After years of delays and democratic regression, USA releases weak open government plan from: E Pluribus Unum
From the post:
If the American public wants to see meaningful progress on transparency, accountability or ethics in U.S. government, it should call on Congress to act, not the Trump White House.
With little fanfare or notice, the United States of America has published a fourth National Action Plan for Open Government for the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The USA was automatically placed under review in January, but not because of two years of regression on transparency, accountability, and brazen corruption. The plan was was simply late, after failing to deliver a new plan for the multi-stakeholder initiative for years.
The new “national action plan” is notable for its lack of ambition, specificity or relevance to backsliding on democracy in the USA under the Trump administration.
Calling on the U.S. Congress for “…meaningful progress on transparency, accountability or ethics in U.S. government…” is a jest too cruel for laughter.
The current U.S. president has labored mightly to reduce government transparency but Congress is responsible for the crazy quilt laws enabling agencies to practice secrecy as their default position. Any sane system of transparency starts with transparency as the default setting, putting the burden of secrecy on those who desire it.
You can waste supporter dollars on yearly tilts at the transparency windmill in Congress, or bi-annual elections of members of Congress who promise (but don’t deliver) transparency, or presidential elections every four years. The resulting government structures will not be meaningfully more transparent at any future point in time.
If you see a viable (as in effective) alternative to hacking as a means of making government transparent, please leave it in a comment below.