Fixing Washington: The Public Online Information Act

The deal is to tell us what's really going on, how things work, where the money goes.

A lot of documents reveal that, but if they're on paper only, might as well not exist.

This new proposed law would require that all executive branch government stuff would be online and searchable. (It's a start.)

(There'd be obvious exclusions, like for legitimate national security.)

Here's the info from the Sunlight Foundation:

In the age of the Internet, government is transparent only when public information is available online. The Public Online Information Act (POIA) is legislation, introduced by Rep. Israel, that embraces a new formula for transparency: public equals online. No longer will antiquated government disclosure practices bury public information in out-of-the-way offices and in outmoded formats.

POIA requires Executive Branch agencies to publish all publicly available information on the Internet in a timely fashion and in user-friendly formats. It also creates an advisory committee to help develop government-wide Internet publication policies.

Disclaimer: because of stuff like this, I'm on the board of Sunlight.)

Comments

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We used to rely on news agencies to provide the journalistic requirements to find out what the government is doing. Now we want to be told. We need a lot of faith in our government to tell us what they are doing. We The People should not be so trusting.

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Transparency. It seems as if that's what we were going to get, but we're still waiting.

Maybe this will help. With the health care vote coming up, we need it more than ever.

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The system is mandated and largely funded by the federal government,

[FoxAdrian]

If you want to buy a car, you will have to receive the loan. Furthermore, my father all the time takes a bank loan, which supposes to be really fast.

[John R.]

We used to rely on news agencies to provide the journalistic requirements to find out what the government is doing. Now we want to be told. We need a lot of faith in our government to tell us what they are doing. We The People should not be so trusting.

[Kathy]

I don't know. The proposal itself is great, but the timing stinks. The cost would be huge to implement, and right now there are concerns that are much more urgent - jobs, food, and healthcare for those that are lacking it. Things like this take attention off of the major issues, and I think the major issues need to be in the spotlight. But that's just me.

[Ed H.]

Transparency. It seems as if that's what we were going to get, but we're still waiting.

Maybe this will help. With the health care vote coming up, we need it more than ever.