nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court, I thought it might be interesting to look at a past Supreme Court Justice who has exhibited an immeasurable influence on governmental transparency and accountability over the past century.

Justice Louis Brandeis, who coined the transparency activist motto of "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants", began his crusade for transparency in the early 20th century before a Boston audience calling for the investigation of corrupt city officials. As Sunlight Foundation intern Andrew Berger notes, many of Brandeis' ideas of what it means to run a transparent government have remained largely unchanged since his time.

Brandeis called for uniform data standards so others could easily examine relevant data (city payroll, expenditures) and be able to determine if the money was being wasted. Whereas the fight was once over standards of accounting and the printing of reports, today it is over access to data and trying to get it in computer readable formats.

In addition to his fight for open data, Brandeis also called for open and public meetings for all matters regarding government business. While there are still examples of public officials not being very open and public about their business, the situation has improved since Brandeis' time.

Finally, there is the role of the non-governmental entity. This one recognizes that government action alone is not enough "keep the public sufficiently informed." Brandeis believed that once the people became informed, they would become engaged. He reasoned that once the public learned of the "specific acts of misgovernment" committed against them by their public officials, they would begin to demand accountability and openness.

No one, he said, could "look into the details of our city’s administration and be indifferent." Such information would naturally lead to indignation, and out of that indignation would come a movement for "remedial action." Publicity would overcome apathy.

Brandeis also believed that the press had the potential to be "the greatest agency of good government." This was largely a function of the press being the only reliable medium in which you could communicate with a large number of people on a daily basis. The explosion of blogs and internet connected government watchdogs would surely impress Brandeis and give him hope that governmental transparency would survive even if the traditional press did not.

Looking back at the past battles of transparency, it is remarkable how the fights largely stay the same while the particulars change from generation to generation. One can only imagine who will be the Louis Brandeis of today a century from now.

(Thanks Sunlight Foundation)

You're free to look anywhere, except over there

In a ruling from a federal appeals court sure to discourage open government activists, a three-judge panel has agreed with the White House claim that the Office of Administration is exempt from public record requests.

A federal appeals court ruled last week that the Freedom of Information Act does not require the White House to turn over information about millions of possibly missing Bush administration e-mails.

A three-judge panel agreed with a lower court, saying the White House’s Office of Administration, which holds the information, is not subject to the public records law. The ruling, which is not expected to be appealed, is a major blow to efforts to make the government more transparent.

It is a bad precedent to allow future administrations the ability to hide what they please while saying Freedom of Information Act requests don't apply.

This whole attitude reeks of the fox guarding the hen house. The people who need the most openness and transparency also have the ability to exempt themselves from the FOIA law. The honor system works, but only when the participants are honorable.

Interview with Federal CIO Vivek Kundra

NextGov has an interesting interview with Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra on his plans for making the federal level infrastructure more transparent and open.

Nextgov: What was your response to the FBI investigation at your old office with the District of Columbia government and to being put on leave and then reinstated within a matter of days?

Kundra: Mayor Adrian Fenty and I have been very committed to transparency and open government. [The platform] the mayor ran on talked about making sure that the government was open and transparent. That means ensuring we uncover things people may not want to see, but is in the interest of district residents. When you move forward with transparency, you find things you may not otherwise, but it's good to find them early rather than later. (Emphasis mine)

He also seems to understand the limits of government when it comes to innovation:

Kundra: We recognize the power of tapping into the ingenuity of the American people and recognize that government doesn't have a monopoly on the best ideas or always have the best idea on finding an innovative path to solving the toughest problems the country faces. By democratizing data and making it available to the public and private sector ... we can tap into that ingenuity.

Finally, he wishes for better oversight on "IT investments to cut back on waste and cost and schedule overruns."

Kundra: ... Here we are in 2009 having a similar conversation around the billions invested in IT. Why aren't those investments producing the dividends that should be expected? We've been working closely with [Delaware Senator Tom] Carper's staff on the bill itself, since we have a common interest: making sure taxpayer dollars are spent well and the technology we're investing in actually produces results and creates the outcomes we set out for.

Kudos to Kundra for defending transparency even when it had the ability to bring down his nomination, realizing the limits of government when it comes to technology, and supporting more oversight when it comes to Information Technology procurements and deployments.

Let's hope the recent launch of data.gov is the first step of many Kundra takes to bring the United States federal government into the 21^st century.

