No More Excuses on FOIA Reform

I just read an editorial dated February 9, 2014 with the caption, "No more excuses on FOIA reform."  Here are a few excerpts:

"[A state legislator] said the bill will establish uniformity in charges to the public, including copying. There have been instances where citizens attempting to ferret out public information have been presented bills for thousands of dollars to make copies."

"Indeed, some governments require an FOIA request for the most mundane information - information that should be readily available to the public online. In those instances the FOIA is being used by pettifoggers to thwart the spirit of open government."

"As public officials, legislators should be committed to transparency in government."

"To that end, accountability starts with a strong Freedom of Information Act."

"One with teeth."

OK, so the editorial was in the Charleston, SC, Post and Courier.  You didn't really expect to see language like that in a Michigan newspaper, did you?

The Gap Between FOIA and Open Government

In view of the widening gap between FOIA (disclosure on request), which is too much about politics and trying without much success to update legislation, and Open Government (proactive disclosure), which is mostly about technology, perhaps we should devote less time to the former and concern ourselves more with the latter.

Open Government technology is being implemented in progressive cities throughout the country without waiting for legislative FOIA upgrades.  The drive to grow and prosper, including competition for new businesses, will compel communities to improve transparency.

I wanted to learn about less expensive technology available to smaller communities, so I asked Rebecca Williams at the Sunlight Foundation for help.  She compiled the following list of suggestions:

• Just putting data up on the government website for download! [in open formats like csv please]
• Ideascale (and other social media outlets) for citizen engagement
• Hosting data on GitHub
• Hosting data via Google Fusion tables
• CKAN data portals are free and open source, but you have to pay for the server
• Civic Data provides a free portal option via Accela (this is new and I [Rebecca] haven't seen it used yet)

If you know a village, township or small city council person, supervisor, mayor or manager wrestling with transparency issues, please pass along this list and let me know what feedback you get.