'Open' government vow may be undone by red ink

from SFGate.com:

Remember President Obama's vow, in his inaugural speech, to usher in an era of "open and transparent" government?

It's taken a couple of hits of late.

A White House award ceremony last week honoring his "commitment to transparency" was closed to the press, to the surprise and chagrin of the open government organizations that had joined together to present the award. One of the attendees called the press ban "baffling."

Read the rest here.

A new 'toolkit' for opening up civic life

from techPresident:

Citizens who believe their government is open and transparent are more likely to be satisfied with civic life, according to research released by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the Monitor Institute.

Accompanying that research is a set of materials drafted by the Monitor Institute, a for-profit think tank and consultancy hybrid, intended to help community leaders identify how better flow of information in their communities might improve civic life, and then plan out how to create that change.

Pew and the Monitor Institute, conducting surveys and workshops in research backed by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, found that the belief that local government is transparent correlates with a belief that citizens can make a difference in their cities. Respondents in Philadelphia, P.A., Macon, Ga., and San Jose, Ca., who said that local government does very or pretty well at sharing information were far more likely to report feeling that they could make an impact in their community than those who did not, the survey found.

Read more here.

Sensible strategies for open government and online hubs

from KnightComm:

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation released two policy papers that call on community and elected leaders to adopt sensible strategies to expand government transparency, make public records and civic data more open and accessible to the public, and create local online hubs that provide maps for a community’s information resources.

Government Transparency: Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory Government, by Jon Gant and Nicol Turner-Lee, urges state and local governments to adopt six strategies that are particularly important for accelerating the trend toward open government at the state and local levels. The strategies focus on enhancing government expertise and transparency, educating citizens regarding the availability and utility of government information and e-government tools, expanding efforts to support greater adoption of broadband Internet access services and devices, and forging public-private-citizen partnerships in order to enhance open government solutions. Adopting these strategies will enable state and local governments to tap into the expertise and innovative spirit of the public to create new “public goods” apps and community information resources and ultimately enhance government accountability.

Creating Local Online Hubs: Three Models for Action, by Adam Thierer, explores three scenarios under which community leaders and other stakeholders can work together to create local online hubs where citizens can access information about their governments and local communities. Government information, requiring real transparency of public information, should form the foundation for building local online hubs according to the three models proposed by Thierer.

Read the rest here.

Setting government data free with ScraperWiki

from programmable web:

Civic minded hackers from all over the world recently organized themselves for action as a part of the International Open Government Hackathon. The team from Portland, Oregon decided to make use of a platform called ScraperWiki that can grab data from government websites and turn into more consumable formats via the ScraperWiki API....

The ScraperWiki work highlights a problem for governments that want to make data available to the public. Some data is currently available in obscure formats or is locked in HTML pages that cannot easily be consumed by web applications.

“ScraperWiki is a great way to demonstrate to governments that programmers will put in work to clean up messy data, in whatever format it is released. the more imporant issue is authorizing the release of the datasets, not worrying about what format they are released in,” said event organizer Max Ogden.

Read the rest here.

CREW: DOJ is a roadblock to open government

from CREW:

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder expressing concern over the Department of Justice's (DOJ) failure to abide by President Obama's commitment to government transparency and accountability.

Despite policy directives from President Barack Obama and Attorney General Holder mandating a presumption of openness in administering the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), DOJ continues to operate - as it did during the Bush administration -- under a presumption of secrecy, deliberately withholding information about what DOJ is up to and why.

Read more here.

National Press Club Board selects press-freedom honorees

from the National Press Club:

The National Press Club Board of Governors voted on Aug. 23 to honor a University of Missouri journalism professor and an Iranian blogger with its 2010 John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award.

The award, given each year to one domestic and one international recipient, honors people who have contributed to the cause of press freedom and open government.

This year’s U.S. winner is Charles N. Davis, an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism who has done more than most to force light onto parts of national, state and local governments that many in power would like to keep hidden from the press and the public.

From 2005 until this year, Davis led the National Freedom of Information Coalition, an organization headquartered at the Missouri journalism school that funds open-government groups around the country. A former reporter, Davis has also helped the cause through scholarly research and writing on governmental information and media law. He has won the Sunshine Award from the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Journalism Teacher of the Year from the Scripps Howard Foundation.

The board selected as the foreign winner of the award Kouhyar Goudarzi, an Iranian blogger.

Read the rest here.

Wisconsin attorney general weighs in on e-mail decision

from wisconsinrapidstribune.com

A recent court decision shouldn't deter residents from requesting public documents -- or public officials from providing them -- the state attorney general said.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently ruled 5-2 that the personal e-mail messages sent by five Wisconsin Rapids school teachers while they were at work did not need to be released to a resident who requested them.

In an open memorandum sent Wednesday, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said records custodians must err on the side of open government when it comes to determining whether e-mail messages are private or public record.

Read the rest here.

Iowans lack clear relief when open government requests are denied

from The Iowa Independent:

From rural township boards to the governor’s office, each level of government in Iowa is responsible for carrying out the state’s open records and open meetings law. And when disagreements occur or citizens run into a roadblock in their pursuit of information, there is no clear path they can take to ensure the law is being properly followed.

...

“I get a lot of calls from citizens when they can’t find someone to call. They can’t believe their local officials are refusing to follow the law and there’s nothing the citizen can do about it except sue. It’s very frustrating for them,” said Kathleen Richardson, a Drake University instructor and director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. Richardson’s organization educates citizens — primarily journalists and public officials — about open records and open meetings rules.

