Governments are letting in the light

A special report on the 'open society' by The Economist [03mar10]

«These days democratic openness means more than that citizens can vote at regular intervals in free and fair elections. They also expect to have access to government data. ... “Government information is a form of infrastructure, no less important to our modern life than our roads, electrical grid or water systems,” says Carl Malamud, the boss of a group called Public.Resource.Org that puts government data online. ... Providing access to data “creates a culture of accountability”, says Vivek Kundra, the federal government’s CIO. One of the first things he did after taking office was to create an online “dashboard” detailing the government’s own $70 billion technology spending. Now that the information is freely available, Congress and the public can ask questions or offer suggestions. The model will be applied to other areas, perhaps including health-care data, says Mr Kundra—provided that looming privacy issues can be resolved»

These are just a few excerpts from the February 25 printed edition of the UK weekly The Economist focused on managing public information, government transparency and citizen access to public data.

The report covers essentially the US landscape after the Obama election, since "America is in the lead on data access". Here is the story conclusion:

«Moreover, providing information opens up new forms of collaboration between the public and the private sectors. Beth Noveck, one of the Obama administration’s recruits, who is a law professor and author of a book entitled “Wiki Government”, has spearheaded an initiative called peer-to-patent that has opened up some of America’s patent filings for public inspection.

John Stuart Mill in 1861 called for “the widest participation in the details of judicial and administrative business…above all by the utmost possible publicity.” These days, that includes the greatest possible disclosure of data by electronic means.»

Read full report here.