Open Data, Transparency Sites That Helped Gov't Save Billions To Be Shut Down Over $30 Million?

from the lovely dept

While we've faulted the Obama administration for its many, many failings on the promised transparency front, the one area where they actually had done some good was with their work on the IT side, where the CTO and CIO had created some pretty cool websites sharing important data with the public, and pushing federal agencies to be a lot more transparent about their federal IT spending. Just last week, they announced plans to open source the famed ITDashboard.gov software, noting that it "was a major component of the process the Federal Government employed to save over $3 billion in just its first two years of deployment."

And now they're shutting it down.

There were some rumors last week, but reports are now saying that it's confirmed that the government will be shutting down a variety of its "open" data sites, including ITDashboard, data.gov and others, because the House has only allocated $2 million for electronic government activities, rather than the $35 million the White House requested:

"We need at least another $4 million just to keep USASpending.gov operating this year," the official said. "We are looking at a pass-the-hat approach, but it could be challenging to get that done in time."

The White House requested $35 million for the e-government fund in 2011. The House allocated only $2 million in its bill, H.R. 1. The Senate, meanwhile, would provide $20 million for the e-government fund.

"The continuing resolution says we can only spend what we would reasonably expect to get during the fiscal year, and we have no reasonable expectation to get more than a couple of millions of dollars," the source said.

There are some efforts underway to try to save the sites, and people are pointing out how incredibly backwards this proposal is. In an effort to save a few million upfront, it will inevitably cost jobs and a lot more money on the back end through less efficiency in government.

I'm all for cutting unnecessary government spending, and I'm not necessarily convinced that these projects need $35 million per year (though, given how much terrible paywalls cost, perhaps this is a bargain), but this just doesn't make much sense at all. It's one area where the government has really been doing some good, increasing both efficiency and transparency... and the response is to cut off their funding?

Filed Under: budget, data, open government, transparency

Obama Secretly Accepts Transparency Award...

from the that's-not-transparency dept

Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) writes "A group awarded Obama for bringing greater transparency to government during the recent Sunshine Week. One hour before the meeting, which was to be open to the press, it was inexplicably postponed. The meeting did take place Monday but was closed to the press while location and schedule were undisclosed. A commenter on one of the sites joked that this must be an Onion article."

Filed Under: obama, transparency

USTR Refuses To Release Congressional Research Service Study On Legality Of ACTA

from the why-is-this-kept-secret? dept

We've talked about how ridiculous it is that the government keeps Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports secret. The organization, which is widely respected and tends to do thorough, objective and useful research, technically produces reports that are in the public domain. However, the recipients of those reports (usually members of Congress or other government employees) often don't want to let those documents out for that very reason. If you're pushing for a certain law, and CRS research proves that there are problems with it, you don't want that info to get out. Of course, if we had intellectually honest politicians (stop laughing!), they would not just publish the research, but would actually use it to guide some of their policy making decisions.

Back in October, you may recall that Senator Ron Wyden, one of the very few elected officials to actually understand and to worry about the implications of ACTA, asked the CRS to study ACTA to see how it would impact US law. That report has been delivered to the USTR, and KEI filed a FOIA request to see the document. However, the USTR has refused to provide the document. The USTR really seems to take a "secrecy first, transparency never" view on all things ACTA, doesn't it? It certainly makes you wonder what's in that report, doesn't it?

KEI is now appealing the rejection, claiming that the USTR's explanation for denying the request is simply not supported by the law. The USTR claims that it can't hand out the document, because it belongs to CRS. This is simply incorrect, as KEI noted in its reply. Of course, it's also unclear why Senator Wyden's office doesn't release the document itself, but the feeling there is that he doesn't want to upset the USTR either.

Filed Under: acta, crs, transparency, ustr

For All The Promises Of Transparency, Obama Administration Responding To Fewer FOIA Requests

from the but-of-course dept

One of the first moves that President Obama made upon taking office was to tell federal agencies to default to "allow" when it came to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and only deny in specific situations. It looks like that's not really happening. A new report points out that while the number of FOIA requests shot up last year, the government actually responded to many fewer of those requests. More than one-third of requests were refused. That's not the transparency we expected.

Filed Under: freedom of information, obama, transparency

Should Governments Mandate Cookie Transparency?

from the is-that-needed? dept

The BBC is reporting on the EU's e-privacy directive that's set to go into effect towards the end of May, which will apparently require that sites using cookies get explicit consent from users before using certain forms of cookies. As some have noted, the BBC's version of this is a bit one-sided, and the details aren't quite as bad as the original report makes it out to be -- but that doesn't mean they're good, either. Basically, this new directive will mean various EU countries have to pass laws relating to transparency around cookies, and those laws could push sites to have to ask before placing tracking cookies. It appears this is mostly limited to cookies that also track info off-site -- so mainly advertising cookies, rather than login or shopping cookies (which likely wouldn't be impacted).

