New White House Digital Government Strategy Offers Promise, Raises Concerns

On May 23, the White House launched its new Digital Government Strategy, an initiative aimed at improving the way government agencies utilize new tools and technologies to serve the public. The plan lays out clear-cut procedures for making public information open and machine readable within one year, allowing Americans to engage with their government more easily.

In a memorandum introducing the new strategy developed by the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO), Steven VanRoekel, President Obama directs each major federal agency to make two of their key services available on mobile devices within the next 12 months and to make “applicable” government information open and machine-readable by default. The strategy intends to “ensure that agencies use emerging technologies to serve the public as effectively as possible” and will require agencies “to adopt new standards for making applicable Government information open and machine-readable by default.” The memo calls on agencies to publicly report on their progress.

Further, the strategy promises to “transform Data.gov into a data and API (application programming interfaces) catalog that in real time pulls directly from agency websites,” as summarized in a blog post by VanRoekel. An excerpt from the report explains:

Rather than thinking primarily about the final presentation—publishing web pages, mobile applications or brochures—an information-centric approach focuses on ensuring our data and content are accurate, available, and secure. We need to treat all content as data—turning any unstructured content into structured data—then ensure all structured data are associated with valid metadata. Providing this information through web APIs helps us architect for interoperability and openness, and makes data assets freely available for use within agencies, between agencies, in the private sector, or by citizens.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will formulate a government-wide policy pertaining to API and systems will be required to support access to high-value open data. The report also outlines plans to set up a Digital Services Innovation Center to be carried out by the General Services Administration through a centralized effort to help agencies build out shared solutions for a “citizen-centric” approach to the web.

The scope of this new digital government strategy is laudable. The White House has put forth an ambitious and progressive strategy that has the potential to improve government transparency and accessibility. However, there are several omissions from the report that are cause for concern. Though leaders in producing, disseminating and preserving electronic information, the Government Printing Office and the Library of Congress are never mentioned in the report, and the National Archives and Records Administration is mentioned only once. NARA is charged with working with the Federal CIO Council and National Institute of Standards and Technology to “develop guidelines for standardized implementation of digital privacy controls and educate agency privacy and legal officials on options for addressing digital privacy, records retention, and security issues.”

Most troubling, the report puts forth a strategy for access to “high-quality digital government data” but does not address the need to ensure that the information is trustworthy, accurate, preserved and permanently accessible to the public, with explicit procedures to do so.

In all, the Digital Government Strategy is an important commitment by the White House to greater government transparency and more accessible information. However, to adequately create a digital government, the White House must take into account issues of the lifecycle of electronic information before it can offer a truly comprehensive solution.

White House Makes Progress on Open Government

Last Friday, the White House released a Status Report on Open Government. The report highlights the many initiatives the Obama Administration has undertaken to increase government transparency since taking office two and a half years ago. For example:

• Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): The President’s January 2009 Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act and Attorney General Holder’s guidance, which stated that agencies should adopt a presumption of disclosure. These memos have resulted in more information being released to the public and the reduction of FOIA backlogs by 10%.
• Open Government Directive: The Administration’s January 2009 Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government and the subsequent Open Government Directive, which resulted in the online Open Government Dialogue and the release of the first-ever Agency Open Government Plans.
• Classification: The President’s December 2009 Executive Order 13526 on “Classified National Security Information,” which streamlined the classification process and created the National Declassification Center at the National Archives and Records Administration, and his November 2010 Executive Order 13556 on Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), which established a program for managing all unclassified information.

There is, of course, much work to be done to increase government openness. As the report states, “Open government is a means, not an end.”

Recognizing the challenges ahead, the White House today released its Open Government National Action Plan, building on the Open Government Initiative. The Plan is part of the Open Government Partnership, a global initiative that supports transparent and accountable institutions around the world.

One important initiative outlined in the new Plan is to “Modernize Management of Government Records.” Acknowledging the current challenges associated with the management of digital records, the White House has committed to:

Reform Records Management Policies and Practices Across the Executive Branch. We will launch an initiative that will recommend reforms and require reporting on current policies and practices. The initiative will consider changes to existing laws and ask how technology can be leveraged to improve records management while making it cost-effective. The initiative will seek a reformed, digital-era, governmentwide records management framework that promotes accountability and performance.

The White House will also continue to work to improve the administration of FOIA; support the declassification of the backlog of 385 million pages for public release by December 2013; work to ensure agencies implement their Open Government Plans; strengthen whistleblower protections for federal government employees; improve public participation on Regulations.gov; and involve the public in developing new policies to reform federal websites.

We commend the Administration for its commitment to open government and its continued work to ensure greater government transparency, public participation, and collaboration.

White House Chat Today on Improving Federal Websites

Today at 4pm EDT, the White House will hold an online chat to solicit ideas from the public on how to improve federal websites. Speakers include White House Director of Digital Strategy, Macon Phillips; Federal Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra (who will soon be leaving the White House to take a joint fellowship at Harvard); and Director of the General Services Administration’s Center for Excellence in Digital Government, Sheila Campbell. This discussion is part of the President’s new Campaign to Cut Waste, which includes the goal of consolidating and eliminating unnecessary federal websites.