Data.gov launches: Good, but more is needed

Data.gov, the much anticipated clearinghouse of government data, has finally launched.

Here is federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra explaining data.gov and its many applications:



ReadWriteWeb had this to say:

New federal CIO Vivek Kundra is in charge of the site, which will act as a central repository for government data, including XML, CSV, KML files and more. At launch a mere 47 data sets are included and they appear to lean towards the least controversial matters. None the less, it's exciting to see the effort happening. Hopefully some awesome mashups are on the way!

But they also had very valid criticisms:

There are many, many sets of data available from the federal government but the Data.gov site says it was selective about quality and standards when choosing what to include. It's hard not to compare other sources of government data and feel disappointed, though. The privately built USGovXML.com contains far more data and was built by one independent developer over four months. That site lists ten Department of Interior XML feeds, for example, none of which appear on Data.gov. You can find a feed of food recalls there, but not on Data.gov. (Emphasis mine)

Getting at government information is a lot harder than it should be. Too many departments are hesitant to release anything that may make them look bad. Let's hope the institutional resistance to transparency will be changed or fade away.

Congratulations though to Kundra and his team for getting the site up and running in a (relatively) short amount of time. We need to make sure that data.gov remains active in its pursuit of bringing openness and transparency to the nation at-large.

White House finally opens up

After public interest groups began demanding a more inclusive role in shaping the federal government's ideas for transparency and openness, the White House seems to have gotten the message:

The Office of Science and Technology Policy is preparing to post a notice in tomorrow's Federal Register asking for ideas from the public on possible recommendations for the Open Government Directive they were tasked by president Obama to produce.

The notice prompts participants with a small series of general questions such as “How might federal advisory committees, rulemaking, or electronic rulemaking be better used to improve decisionmaking?” or “What are the limitations to transparency?” Ideas can be either emailed to opengov@ostp.gov or posted on the discussion page the White House plans to launch at www.whitehouse.gov/open.

While this is encouraging, OMB Watch is right that it was totally needless to have the directive end up like this. This should of taken place months ago, rather than being announced the day the recommendations were due. Even if the Chief Technology Officer position remained unfilled for months, even something as simple as an email address to send suggestions would of been better than this.

But still, after too many violations of his transparency pledges, it is nice to see at least this one move in the right direction.

Moving tax data into the 21st century

The Nevada Senate has passed AB307 which "publish[es] an annual list of property taxpayers and their property values on an Internet Web site rather than in newspapers."

The effort, sponsored by Assemblyman Paul Aizley, would save Clark County $500,000 a year and Washoe County $70,000.

Already stinging from declining revenue sources, newspapers are sure not to be happy with the move. In addition:

Barry Smith, executive director of the Nevada Press Association, had said the change would diminish access, and he pointed to the 300 agencies in Nevada that have their own Web sites. While the Web sites are helpful, he said they become "a maze of 'Where do I go to find what?'"

I'm sorry, but Smith's arguments don't convince me. I'm sure the records were printed in newspapers in the beginning because it was the most cost-effective way of getting that information out. Had the internet been then what it is now, newspapers would not have factored into the equation.

Access wise, computers and the internet have become what newspapers were. If someone doesn't have access to them, many public libraries have free internet access.

Activists demand inclusion in open government push

As we've previously mentioned, one of the first moves by the Obama administration was an executive order to see what can be done to make the federal government more open, transparent and accountable.

Well, Obama administration will release the results tomorrow and some open government activists aren't happy:

Obama has not sought formal public comment on what should go in the directive. The final product is supposed to foster a more transparent, collaborative and participatory government. Public interest organizations OMB Watch and Openthegovernment.org, which have been circulating the sign-on letter among government transparency groups, also have urged that Obama extend the deadline for recommendations to allow for public input.

"We are deeply concerned. . . that of the 120 days given to develop recommendations in President Obama's 'Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government,' almost 90% of the time has passed with no structured process for public input," the letter states.

In a letter to the administration, the open government groups are asking for more public involvement and that the White House go through the formal Federal Register to get public comments on their directives.

The White House should listen to the open government activists and learn more about what is needed to ensure the federal government stays open and transparent.

Open records for all

Encouraging news out of Tennessee. The state Attorney General has reversed their policy of denying state record requests to non-residents of the state.

