Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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Weekly Media Roundup – May 22, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and
grantees from this week:Thursday’s launch by the Obama administration of Data.gov, the repository for all the information the federal government collects, generated a number of good press mentions. Vivek Kundra, President Obama’s new Chief Information Officer, built and manages the Web site, which developers can access data to create applications for the Web and handheld devices. The Washington Post’s Kim Hart wrote about the launch and quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, saying it “demonstrates the acceptance of the notion that providing raw data is inherent to establishing trust in agencies.” Ellen said that the administration is redefining public information. “To be truly public, it needs to be available online. That’s a dramatic shift.” Hart also quotes Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, saying most federal agencies have not traditionally emphasized openness. “It’s not what Congress has told them to do in the past, and it’s not their culture. There’s going to have to be some real pressure on agencies to do this.” Hart also mentions Sunlight Labs‘ Apps for America 2 contest, and writes that it is modeled after the Apps for Democracy contest started by Kundra when he was the District of Columbia’s chief technology officer. Richard Waters at the Financial Times (subscription required) wrote about the launch and the contest, and quotes Ellen saying the launch represents “a sea-change in how government views its information.”
Wired’s Kim Zetter and Wired Science’s Alexis Madrigal both have articles about Data.gov that mention Sunlight and the Apps for America 2 contest. Madrigal also quotes Ellen, “Data.gov says that our information is your information,” and that “it represents this enormous change in attitude about what public means. It means it’s online. It’s means it’s available. I think it’s a dramatic breakthrough in the role of government.”
Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller produced a story on Data.gov, and includes an mp3 of his interview with Kundra who mentions the Apps for America 2 contest. Chris Dorobek, co-anchor of Federal News Radio’s afternoon drive program, interviewed Ellen about the launch and posted the audio. Jon Gordon with American Public Media’s “Future Tense” interviewed Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, about Data.gov. Clay said the site represents “a good first step” by the administration.
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Weekly Media Roundup – May 1, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:David Herbert with the National Journal (subscription required) wrote about the grades new media experts from across the political spectrum gave the Obama administration’s Web presence. The experts gave WhiteHouse.gov an average grade of C+. Although they mostly see it as an improvement from the previous administration’s site, many noted that it remained a one-way forum and suggested it be opened to allow comments and other interactive features. Herbert quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, “This occasional use of interactive tools” is impressive, but “90 percent of the time the site is pretty straightforward, as it was under [George W.] Bush.” Recovery.gov, the administration’s site where citizens can monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds, fared even worse in the Journal’s poll, averaging a C. The most common gripe about the site, Herbert writes, is that it’s “the view from 30,000 feet,” as Micah Sifry, senior technology advisor for Sunlight and Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) co-founder, told him. Without providing on-the-the ground details, Recovery.gov offers taxpayers few tools for staying on top of where their money is going, reviewers said. Recovery.gov has competition in the form of privately-operated Recovery.org, which has “more granular data and a real search tool, which one assumes we’ll eventually see on Recovery.gov,” Micah explains. “I don’t think it’s fair to compare this site to other Web sites yet, as it’s just weeks old,” Micah added. “Let’s take another look in three to six months, OK?”
Chris Lefkow with Agence France-Presse gained a different take by interviewing academics, technology analysts and nonpartisan groups on the administration’s technology efforts. Lefkow writes that they all said the first “tech president” is off to a good start. Lefkow quotes John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director, “their first pronouncements are very encouraging,” and added that the challenge, however, is going to be the implementation. Andrew Resiej, Sunlight’s other senior technology advisor and PDF co-founder, said the administration been doing as much as it can to fulfill its promises in regards to transparency and technological innovation. “However they’ve been constrained by decades of industrial-age rules and regulations and procurement protocols that are handicapping the speed at which they can implement that vision,” he said.
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Wired’s Wiki
Midnight tonight (Eastern Time), Wired is officially launching “Data.gov Is Coming — Let’s Help Build It,” a wiki designed to find and identify important and valuable data sets held by the federal government, and to make them available and usable. Yesterday, in an email to the Open Government Google Group, Alexis Madrigal, staff writer at Wired, announced that it’s already live at http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Open_Up_Government_Data.
Madrigal wrote that Vivek Kundra, the newly appointed CIO of the federal government, “seems like an ally — as do his superiors — but we want to hold them to their claims about wanting to open up government data.” Wired designed the wiki to be a place to report where government data is locked up by design, neglect or misapplication of technology. And they want us to point out the government data that we need or would like to have. Based on how the wiki evolves, they will follow up with government agencies to see what their plans are for that data and track the results. Madrigal wrote that they hope to combine the best of new social media and old-school journalism to get our hands on government data.
Wired’s wiki dovetails nicely with two projects that Sunlight has been involved with. Our friends at OpenTheGovernment.org and the Center for Democracy and Technology, with the help of Sunlight Labs, set up Show Us The Data – The Most Wanted Federal Government Documents. They too are asking the public to help identify government documents, reports, or data sets that should be made available online. They’ve asked people to “vote” on what sequestered docs they most want to be freed. The voting ends Monday (tomorrow), so quickly go check it out. They will release a list of the 10 docs that received the most votes during this month’s Sunshine Week. Federal News Radio interviewed Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, about the program. As Patrice said in the interview,“Openness makes us stronger.” Michael Smallberg at POGO blog writes that the project’s goal is to identify the documents and databases the public most wants access to through interactive voting and collaboration. They will produce a final report recommending documents and data that the federal government should make easier to find and use.
And last month, Sunlight launched Our Open Government List (OOGL) to gather meaningful feedback for President Obama’s Open Government Directive. We wanted to add a public element to the crafting of this Open Government Directive that is itself transparent, participatory, and collaborative. We encourage you to submit ideas for what the Directive should address, and to vote for your favorite submissions.
We are determined to hold the president and his new CIO to their promise of an open and transparent federal government. So far, so good. But we’ve got to keep the pressure on.
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Questions Swirl Around White House IT Responsibilities
Christopher Dorobek, managing editor of Federal News Radio and author of DorobekInsider.com, is reporting that they’ve confirmed that President Obama is set to name the immensely talented Vivek Kundra, Washington, D.C., government’s CTO, as the next administrator of e-government and information technology within the Office of Management and Budget. Good news indeed.
But a whole lot of questions remain as to how the whole picture will be painted.
For instance, there are currently three White House IT-related positions, with a fourth being the proposed CTO. The administration has done little to explain what the various IT offices have responsibility over. Dorobek writes that he sees four pockets of government IT expertise: A Congressional Research Service report, published last month, illustrates how “murky” things remain and how the four key positions on this arena — the e-government administrator at OMB; OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and the proposed Obama CTO will divide up responsibilities and work together.
Dorobek says: “Frankly, one of the problems has been that there hasn’t been enough of a coordinated, strategic approach to technology, information technology and data, and this seems like an opportune time to make all those lines clear.”
Dorobek points to NextGov’s Jill Atoro as suggesting that Virginia’s secretary of technology, Aneesh Chopra , might be Obama’s CTO pick.
Staying tuned here.
