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October 4, 2010 by
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The Guardian has an . Jenni Viitanen acknowledges that there are positive side effects of transparency, but she sees potentially negative outcomes, too.
What will this kind of scrutiny achieve? Transparency should be a two-way street. Gawking at spreadsheets out of context is a long, way from empowerment.
Viitanen makes it clear that she is pro-transparency—that transparency is necessary for accountability. Transparency shifts power from being entirely on the side of officials, and evens the playing field for the public; it works to deter overspending and waste.
But then she says the “armchair auditor” is likely to increase suspicion of public officials and vilify public spending. In a healthy democracy, she states, people have trust in their governments without having to “trawl through detailed accounts” and thus risk losing sight of the bigger picture. She also address a favorite pro-transparency argument that transparency saves money while alluding to the fact that this is not entirely true. But she never describes what the reality is.
Viitanen never states where this danger of losing sight of the “bigger picture” comes from. Open data may be misinterpreted, or may make people focus on the small picture. But what is her solution?
In the end, transparency needs little justification. Of course errors will be made, and the public may not interpret spending in the right context. The public has a right to data because it is our data, to use or misuse as we please. Also, the public isn’t full of uneducated, politically motivated simpletons. “The public” includes teachers, professionals, and citizens interested in their government. It also includes journalists, academics, and specialists well-equipped to interpret data.
It is unclear what Ms. Viitanen’s core concern is. Ideally, public officials will engage citizens and not just throw spreadsheets at them. Viitanen notes that empowerment through open government means being able to hold decision-makers accountable. Will this ultimately erode public trust? That depends on the officials’ conduct. Again, the public isn’t an angry mob with pitchforks and lanterns. We have made some reasonable decisions before.
So while there may be negative consequences to transparency, they aren’t much to speak of. If you give us the information, we’ll find a way to empower ourselves through it.
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May 19, 2010 by
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I apologize for the title of this blog, as I’m hopelessly in love with puns. I’m also a fan of and an übergeek when it comes to new technology. IMB hit this trifecta today when they released their . According to the press release:
IBM unveiled the IBM Government Industry Framework (GIF), designed to address persistent challenges that Governments face today. IBM GIF is a unified software platform for implementing comprehensive solutions focused around improving citizen services, increasing transparency, enhancing public safety, crime prevention, managing law enforcement, disaster management, security threats, exploding urban and IT infrastructure, effective traffic management and tax and revenue management.
The framework follows a unified approach to accelerate the deployment of solutions to build a Smarter Government. This approach is superior to the two traditional practices: custom development, which is lengthy and expensive, and packaged applications that are inflexible, standalone and requires heavy customization. The framework enables customers to choose from a variety of industry solutions that are pre-integrated on common middleware and industry-specific extensions. As a result, customers can deploy solutions in their current environment faster and at lower cost without compromising on flexibility and choice.
Cheap, customizable, and government transparency? Did you hear that? It was all the government’s excuses flying out the window.
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April 15, 2010 by
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The James Madison Institute has come out with a new policy brief titled . The policy brief notes has a history of being at the forefront of the transparency movement, and that it should seize on the unique opportunity it has to maintain that reputation.
Past Florida transparency initiatives include posting a state “E-budget” in the late 1990′s, and providing and online, searchable database of government expenditures.
The brief also details the story of three transparency bills in Florida that failed to become law. One of those bills comes straight from Utopia: it would have required each local government entity and authority prepare a line-item report on revenue, revenue sources, and expenditures. While the bills didn’t pass, they did bring transparency to the forefront, thus setting the stage for the signing of , the Florida Transparency Act of 2009 in late May of that year. The law mandates the Governor’s office create a website and require each branch of government and government agency to disclose data, including disbursement data and budget amendments.
The briefing notes that one of the strong parts of this law is that its execution be overseen by the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee. Because the Committee has broad oversight of the implementation of the law, the James Madison Institute recommends it use that discretion to promote greater transparency through measures such as the following:
-The Committee should use its broad oversight role to recommend the incorporation of expenditures beyond those in the General Appropriations Act.
-Contextual information should be provided along with the data. The Committee can demand this.
-The project should keep citizens in mind and, as such, provide data in usable formats, such as XML.
The policy brief ends optimistically, stating that the first step was made 2009 towards Florida becoming a leader in state government transparency, and that 2010 can help ensure that process is complete.
For Sunshine Review Florida transparency grades and resources, check out the following links:
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April 14, 2010 by
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It’s easy to see some of the benefits of government transparency. Of course, sunshine is the best disinfectant when it comes to corruption, as Louisiana Senator Robert Adley noted in a topic we covered yesterday, . It is also a great solution for budgetary problems: public scrutiny is a great way to filter out the state spending we need, from the state spending we need
Today in the , however, the implications of a lack of transparency can be deadlier. The article details how the to a citezenry still rocked by the recent explosion that killed 29 miners at a Massey Energy mine in West Virginia.
The Post goes on to critique the government for not releasing those notes until after people died. Had they been, journalists would have picked up on the history of shoddy standards and fines the mine had to pay as fines for breaking rules.
It is never too late to start opening up government. shows that West Virginia deserves increased attention in matters of transparency. An overwhelming amount of items we check for in our are marked with a red “x”, indicating that the government has failed to disclose a key piece of information.
Of course, this seems like a meaningless step when compared with the type of information that was left private in the West Virginia case. But having more open websites would show citizens that their governments are ready to collaborate.
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March 15, 2010 by
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We’ll get started right, with our very own writing in the Washington Examiner about how transparency gives people power to make government work for them, and how Sunshine Week is the time to get started:
State and local governments today face unprecedented fiscal challenges and unprecedented opportunities for fundamental reforms. In the coming weeks and months, citizens can forge truly historic change in state and local government by reforming the budget process, privatizing services, and returning professional full-time legislatures and councils to more traditional part-time bodies, among many other worthy initiatives.
Read about that .
What is Sunshine Week? As , Sunshine Week marks an annual effort to focus attention on the importance of government transparency, with , civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, school and other open government advocates participating. For example, is participating.
Sunshine Week is already proving worthwhile. For example, the announced late last week .
We look forward to seeing what other government efforts to be open pop up this week. Spring is the perfect time for sun.
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January 26, 2010 by
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A new poll revealed there is a correlation between satisfied constituents and government websites: transparency. According to :
For the last quarter of 2009, more than 250,000 citizens surveyed gave federal Web sites a satisfaction rating of 75.2 out of 100 points, according to a … Survey respondents also awarded federal Web sites a satisfaction rating of 75.2 for the third quarter of 2009.
What is the viagra online prescription is that many of them exceed satisfaction found in many private sector sites, even Google or Amazon.
The three top-rated federal Web sites meet or exceed the private sector’s highest score of 88 points earned by Newegg.com, an online computer hardware and software retailer, and 28 of 103 federal sites measured earned average satisfaction scores of 80 or higher.
I think we could expect this constituent satisfaction to jump leaps and bounds if local government entities started engaging in transparency too.