The effort was spurred on by the ACLU after an out-of-state journalist was seeking records regarding the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

From their press release:

"ACLU-TN applauds the AG’s office for reconsidering its position and recognizing that Tennessee citizenship should not be a requirement for accessing public documents,” said Hedy Weinberg, Executive Director of the ACLU of Tennessee. “We trust that the decision to make these documents available demonstrates the AG’s commitment to urge the State Legislature to repeal the unconstitutional citizenship requirement. Such a recommendation is vital to ensure that government agencies do not attempt to enforce it."

With the proliferation of internet communications and digitized records, there is little reason for any state to deny out-of-state record requests.

Fortunately, Nevada already has this policy in place.

Transparency with teeth: British Speaker of the House to step down

Only a day after my post on the ongoing scandal in Britain over expense accounts, the Speaker of the House of Commons has been forced out.

In a statement to MPs on Tuesday which lasted just 35 seconds, Mr Martin said: "I have always felt that the House is at its best when it is united."

"In order to that unity can be maintained, I have decided that I will relinquish office of Speaker on Sunday 21 June."

Let's hope this reminds lawmakers around the world that opposing transparency has consequences.

Mitchell on transparency

Great editorial over the weekend by Las Vegas Review-Journal editor Thomas Mitchell on his recent push to encourage transparency in Carson City.

The Nevada FOIC is a nonpartisan organization affiliated with the National FOIC and is dedicated to supporting openness in all levels of government, primarily through education and public hectoring of those who would conceal the conduct of government from those who elected them.

Noting that transparency should be a bi-partisan affair:

At the news conference I emphasized that this initiative doesn't favor either side of the political spectrum, left or right, Democrat or Republican, pro-tax or anti-tax. In fact, the coalition is working to embrace politically diverse individuals and groups, because all sides, in order to adequately and authoritatively advocate and defend a position or issue, must have information.

Exactly. Only when all of the information is readily available can the best decisions be made. Hopefully Mitchell's initiative forces our representatives in Carson City to finally understand who they work for — us.

"Transparency will damage democracy."

Who said transparency stops at water's edge? While receiving little notice in America, a scandal has erupted in Britain over the misuse of expense accounts by members of Parliament.

Heather Brooke, the journalist who was instrumental in getting the expense receipts out into the open, has written all about it.

Brooke was writing a book on how to use the Freedom of Information Act when she made a call to the House of Commons to learn more about their expense accounts. When she finally received the expense reports, they did not show any real level of detail and were grouped into very broad categories.

Well, the expenses duly came out. But they were bulk figures in various categories: travel, staff, second homes etc. I wanted the detail. That's where you find the truth. But the Commons would not consider letting the public see this. In fact, they would not even discuss how the system of expenses operated. I thought this was strange and it made me suspicious. After all, if the system worked well, why wouldn't they feel confident about explaining it to me?

She began asking for more specific details on how the money was being spent and ran into roadblocks every way she turned. She turned to information commissioner Richard Thomas who "refused to agree to the publication of receipts but thought the allowance could be broken down into more specific categories."

Brooke, the House of Commons, and two other journalists appealed his ruling. Brooke's case eventually caught the attention of lawyer Hugh Tomlinson who offered to represent her pro bono. Tomlinson's questioning of House of Commons Fees Officer Andrew Walker drew some eminently quotable lines:

"MPs should be allowed to carry on their duties free from interference ..."

"Public confidence is not the overriding concern per se ..."

"Transparency will damage democracy."

"What you are doing is preparing a peephole into the private lives of a member, which will either distract them or lead them into additional questions which they feel they have to defend themselves."

The court agreed with Brooke. But Walker appealed to the high court, against the judgement of his lawyers. Eventually, the case was decided in favor of Brooke and transparency.

Finally, the House of Commons said it would release all of the requested information by October 2008. October rolls around and nothing. Brooke then learns that December is the new publication deadline. December rolls around and, again, nothing. Brooke is then told that July 2009 would be the publication date because technical details need to be hammered out first.

Well, it didn't take until July for the expense reports to be let out into the open. A CD containing the raw data was sent to the Daily Telegraph and the stories appeared soon after that.

And now MPs are feeling morose. Tough! They've had plenty of opportunities to do the right thing by parliament and by the people. At every juncture they behaved in the worst possible way. They refused legitimate requests, they wasted public money going to the high court, they delayed publication, they tried to exempt themselves from their own law, they succeeded in passing a law to keep secret their addresses from their constituents so as to hide the house flipping scandal ...