Still, even once you understand the details, I have to question why this is necessary. Asking people to opt-in to any cookies just creates a massive nuisance for everyone. While the supporters of such rules believe that this increases knowledge and transparency, there's little evidence that this is the case. Instead, as some earlier studies have suggested, it seems to just increase the nuisance factor. People who are regularly presented with a popup asking them for permission to proceed just get into the habit of clicking to make the box go away, rather than understanding what they're clicking. That's because when they go to visit a site, they don't care about the cookies and don't want to be interrupted.

I'm sure the politicians supporting this move think they're doing something good, but it really does the exact opposite of what they really want. It won't make people care any more about their privacy. It'll just make them more annoyed about the overall process. The way to make people more concerned about their privacy is to educate them and make it their choice in how they deal with these things. There are already plenty of easy-to-use tools on the market for users to set up preferences via browser extensions. Mandating rules for websites is just going to cause a hassle for everyone else.

Filed Under: cookies, transparency

Homeland Security Won't Even Admit Whether Or Not It Seized Mooo.com, Taking Down 84,000 Innocent Sites

from the transparency-in-government dept

Yesterday, I wrote about how there were many reports, starting over the weekend, claiming that Homeland Security's inept Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) group had once again screwed up the process of seizing domains. However, this time, the mistake appeared to be on a much larger scale. While some other sites have simply assumed that Homeland Security seized the entire mooo.com domain, thereby publicly accusing 84,000 sites (nearly all of which were perfectly legitimate) of trafficking in child porn, we were at least willing to give Homeland Security the benefit of the doubt and question whether it was really involved.

Given that no one seemed to confirm that Homeland Security was involved, I figured I might as well ask. I sent off a quick email to a press contact at Homeland Security, asking a simple question: did Homeland Security seize -- and then unseize -- the mooo.com domain? It seemed like a simple yes or no question, and given that Homeland Security is a part of the Obama administration, which has promised the utmost transparency, I figured the least it could do was provide that simple answer. Instead, the response I got was:

"I need to refer you to DOJ for a response to your question."

This, of course, is not true. The actions were taken by Homeland Security's ICE group. It was Homeland Security that put out the bragging press release about seizing more domains and putting up their "this site trafficked in child porn" graphics. But it can't even answer a simple yes or no question about a specific domain? That's not transparency. It also seems to suggest quite strongly that DHS and ICE did, in fact, screw up royally here.

I responded to the press contact, and pointed out that there is simply no reason that Homeland Security cannot answer this question, and repeated the question, but I have not heard back. I also sent an email to the Justice Department, and have also received no response.

Lots of folks are pointing out the incredibly serious First Amendment concerns brought out by such a seizure. Of course, we've pointed out such concerns with all of the previous domains seized, and people said they were overblown concerns. I'm somewhat stunned that we still had people defending such seizures without any due process, when 84,000 legitimate sites might have taken down, as a result.

And, once again, if there were actual due process, involving an actual adversarial hearing, moves like this would be avoided. On top of that, if Homeland Security wanted to actually go after child pornographers by tracking them down and arresting them, rather than just seizing domains, mistakes like this would be avoided. Of course, that would involve doing real work. And that's something that Homeland Security apparently isn't interested in, from the special agents who have failed massively in their investigations on these various takedowns all the way to the press spokespeople who can't even be straight with the American public when they make a massive First Amendment-violating mistake.

Filed Under: domain names, free speech, homeland security, ice, mooo.com, prior restraint, seizures, transparency

Rep. Issa Wants List Of Everyone Who's Filed FOIA Requests; Increasing Transparency Or Chilling Future Requests?

from the depends-on-how-you-look-at-it dept

Rep. Darrell Issa, the new head of the House Oversight Committee recently requested that all of the various federal agencies give him all sorts of data about everyone who's sent a Freedom of Information Act Request for the past five years. He claims that this is to review how the agencies respond to such requests, and hopefully make the process work even better. And, in fact, many transparency advocates are hopeful that this will lead to greater transparency, if the somewhat flawed FOIA process can be made better. However, others are viewing the whole exercise in a much more nefarious light, suggesting that Issa is creating chilling effects, by looking closely at who's filing such requests.

