The Obama administration promised more transparency in government and it seems to be delivering on its promise -- at least in a number of specific instances. Today on its "Open Government Blog," the White House pointed to a number of new developments in this regard:
*The Department of Housing and Urban Development is recording all public events and putting them online.
*The Department of Education is publishing Secretary Arne Duncan’s schedule.
*The Social Security Administration has a new toolset on its website to help people (including Spanish speakers) more easily find information and services on the web and schedule appointments.
*The Department of Labor published its new Online Enforcement Database, which makes all workplace safety data searchable and available in one place.
*The Department of Health and Human Services is publishing a large,downloadable database on community health care costs, quality, access, and public health.
*The Department of Justice is building a “Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Dashboard” to “shine a light” on the government’s compliance with FOIA. Two other departments -- Health and Human Services and Department of Energy -- announced more accessible FOIA programs as well.
Meanwhile, NASA has gotten into the act with a number of initiatives, one of the most creative of which is a partnership with the Internet Archive:
"NASA has implemented an agreement with the non-profit Internet Archive (IA) whereby IA manages an Internet site, nasaimages.org, to provide free access and downloads of NASA still photography, video and film, including High Definition. Therefore, in essence, IA serves as custodian of much of NASA's current and legacy digital imagery records. In addition, IA will help digitize NASA's historically significant, analog images for inclusion on the Web site, enabling digital archiving with the National Archives and greater public access to these records via the IA Website."
This is the kind of stuff journalists and other information junkies love, because when it comes to transparency in government, there is no right or left, there's just open or closed. The more information we can easily access, the better job we can do.
It's as simple as that.
Agreed that we, as journalists, want more government info. The more that's available, the better we can do our jobs. Was a bit disappointed that the administration did not answer my questions directly one of the few times I've had to ask for information, but most administrations probably do that from time to time.
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