Kudos to Ms. Brooke for keeping the pressure on the House of Commons to release this information. Despite attempts to foil her at nearly every stage of her investigation she kept demanding more accountability. And that persistence led to more transparency for the citizens of Britain.

(Thanks open...)

Seeking transparency in Carson City

In hopes of making Carson City more transparent and accountable, Las Vegas Review-Journal editor Thomas Mitchell of the Nevada Freedom of Information Coalition is trying to get all members of the Legislature to sign a "transparency pledge".

At a news conference Thursday at the Sawyer Building, Mitchell said the nonpartisan Freedom of Information Coalition was formed to promote and defend Nevadans' rights to access public records and the public decision-making process.

Mitchell and the NevadaFOIC seek to emulate the success of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act by making state expenditures clear for all to see and to "strengthen the letter and spirit of Nevada’s open meeting and public records laws" by including Nevada lawmakers under its jurisdiction.

Because Nevada lawmakers are currently excluded by open meeting laws, both Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and State Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio have defended the use of the secret meetings as a way to accomplish the state's business without worrying about being "bombarded by special interest groups."

We applaud NevadaFOIC and hope their efforts gain traction. See if your representative has signed the pledge and encourage them to do so if they have not.

Maybe they can earmark some money for a new computer system?

Another year, another crash of the computer system that keeps track of earmark requests.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James L. Oberstar has had to postpone the markup of the surface transportation reauthorization until after the Memorial Day recess because of technical difficulties — literally.

The computer system designed for lawmakers to file their earmark requests crashed multiple times, so members could not upload their projects, said the panel’s ranking Republican, John L. Mica of Florida.

Maybe they need an earmark for some new computers. But seriously, that's embarrassing.

Making information hard to find should not be the goal

When searches through government records, it helps to have a guide. Some sort of map that guides your search to find what you're looking for. It seems, however, that the Seattle City Council feels that you don't need that guide.

Consider their decision not to index their public records.

Indexing is the process which gives order to an otherwise unordered mess of data. If you've ever used Google you have benefited from indexing. Prior to search engines like Google and Yahoo! you had to know the exact location of documents to find them. While most people would dread going back to that, the Seattle City Council doesn't seem too worried. They claim indexing would be "unduly burdensome." If they want a real example of "unduly burdensome" try being the lone soul attempting to find a particular public record without any sort of guide.

While this decision is bad enough on its own, the fact that the city council ignored the advice of the state Auditor, the state Attorney General, the state Archivist, and the Secretary of State who all supported the indexing of documents shows their abject lack of judgment.

So what can happen with this decision? Public officials can now claim that they don't have to respond to public information requests because the lack of an index makes finding data too hard. So basically you have them claiming that making an index would be too hard, and now that they have no index, finding the data is too hard. The mind boggles.

More than that, the city has opened themselves up to legal risks with this decision.

[W]hen Armen Yousoufian, a citizen, asked prior to an election to view King County records pertaining to the financing of the new stadium. King County claimed they couldn’t find the records and therefore couldn’t be held responsible for not making them available. Yousoufian took the matter to court and in multiple court decisions he won a judgment each time. The case went all the way to the Washington State Supreme Court, where Yousoufian won again.

This decision hurts transparency. Having an index of public records is vital to ensuring that the records can be found easily. Hopefully the Seattle City Council figures this out.

Grading WhiteHouse.gov, part II

How is WhiteHouse.gov shaping up? After less than stellar grade of C+ early in his administration, the Washington Post has re-assembled its team of bipartisan analysts and came back with a B. Certainly better, but still no A.

So, what were the findings?

Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark gave the site an A-, the highest of the group. He found the online townhall hosted in March that featured more than 100 thousand questions and 3.5 million votes was an "impressive" feat.

Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation found the White House's use of Facebook "pretty engaging." But Andrew Rasiej of the Personal Democracy Forum questioned why people couldn't directly post comments on WhiteHouse.gov while they could on Facebook. Both gave the site a B-, with a C- on the front of transparency alone.

What were some of the problems?

Ticking off a list of criticisms, Miller explained: "The budget is presented as a series of unsearchable PDF files. The page listing nominations has not been updated and there are no links (or easy access to) the personal financial disclosure statements of those nominees. Do citizens get even a glimpse into the president and vice-president's daily schedules? Nope."

Jim Harper of the Cato Institute criticized (as we have) the Obama administration for breaking their promise on giving legislation five days of public notice before signing it.

John Henke of conservative blog The Next Right rightly complains that both the speeches and appointments pages haven't been updated since February. He gives WhiteHouse.gov a C.

Guest Grader David Almacy, who knows a thing or two about web presences during his two year stint as President Bush's Internet director, also gave the site a C. He said citizens should be able to get a better idea of what Obama is doing on any given day. He wishes the site would focus less on the blog and more on keeping other parts of the site up to date.

So there you have it, some positive developments but still a whole host of issues that need to be addressed.

Nevada AG to school district: Don't worry about those open meeting laws

Nevada's Attorney General Catherine Cortez-Masto has ruled that the Clark County School District did not violate open meeting laws by withholding information regarding budget cuts from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The RJ wanted to detail for readers how the district could save $120 million from its 2009-10 budget. After repeated attempts to secure the information, it finally received it mere hours before the School Board meeting took place.

The attorney general's office asked [Superintendent Walt] Rulffes why the information was not available to the public sooner. He responded that the information was privileged.

Ruffles said the information was part of a private e-mail to staff that also included candid comments about possible pay cuts and further cuts "that he did not want to disclose yet," said George H. Taylor, the senior deputy attorney general.

Taylor determined that such private and deliberative discussions on policy were protected under executive privilege.

This despite that fact that the RJ only requested information regarding the budget cuts and not any of the private discussions.

The purpose of open meeting laws is to allow the public access to important information on things that directly affect their lives. This decision is a direct slap in the face of those efforts.

White House drags feet on transparency

The day he took office, President Obama ordered his Chief Technology Officer to come up with a set of directives that would make government more open and accountable.

The result? Lackluster:

An initiative President Barack Obama launched to give the public more access to the inner workings of government is under fire for cutting the public out of the process.

With a deadline looming next week to send a set of formal recommendations to Obama, the effort to craft an “open government directive” has also suffered from a lack of attention from top White House decision makers and the delay of a key appointment, advocates and an official involved said. (Emphasis mine)

Part of the problem was that the CTO's position was unfilled until April 18th when he named Aneesh Chopra to the spot. Also few departments felt the need to cooperate with the relatively weak Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The White House claims that the criticisms will be quieted when the directives are announced. Even if the directives are good though, the administration should not have shut the public out of the debate like it did. There are thousands of good government activists across this nation who would gladly help craft directives if they knew their suggestions would be taken seriously. For a President who understands the power of crowdsourcing, he really seems to have missed the ball on this one.

Is Tennessee following in Colorado's footsteps?

Yesterday we mentioned how Colorado Governor Bill Ritter's executive order is having the effect of undermining stronger legislation that was moving through their state legislature. Well, it appears the same thing is happening in Tennessee.

Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen's effort, tn.gov/opengov, does a decent job on displaying state salary data but falls short when it comes to providing users with easy to digest vendor information. The vendor information is available in massive PDF documents that are over 1,000 pages long. The records could easily be put into a database for easier searching. Also, the Governor's effort has undermined stronger acts that were moving through the Tennessee legislature such as Rep. Susan Lynn's Taxpayer Transparency Act.

While we applaud Tennessee for recognizing the importance of transparency, what the Governor has produced is inadequate. There is no reason the vendor information can't be made available in a easy to search format and even less reason to undermine stronger efforts that were moving through the state legislature.

(Thanks FiscalAccountability.org)

NV legislature chooses secrecy over openness

When a state faces upwards of a $1 billion funding shortfall, one might think making sure everything stays out in the open and on the record is a good thing.

But not everybody:

Although the Legislature has held dozens of public hearings on the general fund over the past three months, lawmakers have retreated to the shadows to determine how to pay for it all. (Emphasis mine)

Nevada's open meeting law was created to ensure the public's business is conducted in public. That no binding votes are taking place in these meetings is irrelevant, as is the fact that lawmakers can exempt themselves from the statute. Their actions represent a clear violation of the spirit of this vital law. (Emphasis mine)

But why would our faithful and honest representatives do such a thing? By keeping any tax increases quiet until the last possible moment, the opposition never has a chance to galvanize.

Shame on our Nevada legislators for hammering out the details behind closed doors. The people of Nevada deserve better.

Make sure to check out the Sun's take on it too.

