When federal agencies make grants or design new regulations, they often rely on panels of experts — including industry representatives — for counsel. But knowing precisely what these government-created advisory committees are pushing has been shrouded in secrecy: A new congressional report shows that most of the committee meetings are now held behind closed doors.
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Read More… from REPORT: Most federal advisory committee meetings now held in secret
The Wisconsin Assembly passed a bill last week that would dramatically reduce voters' ability to know which corporations, unions and wealthy individuals are funding state campaigns. The Senate is expected to vote on a companion bill (SB 292) shortly.
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Read More… from Editorial: Wisconsin Legislature should reject secrecy bill
In the rush to enact open data policies and dive into innovation projects, cities are seriously considering the value of chief data officers — and officials in Long Beach, Calif., are no different. But the city is taking a different approach: crowdsourcing.
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Read More… from Can cities crowdsource the chief data officer position?
The Tenth “Sunshine Week” ended on March 21. This annual celebration of open government was created by the American Society of News Editors with a grant from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation.
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Read More… from Editorial: Making ‘Sunshine Week’ every week
California-based OpenGov has launched a new data insights tool that will work with its existing government transparency software and aims to provide government administrators with a clearer view into the whole organization. The new tool – OpenGov Intelligence enables administrators to discover, share, and compare data across departments and other governments.
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Tim Draper wants to make California county governments more transparent — and the venture capitalist said Wednesday that he will spend up to $500,000 to make it happen.
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Read More… from Draper, backer of Six Californias, funds government transparency
Ohio is going to unprecedented levels with its new open government initiative. In a partnership with OpenGov, the state aspires to make all financial information available to the public – from all localities. The data will provide citizens with “checkbook-level spending data to every city, town, school district, and other local governing entity in the state – 3,962 of them in total,” OpenGov said in its announcement.
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Read More… from Ohio moves for unprecedented financial transparency
From Government Technology: In recent years, many state and local governments have put effort into open data projects that would inspire developers to create apps and find ways to use public data to bring value to their communities. So news of PRISM, the National Security Agency’s (NSA) online spying tool leaked by former CIA employee Edward Snowden, angered a lot of people and began a debate about the role of open data.
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From IT News Online: STERLING, Va., June 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — The New York City Comptroller announced at the Personal Democracy Forum press conference that Checkbook NYC, a financial transparency tool developed by REI Systems, is now open-sourced and available for download by other city and state governments.
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Read More… from Checkbook NYC open-sourced at Personal Democracy Forum 2013