We encourage law librarians to participate in this online chat to ask questions and provide your perspectives on how the government can improve federal websites. You can participate by:

• Joining the chat live on WhiteHouse.gov or the White House facebook app
• Asking questions now through a form on WhiteHouse.gov
• Asking questions in advance on the White House facebook wall
• Asking a question on Twitter using the #dotgov hashtag

In addition, the White House has committed to posting a list of all “dot gov” domains and will invite comments on how to ensure the public has access to the government information they need. We will let you know when that list is published and will reach out to you for feedback.

President Obama Releases Important New Executive Order on Controlled Unclassified Information

On November 4, President Obama released a new Executive Order to establish a uniform framework for the use of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) – a confusing system of control markings agencies have developed that includes hundreds of designations that do not formally classify information but keep it out of the hands of the public (such as “For Official Use Only” (FOUO), “Official Use Only” (OUO), and “Limited Official Use” (LOU)).

According to AALL’s Government Relations Policy, security classification should be construed to promote open government while acknowledging the need for Freedom of Information Act exemptions. In 2007 and 2008, AALL worked closely with OMB Watch to develop the Moving Toward a 21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda: Recommendations to President-elect Obama and Congress. This report included recommendations, incorporated into the new Executive Order, that the White House issue a directive to agencies to reduce the use of information control markings unless there is a statute, regulation or policy directive already protecting it.

The new Executive Order creates a uniform system for managing CUI, and establishes the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as the Executive Agent to implement the order and ensure compliance.

The Executive Order requires that:

• Within 180 days, each agency must review all markings used by the agency designation CUI and submit to NARA a catalogue of proposed categories and subcategories of CUI.
• NARA shall approve all categories of CUI to be applied uniformly throughout the Executive Branch.
• Within 1 year, NARA must establish a public CUI registry that includes all authorized CUI categories.
• For the next five years, NARA must complete an annual report on the status of agency implementation of the order. After that, NARA must complete biannual reports.

The Executive Order also states that if there is doubt about whether to mark information as CUI, the agency shall err on the side of openness. AALL commends the Obama Administration for taking this significant step toward reforming policies governing control markings, thereby ensuring greater public access to Controlled Unclassified Information.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

Agencies Release Open Government Plans, Assessments Begin

Meeting a major milestone of the Open Government Directive (OGD), on April 7 all 29 agencies covered by the OGD, plus several agencies not covered by the Directive, released their Open Government Plans for public comment. The plans can be found on the agencies’ Open Government Web pages, which are linked to from the White House’s Open Government Dashboard.

In order to evaluate the plans, OpenTheGovernment.org is coordinating a review that will give each agency an overall score for how well it meets the criteria laid out in the OGD. Members of AALL’s Government Relations Committee are evaluating the Department of Justice’s Open Government Plan and the Association will be submitting an assessment on how well the DOJ plan meets the stated requirements.

In addition, OpenTheGovernment.org is asking individuals to provide feedback on any of the agency plans. We encourage you to take a few minutes to comment on the plan of any agency that may be of special interest to you. These comments are intended to highlight any part of the plan you think is impressive, and to make concrete suggestions on how the agency could improve its plan. This is a special opportunity to provide your thoughts on how well agencies’ proposals follow through on the OGD’s requirement to develop a roadmap to improve transparency, participation and collaboration.

AALL is carefully monitoring agencies’ progress to ensure that they meet the baseline requirements described in the OGD. We will keep you updated as the assessments are completed.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

President Obama Signs One-Year Extension of PATRIOT Act Provisions

Last December, Congress approved a 60-day extension of the expiring three provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, including Section 215 (the “library provision”). While intended to give Congress more time to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate bills, the new February 28 deadline approached quickly without time for debate.

On February 24, the Senate voted by unanimous consent for an additional one-year extension of the three provisions, and the House quickly followed on February 25, approving the measure 315-97. On February 27, President Obama signed the one-year extension into law, putting off the possibility for meaningful reform for another year.

AALL strongly opposed the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, as well as the reauthorization in 2005, because the bills lacked privacy safeguards and civil liberties protections. We were disappointed with the renewal of the three provisions last month because we believe there needs to be a higher standard for issuing Section 215 orders and National Security Letters (NSLs) to protect library users from intrusive government surveillance.

We had supported bills in the House, the USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 (H.R. 3845),  and Senate, the Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act of 2009 (S. 1686), which would have raised the standard for issuing Section 215 orders and NSLs to more adequately protect library users, and added reporting and oversight requirements to ensure greater accountability.

We also supported Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) reauthorization bill, the USA PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act of 2009 (S. 1692), as introduced. However, we were very disappointed with amendments approved by the committee when it favorably reported S. 1692 in October because they severely weakened the higher standard for library records that was in the original bill.

As the new February 28, 2011 sunset date approaches, AALL will continue to promote the need for increased protections for libraries. For more information, please read our Issue Brief, “2009-2010 Reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act.”

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

Agencies Release Open Government Web pages to Meet Second Directive Deadline

Agencies passed another important milestone of the Open Government Directive (OGD) on February 6 with the release of their Open Government Web pages, located at http://www.[agency].gov/open. These Web pages will be an integral part of creating the culture of open government that is the driving force behind the Directive.

By visiting an agency’s Open Government Web page, members of the public can follow the agency’s progress on the Directive and provide specific ideas (through online public dialogue sites) about how the agency can promote openness. Agencies must consider these public comments when developing their Open Government Plans, which will describe how they will improve transparency and integrate public participation and collaboration into their activities. The Plans, which are the cornerstone of the OGD, must be posted on each agency’s Open Government Web page for public comment by April 7.

February 6 also marked the deadline for the new Open Government Dashboard, where the White House will track and assess agencies’ progress in meeting the OGD deadlines. AALL and other open government groups are working with the White House to develop metrics to measure how well agencies are meeting their goals. On February 18, we signed on to an email to Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, in response to “bonus criteria” he presented for scoring agency Open Government Plans. We had a number of suggestions for the basic content of agency Web sites, including that every agency should be required to have a comprehensive, well-maintained, and searchable archive of documents, including those that have been removed from the Web site. The email also suggested minimum criteria with which to judge agencies’ progress.

AALL has published a new Issue Brief that tracks and analyzes the progress agencies have made on the OGD so far. We will keep this Issue Brief updated as agencies continue meet the OGD’s ambitious goals.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

Your Feedback Needed on New Datasets Added to Data.gov

Last month, agencies were required by the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Open Government Directive to post at least three “high value” datasets on Data.gov.

The Government Relations Office has developed a short survey on the usefulness of these new datasets to your work.

We need your feedback so that we can inform the White House and OMB on which datasets are the most valuable to legal researchers. This is a special opportunity to share your views with a receptive White House that is eager to hear your opinions.

We’d like to know which datasets are most useful to you, which datasets are not currently in Data.gov that you would like to see added, and how you or your library is using content from any of the datasets. For example, we want to know if your library has used the XML versions of the Code of Federal Regulations or the Federal Register to develop new tools.

We encourage you to take advantage of this unique opportunity to share your thoughts with the White House on this new transparency initiative. Please take a few minutes to fill out our survey by February 12.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]

OMB Watch to Hold “Obama at One Year” Webcast Series

Beginning next week, 2008 Public Access to Government Information (PAGI) Award winner OMB Watch will hold a series of Webcasts on open government featuring discussion with leading experts and time for questions from online audiences. The first in the series, “Policymaking for Open Government: An Assessment of the Obama Administration’s First-Year Progress,” will examine how the White House has followed through on President Obama’s pledge to make his Administration the most transparent and accountable in American history. Speakers will include:

• Sarah Cohen, Duke University
• Norm Eisen, the White House
• Meredith Fuchs, National Security Archive
• Ellen Miller, Sunlight Foundation (2009 PAGI Award winner)
• Mark Tapscott, the Washington Examiner

The Webcast will be held on  Thursday, January 28 at 3pm EST and you must register by January 25 to participate.

The next in the series, “The Obama Administration and Public Protections: A First-Year Regulatory Assessment,” will look at the regulatory record of the new Administration and the role of the Office of Information and Regulatory Policy (OIRA). Speakers will include:

• Michael Fitzpatrick, White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (invited)
• Pam Gilbert, Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca
• Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO
• Wesley Warren, Natural Resources Defense Council

The Webcast will be held on Thursday, February 4 at 3 pm EST and registration ends February 1.

OMB Watch’s Webcasts will offer an exciting opportunity to hear thoughtful analysis from policymakers and experts and contribute to the dialogue on open government. The archived events will be available on OMB Watch’s Webcast Headquarters.

White House Describes New Archiving System to Prevent Lost Emails

The White House’s recent settlement with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive (the Archive) over the Bush Administration’s missing emails required the Executive Office of the President (EOP) to provide a public description of the system it uses to manage and preserve its electronic records.

On January 15, the EOP sent a letter to CREW and the Archive, describing the current system in use to capture, back-up and preserve its electronic records. The EMC Corporation’s Email Xtender (EX) system has several important features, including:

• Automatic capture, in near real-time, of all email messages sent or received on the EOP’s unclassified network, including those sent to or from Blackberries;
• A searchable online archive with access controls and audit reporting;
• Systematic back-ups of the system on disaster recovery tapes; and
• The ability to segregate emails and differentiate between Presidential Records Act and Federal Records Act entities.

As noted by CREW and the Archive, the new system is a significant improvement over the one used by the Bush Administration, which lacked controls, reliable back-ups and advanced search capabilities. With its automatic back-ups, audits and controls against the unauthorized deletion of emails, the new system will preserve the Obama Administration’s emails and ensure against the disappearance of important electronic records.

[Posted by Emily Feldman]