One step forward, one step back in Colorado

And now some news from our fellow Western brethren. Colorado has passed HB 1288, the transparency initiative we've mentioned before. The bill gives Coloradans a comprehensive look at their state finances.

Or does it?

While the bill was still in the early stages of development, Colorado governor Bill Ritter introduced his own transparency initiative. While announcements like this are usually welcomed in the transparency community, the Governor's executive order contained some loopholes that undermined the legislature's open government efforts.

So, what is the bad news then?

Well, HB 1288 features language that allows for the inclusion of "AGGREGATED INFORMATION" when the legislature's bill and the Governor's executive order overlap. In other words, line-by-line listings of expenditures can be scrapped in favor of an overall tally in each department.

We agree with FiscalAccountability.org when they say …

Full financial transparency isn’t achieved unless taxpayers can access line-item information on their state’s spending and the new clause in theory allows agencies to provide only aggregated data on their spending, obfuscating the intent of expenditures.

We applaud Colorado for taking steps towards opening up state finances and hope they err on the side of comprehensive disclosure not aggregated.

"I don’t know why you won’t just kind of let it be and trust what I’m saying."

What do you get when you mix an entrenched bureaucracy, stonewalling executive directors and consultants, a marker running out of ink, and a reporter trying to do her job? This comedy of errors:

The quest began in late January, when the newspaper asked the state agency for documents including the progress reports new nursing schools submit to the board every six months.

The Sun wanted to examine the reports because the newspaper had found that many graduates of new nursing schools in Nevada, a state with one of the country’s worst nursing shortages, were struggling to pass the licensing exam on the first try.

After forking over $122.40 for the documents (purportedly to cover staff time devoted to compiling and redacting the documents) some interesting things about the documents started to become apparent.

A review of the documents [Education Consultant Roseann] Colosimo initially provided yielded some odd discoveries. Some “redacted” information was still readable, having been crossed out using what appeared to be a thin-tipped pen and a marker running out of ink. That was just fine by us, of course. But other reports appeared incomplete, with entire sections and pages missing. Some reports, for instance, included sections outlining programs’ strengths and weaknesses while others, including some from 2008, did not. (Emphasis added.)

The reason given? According to the board's executive director Debra Scott, "prior to 2007, 'there was little uniformity in the information that was presented.'"

Scott said she withheld some information based on the alignment of the stars her decision.

But it didn't take long before Scott passed the buck and admitted she actually didn't know what had been released and what hadn't and said it was up to Colosimo to make that call.

And then, just when you thought it couldn't get any better, Scott uttered one of the best lines I've ever read during my course of writing for this blog:

"I gave you the information that is appropriate to the public. You have caused my staff hours of work, and this is something that just - I don’t know why you won’t just kind of let it be and trust what I’m saying."

Has a single sentence ever so eloquently captured the sentiment of way too many public officials?

Finally, the Sun turned to Barry Smith who fights for us transparency nuts as executive director of the Nevada Press Association. He says that unless directors can cite specific laws giving them the ability to withhold records, the records should be open.

After the Sun asked Scott what law allowed her to keep withholding information, the board's attorney curtly said the previously unreleased information would be in the mail.

So the Sun got the documents, Scott looked foolish, Colosimo got blamed, and the board's attorney got paid and probably more than $122.40.

But wait! It would be unfair to leave without examining some of the information that was previously withheld. Most of the information didn't contain private information about "faculty members, students or patients" (as was initially claimed). But it did include "juicy" details such as "[t]he majority of the existing faculty members are highly skilled and experienced, and exhibit a willingness to teach in a variety of courses." No wonder Scott wanted the information withheld.

And that marker running out of ink? It left visible the name of a faculty member fired for "unsafe practice in the clinical setting". Maybe the former faculty member can get a job working on record requests for the state nursing board. After all, they couldn't do much worse.

Opening up the Delaware checkbook

Good news out of Delaware today:

Gov. Jack Markell announced on Thursday that he would be posting the state checkbook online so taxpayers can see how their money is being spent. The to-be-created website will be a collaborative effort by the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Technology and Information, the Department of Finance and the Government Information Center. It is scheduled to be launched by July 30 of this year.

The website will include expenditures made by the state and school districts as well as the ability to search by vendor.

Congratulations to Delaware on embracing transparency. Let's hope the finished product will live up to its billing.

