James Comey’s leaked memos about meetings with President Trump illustrates one reason for the lack of progress on open data reported in FOIA This! The Depressing State of Open Data by Toby McIntosh.
From Former DOJ Official on Comey Leak: ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ Among Bureaucrats:
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On “Fox & Friends” today, J. Christian Adams said the leak of the memos by Comey was in line with “standard operating procedure” among Beltway bureaucrats.“[They] were using the media, using confidential information to advance attacks on the President of the United States. That’s what they do,” said Adams, adding he saw it go on at DOJ.
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Access to information is one locus of bureaucratic power, which makes the story in FOIA This! The Depressing State of Open Data a non-surprise:
In our latest look at FOIA around the world, we examine the state of open data sets. According to the new report by the World Wide Web Foundation, the news is not good.
“The number of global truly open datasets remains at a standstill,” according to the group’s researchers, who say that only seven percent of government data is fully open.
The findings come in the fourth edition of the Open Data Barometer, an annual assessment which was enlarged this year to include 1,725 datasets from 15 different sectors across 115 countries. The report summarizes:
Only seven governments include a statement on open data by default in their current policies. Furthermore, we found that only 7 percent of the data is fully open, only one of every two datasets is machine readable and only one in four datasets has an open license. While more data has become available in a machine-readable format and under an open license since the first edition of the Barometer, the number of global truly open datasets remains at a standstill.
Based on the detailed country-by-country rankings, the report says some countries continue to be leaders on open data, a few have stepped up their game, but some have slipped backwards.
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With open data efforts at a standstill and/or sliding backwards, waiting for bureaucrats to voluntarily relinquish power is a non-starter.
There are other options.
Need I mention the Office of Personnel Management hack? The highly touted but apparently fundamentally vulnerable NSA?
If you need a list of cyber-vulnerable U.S. government agencies, see: A-Z Index of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies.
You can:
- wait for bureaucrats to abase themselves,
- post how government “…ought to be transparent and accountable…”
- echo opinions of others on calling for open data,
or, help yourself to government collected, generated, or produced data.
Which one do you think is more effective?