Recently in Government Category

From the NYT letters to the editor page:

To the Editor:

Dear Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson:

My student loans are too big and it is hurting the economy. Can I have a bailout, please? I need $92,000.

Thanks.

Nathan Kottke
St. Paul, Sept.
17, 2008

For the past week I've been meaning to write a post to congratulate Carl Malamud on his latest win in his fight to open up government resources. Partnering with several organizations and funding sources, the Boston Public Library will embark on a project to digitize its government documents collection. Check the NY Times coverage:

The project, which will take two years and require the hand scanning of millions of pages of government hearings and related publications, will cost an estimated $6 million, according to the project’s sponsors. Boston Public Library librarians said they planned to begin by digitizing the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings from the 1950s, which is regularly sought after by its patrons. The project is being undertaken by Public.Resource.Org, a nonprofit group seeking to open public access to government records, and the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based digital library.

Also, check out Carl's announcement at Public.Resource.Org and BoingBoing. I've had the privilege of working with Carl both in my capacity at Congress and as a fellow advocate of open government data; he's one of the most passionate and interesting folks I've had the pleasure to meet. I'm always looking forward to seeing what he has up his sleeve next.

This weekend, I had the privilege of joining open government advocates from around the world to discuss the future of government data. Governments around the world produce a massive amount of information, and usually it's held close to the chest rather than shared with the public. When it is shared with the public, it's often done so in a way that limits the public ability to fully utilize that data. This prevents citizens from fully engaging in civic decision-making and from using the vast power of the internet to remix, re-visualize, and develop innovative perspectives on government information. While I think it's inappropriate for me to talk about most specifics of my time working in Congress for Chairman Waxman, I've developed a passion for open government and citizen access to government. After gathering in Sebastopol, CA, we worked vigorously this weekend to propose a set of eight principles of open government data. My hope is that these principles are a starting point for serious discussion of how government entities can enhance the value of their data and fully open it to citizens. While I won't rehash all the principles here, there are a few key points I want to remark on. The government's data is your data. In a democracy, information produced by government belongs to citizens. I think we often forget that, and our government does too. We're looking for a paradigm-shift that changes the presumption on the part of government from "name a good reason why we should release X" to "name a good reason why we shouldn't." Not only should government's presumption of release change, but they have a responsibility to ensure that information is readily available to the public. This means more than "we have a website." You should be able to download, query, and remix government information as much as you want. For techies, this means bulk download, API, and consumer website access. For non-techies, think of it as retail versus wholesale; government should offer data at a retail level on their own website, but also allow bulk access to encourage the unknowable creativity that results from making data public on the web. There's much more to say and much more work to be done, but I think this past weekend was a good start. Update: I've found a bit of time to read a few posts out there and I'm still searching for more. Bradley Horowitz, Ethan Zuckerman, Micah Sifry, John Geraci, and you? (E-mail me or comment if you've written about this!) (PPS - To everybody at the meeting [and other interested folks]: I've been trying to find you on Facebook so we can more readily stay in touch. You can find me first by clicking here.)

Sorry I haven't been attentive lately; I've been traveling much more than is healthy, but that will change in a few weeks. In the meantime, I am trying to find some time to write about some important open government work I've been helping with.

John posted this to the Open House Project. It's a fantastic lecture - well worth the hour.

I've followed Lessig's work for years. He's a broad an inspirational thinker and he's now turning his efforts to ending political corruption in the U.S. He announced it a few months ago, but I caught this video on BoingBoing; they're right, it's inspirational.

I was reading the latest issue of "Public CIO" (being that I work for the government) and ran across these fascinating statistics on New York City's "311" service. New Yorkers can dial 311 to access any number of government services. It's basically a central hotline for connecting with your government. Cool. 2004 Calls: 10.4 Million 2005 Calls: 14 Million Total Number of Calls: 50 Million Average Daily Calls: 40,000 Languages Available: 170 That's incredible. In any of 170 languages, over 40,000 calls a day are answered regarding government services. And from what I've seen, the praise is near universal.