Sims tries to have it both ways

Ron Sims, the ethically challenged former King County, Washington Executive and nominee for the #2 spot in the Department of Housing and Urban Development still appears likely to win confirmation to his spot. However, that hasn't stopped some Senators from "roughing up" Sims on his way.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La. … blasted Sims for telling him one day that he couldn't comment on a public-record lawsuit against King County but the next day answering a video-camera carrying reporter's questions about the suit.

You can't have it both way. Either you can or can't comment on a lawsuit. Changing your mind depending on who is asking the question is dishonesty to the highest degree.

Elections have consequences and Obama can appoint who he pleases, but really, is this the best he can do?

Journalism is fine, David

David Simon, former journalist for the Baltimore Sun and creator of HBO's the Wire, has been sounding the alarm recently on the future of investigative journalism and government transparency in a post-newspaper age. He feels that "new media" outfits, along with bloggers and citizen journalists, simply can't do the same job as old-fashioned newspaper reporters who are dedicated to their beat.

Or as he puts it, "The day I run into a Huffington Post reporter at a Baltimore zoning board hearing is the day I will no longer be worried about journalism."

Yet is Simon's criticism valid? Gawker's Ryan Tate doesn't think so:

I found this argument odd, because as a newspaper reporter who spent a few years covering a town much like Baltimore — Oakland, California — I often found that bloggers were the only other writers in the room at certain city council committee meetings and at certain community events. They tended to be the sort of persistently-involved residents newspapermen often refer to as "gadflies" — deeply, obsessively concerned about issues large and infinitesimal in the communities where they lived.

You can read Tate's essay for more examples of "new media" doing the job of "old media" just fine.

Like it or not, how Americans' consume the news is changing. Gone are the days of the Big Three news networks and newspaper readership being assumed. Now, people watch their news on a comedy network and sip their morning coffee while watching twitter hashtags and browsing blogs from across the political spectrum. People may be consuming news differently, but that doesn't mean they aren't consuming it.

(Thanks New York Times)

AR doesn't want you to know if elected officials have a criminal background

Arkansas State Representative Dan Greenberg has an interesting idea for increased state transparency: make criminal background checks of public officials open to the public for a fee.

To state the obvious, public officials occupy a unique position of power and trust. I do not think that a criminal record is in all cases a disqualifier for public service, but I do think it is something that the public is entitled to know. Some criminals are repeat offenders, and I suspect that the everyday person thinks that having open criminal records is good public policy.

But of course, not everybody agreed. The Attorney General felt the bill "granted too much access by too many people." And we couldn't have that, could we?

In the end, the bill was defeated by a vote of 33-56. Apparently opening up the criminal records of public officials was too big a pill to swallow.

Senate sees the light on XML

Well, that was quick. A week after we reported that Senator DeMint was calling for more transparency of Senate votes, the Senate has agreed.

"The Rules Committee staff agrees with you that providing vote data in XML will provide greater transparency to the public as well as improve the timeliness and accuracy of information found in the public domain," Schumer wrote Erickson in a letter approving the change.

The Senate should be applauded for choosing to increase transparency. The technology exists and is no more of a burden than reporting the votes in a less friendly format.

(Thanks Politico)

Transparency is more than just text

Pete Souza is not a name most people recognize despite his fascinating work.

He is currently the chief White House photographer and recently opened up a flickr account where he posts his photos, which are consistently interesting and illuminating. Most people think of the White House abstractly but Souza opens it up and gives it life.

What does this have to do with transparency? Most of the time transparency refers to text (budgets, bills, meeting transcripts), but transparency shouldn't stop there. I think showing visual images of the White House and the President is a great step in opening up the office.

While the account has only been open for a week it already contains a couple hundred photos. Hopefully the account builds on what it has so far and can serve as a visual record of this President and his administration for generations to come.

GovFresh: Government 2.0

Ever wanted a central location to keep track of all of the official news feeds coming out of Washington?

GovFresh might be what you're looking for. It aggregates "Twitter, YouTube, RSS, Facebook, and Flickr" all in one spot.

Created by web developer Luke Fretwell it shows promise in tying together the various "streams" that Washington produces every day.

(Thanks Sunlight Foundation)

Press freedom, e-government, and transparency

What role, if any, does press freedom play in the level of e-government and transparency in a country?

Quite a bit, apparently, according to Sunlight Foundation Intern Alyssa Noronha:

I discovered that increased press freedom may help foster a growth in e-government, and growth of these two measures greatly impacts transparency.

