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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The Feds and Social Media II
Here’s an exciting development! Last week, I blogged about an encouraging report by Doug Belzer at Federal Computer Week, where he wrote about how Twitter, blogs and other Web 2.0 tools are revolutionizing government business. The General Services Administration had determined that Twitter’s standard terms of service is compatible with federal use.
Two days ago, Doug has another exciting article, this time in Government Computer News, about GSA announcing that it has signed agreements with Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and blip.tv that will allow federal agencies to use new-media tools. Agencies can now begin using these tools to better communicate, network and share information via the Web.
Chris Snyder at Wired’s Epicenter blog termed the move, “Web 2.0, meet dot-gov. Dot-gov, this is Web 2.0.” He’s right in calling it a “big step” for agencies attempting to become more transparent and interactive with citizens. “Now that the bureaucratic brush has been cleared, government agencies will be free, for example, to embed videos and create photo widgets that citizens can embed into their MySpace or Facebook pages,” he writes. An example of a government agency already using Web 2.0 tools successfully is the Centers for Disease Control alerting the public about the recent peanut better product recall.
Chris quotes Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum and Sunlight’s senior technology advisor, as saying it’s another example of why it really matters who’s president of the United States. “Because we have the country’s first tech president, the speed at which the government can catch up with the private sector and use of technology is exponential.”
Each individual agency will determine their own guidelines for how their employees can use the tools. “The new agreements make it easier for the government to provide official information to citizens via their method of choice,” according to GSA’s administrator, who is in discussions with other new-media providers. They started with these four because of their popularity and large number of users.
We’re excited about this development. You should be too.
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White House: Where is the CTO?
On his second day in office, President Barack Obama issued a sweeping memorandum on transparency in government, setting out an ambitious to-do list for the newly created position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO). This person was to be responsible initially — along with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services Administration — to come up with a concrete list of recommendations to implement the principles set out in the memorandum, namely, that government should be transparent, participatory, and collaborative, and to do it within 120 days.
We’re now at day 21 and counting , and the Obama Administration has yet to appoint that CTO — a position he promised to create during his campaign.
So I’m worried: the clock is ticking to prepare that critically important memo. And besides the ticking clock there have been several examples of the White House falling down on its promises to be transparent, particularly complying with its promise to post all legislation online for 5 days before consideration. (The history of posting bills online to allow for public comment has been either non-existent or spotty to date.) Getting that CTO “online” seems more and more important every day. To walk the walk, Obama needs the CTO.
So what’s going on? Inquiring minds want to know.
