Culture Hacking: How One Project is Changing Transparency in Chile
BY David Eaves | Wednesday, May 16 2012
A few weeks after the launch of Inspector de Intereses — a Chilean website that allows citizens to map money trails in politics — the team at La Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente, the organization behind the site, had an interesting visitor. At the doorstep stood a member of parliament, carrying a stack of papers which outlined his interest in various corporations. He had received the team’s letter inviting him — and his colleagues — to update his records, and here he was, ready to do so, in person no less.
That eager senator wasn’t alone: about 20 percent of Chilean parliamentarians took the opportunity to update their records. In a country where conflicts of interest are not regularly discussed or acknowledged, this was an interesting shift, a change in culture and in process that was part of a Ciudadano Inteligente's strategy to make more transparent the link between money and power in Chile.
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By tedeytan from Washington, DC (Library of Congress Reading Room Open House 7)
How to Evaluate the State of Open Data
BY David Eaves | Tuesday, May 8 2012
The Open Knowledge Foundation recently announced that it will organize and coordinate an Open Data Census. The intent is to create a basic baseline against which governments can measured around how much (and how ... Read More
Why Open Corporate Data Matters
BY David Eaves | Tuesday, May 1 2012
We don’t normally think of corporate data as democratic data. But limited liability – the right to have an legal entity that protects its shareholders from personal bankruptcy – is an enormous privilege conferred by the state to individuals. In a 19th century democracy – to say nothing of a 21st century one - who is making use of this privilege, and to what ends, should be a right of public knowledge. Here's why--and a new report on who is doing it well. (The bad news is, no one.) Read More
Public Authority Puts Thousands of Freedom of Information Requests Online
BY Miranda Neubauer | Monday, April 30 2012
Under a new freedom of information code for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey that was set to go into effect April 15, the public authority has released 22,000 pages of documents on the Internet — including every response to a Freedom of Information Act request received in 2011.
Transparency activist John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, says this is "great and stupid at the same time."
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Transparency Camp 2012: Session Wall (Photo: Micah L. Sifry)
The Rise of the Count(er) Culture: Notes on Transparency Camp 2012
BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, April 30 2012
This year at Transparency Camp, not only did newly installed White House Chief Technology Office Todd Park give one of his trademark effusive speeches on the power of open data, it was easy to spot people from a variety of agencies including the Treasury Department, the FCC, EPA, NASA, the World Bank, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, and Congress. Second, the people attending now spread far beyond the Beltway. About forty international transparency activists were on hand, some coming for their second year in a row. And lots of local governments and issue advocacy groups were represented, a sign that the idea of using tech and data to make government work better is spreading beyond the proverbial early adopter crowd. Read More
Things From This Weekend More Interesting Than #WHCD
BY Nick Judd | Monday, April 30 2012
At around this time every year, the barometric pressure for celebrity, power and wealth reaches record lows in Washington, D.C. Anyone who relies on hot air for their livelihood is caught up in the weather system of D.C. society and sucked into this stormy maw, which touched down this weekend at the Washington Hilton. Here's what some of the rest of us got up to this weekend while the hoi polloi were laughing along with the president. Read More
FCC Votes to Put Broadcasters' Political Ad Hauls Online
BY Miranda Neubauer | Friday, April 27 2012
The Federal Communications Commission voted this morning to modify the disclosure procedures for major-market broadcast TV stations, requiring them to post their their "public files" — which include information about political ads — online in a FCC-hosted online database. Currently, the public files are stored in paper form at a broadcaster's main studio. Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn voted to affirm the entire order, while Commissioner Robert McDowell dissented to the portions of the Order requiring the political file to be posted, according to an FCC statement. Read More
ABC Chicago Public File (via ProPublica)
Editorial: #NewsFAIL, or How Big TV Media Doesn't Want Online Disclosure of Who Is Lining Their Pockets
BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, April 26 2012
Tomorrow, the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on a proposed rule that would require broadcasters to post online their "public file," a list of all the political ads that run on their channels, who bought them, and what they paid. The rule would also enable the agency to build a central website compiling all the data in an easy-to-search portal. Right now you have to literally visit each TV station in person to access the paper records. If you are one of those news junkies or open government advocates who follow transparency issues carefully, you already know about this measure. But guess who isn't covering this issue. Read More
Still a Long Way to Go for Spain's First Transparency Law
BY Antonella Napolitano | Monday, April 23 2012
Last Wednesday, the Spanish government presented a draft freedom of information law at the Open Government Partnership conference in Brasilia, but faced strong criticism coming from civil society and NGOs. For the first time in Spain, the law will create specific rules for information access and transparency. Activists, though, argue that the draft is not strong enough and does not meet international standards, as it fails to recognize access as a fundamental right and gives a restrictive definition of the information that can be accessed. Read More
Sunlight Says House Appropriations Committee Not Making the Grade in Online Transparency
BY Miranda Neubauer | Tuesday, April 17 2012
Despite a House of Representatives rule adopted in January 2011 requiring that video of hearings be made available online, a full quarter of House hearings are not making it online, according to a new analysis by the Sunlight Foundation.* That's thanks in large part to the House Appropriations Committee, whose hearings account for 70 percent of those not available online, per Sunlight. Read More