Phase One open government consultant Justin Herman appeared on TBD’s Capital Insider last night with host Morris Jones to discuss a recent report on government transparency and the Obama Administration’s Open Government Initiative.
Open source headlines from the Open Government plans
The Obama Administration’s Open Government Directive ordered Federal agencies to produce open government plans by April 7th, and while some advocates are disappointed, we have before us a bewildering number of initiatives to improve transparency, collaboration, and participation across the Government. It will not surprise you to learn that I spent some time looking for places where open source is being used in these plans.
Flagship Initiatives Shine in Open Government Plans
Ever since Open Government Day – the 120 day deadline in the OGD when agencies had to release Open Government Plans – I’ve been pouring over them hoping to get a better understanding of how openness is going to be implemented. If we are to judge government openness by the barrage of documents we received last Wednesday, then we open government advocates ought to be very happy! But what are these documents made of, anyway? A word cloud illustrates it quite well – all the buzzwords that you would expect: Information, government, data, open, public.
Quick links: Federal agency open government plans
Put down the best-seller and cancel the rest of Spring Break, the White House announced today federal agencies have released their open government plans. The plans are part of the Administration’s Open Government Initiative and should make for great beach reading.
Meet the hackers behind OpenGov Tracker
The federal government may have closed during #snowmageddon 2010, but Jessy Cowan-Sharp and Robbie Schingler didn’t. They created OpenGov Tracker, a Website that tracks citizen ideas for federal agencies related to the Open Government Directive.
Cowan-Sharp shares what inspired them and how they did it.
Gigglegate: What was so funny?
John Stewart’s Daily Show coverage of the White House Open Government Directive hones in on what everyone’s asking:
‘What was so funny?’
Quotable:
Huge event yesterday. ‘Open for Questions,’ a new experiment in open government debuted on the whitehouse.gov Website, hosted by Kevin Smith, Mike D, and Indian George Clooney. It was, as you can imagine, HIGH-larious.
In the spirit of open government, we’d like an official response from the White House.
Guesses on Gigglegate?
Open gov, Gov 2.0 leaders react to White House Open Government Directive
Here’s what open government and Gov 2.0 leaders are saying about the new White House Open Government Directive.
New GovFresh White House Open Government site
You can now follow the latest news related to the White House Open Government Initiate (OGI) on GovFresh at whitehouse.govfresh.com.
The new site includes:
- Latest OGI GovFresh posts.
- Links to OGI Twitter and official RSS feed.
- OGI ‘Chatter’ from Twitter, the White House blog and elsewhere on the Web.
White House ‘Transparency and Open Government’ memorandum
On January 21, 2009, President Barack Obama signed a ‘Transparency and Open Government’ executive order. Here is video of the signing and full text of the memorandum.
White House announces ‘Open Government Directive’
The White House today announced its Open Government Directive, instructing agencies to open their operations to the public and providing a framework for doing so. The directive was accompanied by a Open Government Progress Report to the American People.
From the White House:
The three principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration are at the heart of this directive. Transparency promotes accountability. Participation allows members of the public to contribute ideas and expertise to government initiatives. Collaboration improves the effectiveness of government by encouraging partnerships and cooperation within the federal government, across levels of government, and between the government and private institutions.