“Sunlight is the best disinfectant” and also an energy source for innovative new information value-add business opportunities
Today Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) and Representative Steve Israel (D-NY) reintroduced the landmark Public Online Information Act. If enacted, POIA would bring the government into the 21st century by requiring the government to embrace the presumption that government-held information, already required to be public, must be available online. Data should be free from the shadows of obscurity and brought into the sunlight of the Internet.
The current way information is often made accessible in Washington is that you often must show up in person at a musty repository and photocopy information page by page -- or try your luck at freeing information through a FOIA request and endure countless (and possibly politicized) bureaucratic business days. The public demands better; it looks online for information.
Amid immediate concerns over government transparency projects losing funding, it is important to push for the sweeping, cultural shift that Washington desperately needs. That's why we continue to advocate for the information government produces to be available online, in user friendly formats, and available to the public at no cost.
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