Change we can believe in
Change // Reform // Collaboration
Change // Reform // Collaboration
Many important government transparency programs may be cut by Congress.
To help the Sunlight Foundation prevent this, sign the petition at www.sunlightfoundation.com/savethedata
How can data be used to fuel positive social change? How do we design data to help communities pursue their interests? The Knight Foundation recently brought together a panel of three open data advocates at the 2010 Future of News and Civic Media Conference at MIT to discuss the answers.
The panel discussed ideas about how to foster civic engagement and social change. These strategies primarily focused around the areas of opendata and transparency. The speakers agreed that social change can be fostered by increasing the amount of quality data available and correspondence between residents and their governments. MIT Tech TV
Speakers included:
(Via KnightBlog)
This Superb infographic on "How A Bill Becomes a Law" was selected as one of the winning entries from the Sunlight Foundation's recent Design for America competition.
The visualisation is also available from this on-demand print service,
Campaigns and Engagement Director at the Sunlight Foundation -
This “Cycle of Transparency” demonstrates, in one image, the specific actions and the variety of actors that need to work together to create the open, transparent government we seek.
Ultimately, informed citizen action creates greater public awareness; citizens become more effective, responsible advocates; holding government accountable becomes informed by data rather than inside-the-Beltway pundits, and better decisions can be made for our democracy.
As each element of the Cycle of Transparency moves forward concurrently, bringing about the changes we need to create a more transparent government, we also identify new needs.
At the end of the day, the process that the Cycle of Transparency describes is about creating a government more deserving of our trust, and ultimately, a government that allows its citizens to fully participate and hold government accountable as our Founders intended.
For more, check the full post at Govfresh.
Yesterday, Representative Steve Israel introduced the Public Online Information Act, which if enacted would make vast amounts of government information available online. All too often, information that the law requires be publicly available is hidden within the walls of government departments and agencies and in paper silos.
POIA seeks to tear down these walls by:
The legislation requires:
Executive Branch agencies to publish all publicly available information on the Internet in a timely fashion and in user-friendly formats. It also creates an advisory committee to help develop government-wide Internet publication policies. Freeing government information from its paper silos provides the private sector with raw material to develop new products and services and gives the public what they need to participate in government as active and informed citizens. Establishing an advisory committee that brings all three branches of government and the private sector together to develop government-wide information best practices will improve how the government serves the American people.
It has far reaching reaching effects including:
The POIA requires the Executive Branch to follow commonsense rules in making public information available online, and encourages all three branches to work together with the public to develop online disclosure best practices.
Rep. Steve Israel:
This bill will make government more transparent, accessible and efficient.
For more see:
(via SunlightFoundation)
The Sunlight Foundation recently launched a national campaign to make government more open, transparent, and ultimately: accountable. The campaign has adopted a new logo that can be used by any organization working toward government transparency.
On launching the campaign Sunlight's Engagement Director Jason Brewer explained the new logo and the rational behind the Open Government 'movement':
We hope this emblem is a first step in giving us something we can all own and point to as a symbol for what open government means to us, and what we believe.
[...] We believe that what government does, how it is influenced, or how it spends our money are all things that are public information – and today, “public” means that the government’s data must be accessible by any citizen, at any time, from anywhere: online and in real-time.
Through the campaign we hope to dramatically further the movement for open government that has been building, and give it the infrastructure it needs to be successful at the local, state and federal levels for years to come.
Open Government beliefs
The primary objectives of the campaign - and beliefs at the heart of the Open Government movement - include:
1) An open, transparent Government is something we create when public government data and information about government activity is made easily accessible to us – online and in real-time – and we use it effectively.
2) Government has a responsibility to be open and transparent, but it will not become so on its own.
3) We would rather use positive incentives (the “carrot”) than negative incentives (the “stick”) to make government transparent, but we will use whichever is most effective.
4) Changing the way government thinks and behaves is as important as changing government rules.
5) Technology isn’t part of the open government “pie.” It’s the pan.
6) Changing the way the public thinks about government and how they engage with it, is as important as making government data and information accessible.
7) Effective and responsible engagement with government will make it work better for all Americans.
8) Achieving our vision of a transparent government will require the ongoing commitment of citizens in every district across the United States to make it possible.
9) We will sacrifice “perfect” in order to take action and make progress today.
Open Government Logo
In the video below, Noah Kunin from the Sunlight Foundation walks through the reasoning behind the logo, and explains the campaign to ensure more government is transparent and accountable.
For more on the Campaign for Transparency, and to provide feedback, check out
(H/T) GovFresh
Funny video from the Sunlight Foundation regarding their Read The Bill campaign. The legislation the want passed is called H. Res. 554. It seeks to amend the rules of the House of Representatives so legislation and conference reports are made available on the Internet for 72 hours before they are considered by the House.
For more on the campaign see the altogether less dramatic video below.
