Open Government Directive Mandates Data Accessibility

Obama's new open government directive marks a turning point geared towards bringing government and citizens closer together. The new Obama administration mandate pushes U.S. government agencies to be more transparent by providing information in "open formats" online. Data has always been available to the public by request under the Freedom of Information Act. However, few people know and request the data because its usually an arduous processes, difficult to request and retrieve, and not particularly user friendly for building web applications.

This is good news not only for techies.

This is good news citizens. Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, explained that "three principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration are at the heart of this directive." 

A more open government will enable people to provide feedback in real time, vote on pressing issues, propose solutions, hold government agencies responsible for their actions, and use data to build models that can be used for enhanced modeling and tracking. This isn't a promise or long term goal either. Government agencies are required to act quickly over the next couple months. Federal agencies must:

1. Open government web pages within 60 days. A web page will need to be created on www.agency.gov/open to give feedback on information quality, enable feedback to prioritize information for publication, and enable feedback on the agency's open government plan.

2. Publish 3 "high-value" data sets online within 45 days. This will predominantly focus on public spending accountability. 

3. Publish a plan on improving transparency within 120 days. This will all be tracked. An open dashboard will be provided by the Obama administration within 120 days on www.whitehouse.gov/open.

This isn't the first time the White House has adopted an open source model. They recently launched whitehouse.gov on Drupal, an open source CMS platform for building websites with robust social publishing features. If you're skeptical about whether an open data initiative will work, just take a look at the following except from Orszag's blog post:

As an example of the steps taken in response, the White House, for the first time ever, now publishes the names of everyone who visits. We are also publishing online never-before-available data about federal spending and research. At Data.gov, for instance, what started as 47 data sets from a small group of federal agencies has grown into more than 118,000 today – with thousands more ready to be released starting this week. And in March, the Attorney General published updated FOIA guidelines, establishing a presumption in favor of voluntary disclosure of government information – an important step toward enabling the American people to see how their government works for them. There have been other advancements, from providing online access to White House staff financial reports and salaries, adopting a tough new state secrets policy, reversing an executive order that previously limited access to presidential records, and web-casting White House meetings and conferences.

Update: Acquia now provides open source services for Open Government Directive.