Because uniform enforcement isn’t ensured by the state, advocates of open government say Iowans in search of information can run into incomplete explanations of denials or crippling fees for obtaining documents. But the avenues for redressing those decisions are often unclear.

Read the rest here.

New Bipartisan House Caucus Formed to Promote Transparency

A 19-member bipartisan group of House Republicans and Democrats formed a congressional transparency caucus to promote laws requiring the free accessibility of federal information on the Internet. The caucus will work to educate peers and the public, legislate new policies, and oversee existing ones.

For a list of the caucus members and their guiding principles, click here.

Florida Baseball Lawsuit Challenges Secret Dealing Behind Economic Development Deal

The lawsuit stalling a $31 million renovation of Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, Florida, alleges that local government officials violated Florida's Sunshine Law by failing to conduct business in the open.

The lawsuit is a signature case regarding taxpayer-funded economic development deals that are negotiated in secret.

Read more about the lawsuit here.

Reed Anfinson to Receive John R. Finnegan Freedom of Information Award

The Minnesota Coalition on Government Information will honor Reed Anfinson, publisher of the Swift County Monitor-News, with the 2010 John R. Finnegan Freedom of Information Award on March 16 at the Minneapolis Central Library.

Anfinson is a journalist and an advocate for open government at the local, state and national levels. He has testified frequently before the Minnesota Legislature and the U.S. Congress on Freedom of Information and First Amendment issues.

He has co-chaired the Minnesota Newspaper Association's legislative committee and chairs the National Newspaper Association Government Relations Committee. In 2012 Anfinson will become president of the National Newspaper Association.

Washington Post and Obama Disagree Regarding Administration's Open Government Track Record

The Washington Post reports that 319 lawsuits were filed under the Freedom of Information Act during Obama's tenure in the White House so far, and plaintiffs complain that little has changed since the Bush administration in terms of openness, despite Obama's promise that his administration would be the most open in history. The paper reports that 278 records suits were filed in 2007 and 298 in 2008.

But the White House responded, contradicting the report and saying that 22 fewer FOIA cases were filed in 2009 than 2008, and the Department of Justice has granted 13% more FOIA requests in 2009 than it did during the Bush administration.

Federal Agency Datasets Now Available; Interactive Transparency Tracker Marks Progress

Federal agencies have posted nearly 300 new sets of raw data online as part of the Open Government Directive.

Click here for ProPublica's interactive chart, the Transparency Tracker, which provides an independent assessment of the federal agencies' efforts toward more open governmental transparency

New Englanders Favor Open Government

A recent poll commissioned by The New England First Amendment Coalition (NEFAC) and conducted by the University of New Hampshire's Survey Center shows the vast majority of New Englanders believe having open access to the workings of government is important to citizen and favor strengthening laws to protect access, such as making government agencies pay any legal bills necessary to open public records.  

Among the findings:

• One in four respondents strongly believe that public business in their community is done out of public view.
• The majority in the six-state region believe the news media seeks out public information useful to citizens. But one in four people polled disagreed, 14 percent strongly.
• Most citizens have not asked for a public record in the last 12 months and, of those who did, 87 percent said they got what they asked for. 
• A plurality of respondents said they were familiar with the workings of their state's open records laws.
• On the whole, New Englanders are satisfied with the response of state and local government to citizen requests for access, but they remain skeptical of government motives.

Get the full report here and more from NFOIC here. 

Virginia Coalition for Open Government Award Winners

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government announced its awards earlier this week.  

Carol Lindstrom of Christiansburg won the Laurence E. Richardson award for individual contributions resulting from her work to create a website for the town of Christiansburg based upon documents she obtained through FOIA requests.  Lindstrom also posts audio and video recordings of Town Council, Planning Commission, and other meetings.  

For a full list of the winners, click here. 

Open Government Directive Coming Soon...

Just another few weeks, says the government's first CTO, Aneesh Chopra, regarding a new open government directive.

The first step of the directive will be a mandate for federal agencies to enact structural changes so that open government principles become part of their "institutional fabric," reports internetnews.com.

Additionally, the directive will ask agencies t bring more data online and in a machine-readable format, as opposed to PDFs.

Get the full report here.

Wash. coalition releases results of candidate questionnaire

The Washington Coalition for Open Government has published its database of questionnaires answered by candidates across the state. Each was asked for their stances on six government reform issues dealing with open government.

As the 2009 campaign season heads into its crucial last months, Washington voters have a new, easy-to-use tool to help them choose candidates that are committed to open, responsive and accountable government.

Earlier this month, the Washington Coalition for Open Government (WCOG) submitted an open government questionnaire to candidates around the state and asked for their position on 6 key government reform issues identified by WCOG. Candidates were asked to take a "yes" or "no" stance on topics including recording of executive sessions of public agencies and requirement of open government training for government employees and elected officials.

Each candidate's individual survey has been posted on the WCOG Web site at www.washingtoncog.org.

"The Washington Coalition for Open Government is happy to be able to provide this service to our members and to the people of Washington so they will know more about where the candidates stand on government openness, transparency, and accountability," said Toby Nixon,
president of the Coalition. "I hope they will make note of which candidates failed to respond to our survey, and ask those candidates pointed questions about where they really stand on the people's right to know what their government is doing."

The Washington Coalition for Open Government is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and defending the people's right to know in matters of public interest and in the conduct of the public's business. Members of the coalition represent a broad range of interests, including the news media, public affairs, law, current and retired public officials, business and labor.

More here.