Ms. Noronha also compiled data from Reporters Without Borders, the Brookings Institute, and the CIA Factbook and found that

[T]here is a statistically significant relationship between press freedom and e-government, holding the size of the economy (GDP) constant. As press freedom increases by ten points on a 100-point scale, e-government measures increase by approximately one point (.8) on a 100-point scale, holding GDP constant.

Beyond that, transparency also takes root in countries with strong traditions of free press and open and electronic government.

A free press supports accountability by writing about corruption in government and demanding more information in more accessible forms. By putting data and information in the hands of citizens, who can then analyze and interpret the data themselves, you can break down a lot of barriers to participation. Increased press freedom demands more transparency, and aims to create a more responsive, accountable government.

Congratulations to Ms. Noronha on her excellent work.

Ensuring Nevada's open meetings stay open

Some transparency news out of Carson City.

The Government Affairs Committee heard testimony yesterday by Sen. Valerie Wiener (D-Las Vegas) in support of Senate Bill 267. The bill would force the Legislative Commission to approve or reject government agency rule changes. Currently, rule changes are automatically approved unless explicitly rejected by the commission. That system of automatic approval allowed for rule changes to be made that infringed on open meeting laws.

In addition,

SB267 also would require public access to workshops and hearings of public agencies, along with meetings that already are open to the public. Documents relating to regulations would have to be available to the public at meetings. Currently, such documents are available upon request.

The move had the support of the Nevada Manufacturers Association and the Nevada Chapter of Associated General Contractors.

Limits to transparency in the Land of Lincoln?

Following the corruption trial of former Governor Rod Blagojevich, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has ramped up calls for increasing transparency:

Seizing upon the public outcry for change following the scandalous tenures of two successive governors, she is seeking more authority to settle records disputes and penalize public officials who violate the law.

"The important thing is we put an end to what has become a culture of secrecy in this state," Madigan said during a recent Tribune interview. "The opportunity is ripe to do it. We have the evidence, and we have the right environment for it."

But how sincere are her efforts?

During a recent visit to the Tribune to tout her reform agenda, Madigan sided with government lobbyists who support the sweeping exception to public records law allowing officials to keep secret "preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated... ." (Emphasis added)

She also disagreed with calls to open up evaluation records of public employees, claiming bosses would not give fair and accurate assessments if their conclusions would be published.

Colleen M. Murphy of Connecticut's state commission on open records disagreed:

"We have found that when our supervisors know their work product is going to be public, they tend to be even more honest and thorough," she said. "When you know something is going to be public, you tend to do it right."

Amen.

Bipartisan transparency bill introduced in Oregon

Transparency is not, or at least shouldn't be, a partisan issue.

Consider Oregon. Two Republicans and two Democrats have recently introduced House Bill 2500 which would "create a one-stop Web site that shows how much Oregon state agencies spend and on what."

The bill would creating something like the Government Google website available at USAspending.gov. The bill that created the website was co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn and then-Sen. Barack Obama.

Oregon's "Google bill" passed last the state House Wednesday with unanimous support. It now moves onto the Oregon Senate.

Sims approved in voice vote

Ron Sims, the focus of some previous discussion here on TransparentNevada, was approved Tuesday via voice vote in the Senate's Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

President Barack Obama has settled on a train-wreck of a nominee for Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). On Tuesday, the Senate, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee approved Ronald Sims in a voice vote. They did so despite having credible information indicating financial mismanagement and ethical transgressions, including two egregious abuses of a state freedom of information law.

Obama probably concluded that Sims' transgressions during his tenure as King County Executive would not derail his appointment. Judging by the results of the voice vote, it looks like he was right. But Sims' disregard for transparency should make us question whether Obama's vocal commitment to transparency is anything more than just that -- a vocal commitment.

Sen. DeMint calls for making Senate votes more open

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has recently drafted a letter encouraging a more transparent method of sharing Senate votes.

The Senate currently publishes its votes in HTML, a web language that used to be quite powerful. Today, however, there are new and improved web languages.

One of them is XML, and it is the format the Senator Jim DeMint wants the Senate to release publicly. If HTML is your dead-tree phone book, XML is Google.

XML delivers data a consistent standard that allows for third-party developers to focus on interesting applications of the data rather than dealing with the error-prone methods of just getting the data.

It's good to see Senator DeMint lead a bipartisan coalition of Senators against the entrenched powers that would rather control their vote history than have it be open for all to see.