It seems like the latter response may be a bit of an overreaction. The government already has this information and is it really problematic for someone to compile all the info to see who's filing such requests? There obviously could be some serious concerns if there's any form of retaliation, but there's no indication of that happening (or being likely to happen). While it should be watched, if this process really is about getting the government to really be more open, then that sounds like a good idea.

Filed Under: chilling effects, darrell issa, foia, freedom of information, transparency

New Congressional Leadership Talks Up Transparency... While Planning To Attack Wikileaks

from the say-what-now? dept

We had just noted that the new Republican leadership in Congress had decided that investigating Wikileaks is a priority, as they're upset that Attorney General Eric Holder has been "too slow" to bring legal action against the site (perhaps because it's not clear any laws were broken...). So it seems rather ironic that at the very same time, the same Republican leadership is also claiming to support much greater transparency in Congress. Apparently they're going to do a lot more to use technology to show the public what's going on in Congress. This will apparently mean that audio and video recordings of committee meetings will be permanently posted, "in a manner that is easily accessible to the public," and all votes in those committees will now be disclosed. On top of that, all legislation will supposedly be posted in full online three days before a vote. Of course, the Obama administration promised something similar, which it promptly ignored upon taking office. Also they're doing some more gimmicky things like streaming a Congressional session live on Facebook. I think that bringing more transparency to Congress is a good idea -- and I at least applaud the sentiment, but it seems rather silly to be doing that at the very same time as attacking Wikileaks, which was a clear reaction to the lack of transparency in government.

Filed Under: congress, transparency, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

UK Information Commissioner Says Wikileaks Means Governments Should Be More Open

from the well,-duh dept

This is a bit of a surprise. As many are claiming that the end result of Wikileaks will be that governments try to be even more secretive, the UK's information commissioner, Christopher Graham, is apparently urging governments to take a different lesson, and that it shows they should be a lot more open in the first place:

"We are strongly of the view that things should be published. Where you're open things will not be WikiLeaked. Whatever view you take about WikiLeaks -- right or wrong -- it means that things will now get out. It has changed things. I'm saying government and authorities need to factor it in. Be more proactive, [by] publishing more stuff, because quite a lot of this is only exciting because we didn't know it. You can't un-invent WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is part of the phenomenon of the online, empowered citizen ... these are facts that aren't going to go away. Government and authorities need to wise up to that."

He also suggests that becoming more secretive would be a mistake. Specifically, he calls it nonsense:

"One response is that they will clam up and not write anything down, which is nonsense, you can't run any organisation that way. The other is to be even more open. The best form of defence is transparency -- much more proactive publication of what organisations do. It's an attitude of 'OK. You want to know? Here it is'."

It would be nice if anyone listened to him, though I'm not convinced anyone in power actually will...

Filed Under: christopher graham, openness, transparency, uk, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

US Air Force Intelligence Veteran Of Afghan War Explains Why He Supports Wikileaks

from the worth-reading dept

Mathew Ingram points us to this absolutely worth reading open letter from a US Air Force Intelligence official who served in Afghanistan, explaining why he supports Wikileaks. The whole thing is worth reading, but the key paragraphs:

After reading many of the Iraq/Afghan/Cablegate logs I am compelled to inform my fellow citizens that I saw nothing in these logs that could endanger our troops or public servants.

Here's what I did see: I saw Iraq war logs that painted a very bleak picture of the situation there which doesn't match up with the "improved security" that's been reported by the "Defense" Department for years. I saw proof of public officials acting dishonestly and abusing their posts. Overall, I saw an out of control government that is in over its head and does more to endanger the lives of its people than any publishing organization ever could.

I volunteered to protect this country under the impression that my government followed the will of the American People and adhered to the US Constitution. As it turns out, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were never constitutionally declared and despite public opinion being against the two wars they continue to grow more destructive. My experiences in these wars differed greatly from the propaganda the American people were sold by America's mainstream media outlets; many times I would return from a mission to see wild inaccuracies being reported on Fox/CNN/MSNBC about the very operation I had just been supporting. Wikileaks has helped shine light on the true nature of these illegal wars and the policymakers that perpetuate them, for this I am thankful.

This does a really nice job summarizing the points that many people have been trying to make. Not all of us are entirely comfortable with the way Wikileaks itself operates, but on the whole it, and others like it, are helping to expose questionable activities by our government -- and I'm somewhat amazed at the number of people who respond to it by insisting that they're happier having their government lie to them and mislead them. At the same time, it's nice to see someone else confirm that there's little in the documents that has "put people in danger" which is a key point often raised by those who want to pin something on Wikileaks. The problem is that there doesn't appear to be much "there" there.

Filed Under: governments, secrecy, transparency, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks