Rights-Based and Tech-Driven: Open Data, Freedom of Information, and the Future of Government Transparency

Open data policy mandates that government proactively publish its data online for the public to reuse. It is a radically different approach to transparency than traditional right-to-know strategies as embodied in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) legislation in that it involves ex ante rather than ex post disclosure of whole datasets. Although both open data and FOIA deal with information sharing, the normative essence of open data is participation rather than litigation. By fostering public engagement, open data shifts the relationship between state and citizen from a monitorial to a collaborative one, centered around using information to solve problems together. This Essay explores the theory and practice of open data in comparison to FOIA and highlights its uses as a tool for advancing human rights, saving lives, and strengthening democracy. Although open data undoubtedly builds upon the fifty-year legal tradition of the right to know about the workings of one\u27s government, open data does more than advance government accountability. Rather, it is a distinctly twenty-first century governing practice borne out of the potential of big data to help solve society\u27s biggest problems. Thus, this Essay charts a thoughtful path toward a twenty-first century transparency regime that takes advantage of and blends the strengths of open data\u27s collaborative and innovation-centric approach and the adversarial and monitorial tactics of freedom of information regimes

Rights-Based and Tech-Driven: Open Data, Freedom of Information, and the Future of Government Transparency

Open data policy mandates that government proactively publish its dataonline for the public to reuse. It is a radically different approach to transparency than traditional right-to-know strategies as embodied in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) legislation in that it involves ex ante rather than ex post disclosure of whole datasets. Although both open data and FOIA deal with information sharing, the normative essence of open data is participation rather than litigation. By fostering public engagement, open data shifts the relationship between state and citizen from a monitorial to a collaborative one, centered around using information to solve problems together

Dimpled-Hanging-Pregnant-Chad.com: the impact of Internet technology on democratic legitimacy

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht den Einfluss der Internet-Technologie auf die demokratische Legitimität. Die Autorin stellt zwei Positionen gegenüber - eine geht davon aus, dass das Internet eine Wohltat für die Demokratie ist, die andere, dass es die Demokratie zerstört - und zeigt, dass keine der beiden Positionen ganz richtig ist, da es sich bei der aktuellen Entwicklung nämlich um einen Prozess der politischen Illegitimität handelt, der über das Internet verbreitet wird. Da die Technologie bestimmend dafür ist, wie Regierungen mit Bürgern und diese miteinander kommunizieren, ändert sich zwangsläufig die demokratische Qualität der staatlichen Institutionen, wenn sich die Technologie verändert. Aus drei Gründen wird diese neue Technologie als Bedrohung für die Demokratie und die Legitimität angesehen: (1) Die globale Netzwerktechnologie respektiert keine staatlichen Grenzen und unterminiert deshalb die Legitimität und Durchsetzung nationaler Gesetze. (2) Da das Internet durch englischsprachige Webseiten aus den USA dominiert wird, werden dadurch kulturelle und lokale Unterschiede verwischt und es entsteht ein neues globales kommerzielles und konsumbezogenes Wertesystem. (3) Das private Umfeld des Internet trägt dazu bei, öffentliche Demokratie und öffentliche Räume zu zerstören. Die Autorin definiert zunächst den Begriff 'Legitimität' und charakterisiert die speziellen Wesenszüge der neuen Technologie. Danach beleuchtet sie den Zusammenhang zwischen Internet und politischem Wandel unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der oben erwähnten Punkte. Abschließend werden Möglichkeiten diskutiert, die demokratische Qualität des Internets zu verbessern und die Technologie zu nutzen, um die politische Kultur zu erhalten. (ICD

Information for Impact: Liberating Nonprofit Sector Data

This paper explores the costs and benefits of four avenues for achieving open Form 990 data: a mandate for e-filing, an IRS initiative to turn Form 990 data into open data, a third-party platform that would create an open database for Form 990 data, and a priori electronic filing. Sections also discuss the life and usage of 990 data. With bibliographical references

Forging Smarter Cities through CrowdLaw

Public officials are often ill-equipped when it comes to knowing how to regulate complex societal challenges, especially those that involve cutting-edge scientific and technological advances that raise myriad ethical, moral, political, legal, regulatory and social questions. But what if technology could be used to improve the quality of regulation and legislation? Online, tech-enabled participation methods, known as “CrowdLaw”, enable more individuals, not only interest groups, to inform the legislative and policymaking processes. In this brief commentary, I survey a handful of global examples which show CrowdLaw in use at each stage of the lawmaking process at the local level and exhibit how participation is improving outcomes

Scientific Expertise in Policymaking: The Case for Open Review and Patent Reform

The Energy Research Advisory Board, the group of external scientific advisors that provided impartial expert advice to the Secretary of Energy since 1978, was disbanded this May. The Administration, like its predecessors, regularly replaces experts on agency advisory panels with ideologues and political allies. We are at the nadir of a historical progression since World War II away from trust in and use of scientific expertise in policymaking. This shift however, has not been countered with greater public participation. Instead, administrative law and theory have developed a model of the managerial administrative authority. The expertocratic agency relies on internal expertise in order to develop policy in the public interest. This is nowhere more the case than in the United States Patent and Trademark Office where the need for secrecy surrounding patent applications has entrenched a conception of the agency as expert. While the first patent examiner, Thomas Jefferson, consulted Joseph Hutchinson, Professor of Chemistry on March 12, 1791 to seek his advice in connection with a patent on an alchemical process, modern patent examiners labor independently under a backlog of 1 million applications with no more than 18-20 hours to decide on the 20 year grant of monopoly rights. The patentability determination, as much if not more so than any regulatory rulemaking by the EPA or FDA, depends upon knowledge of science. Yet examiners lack the requisite knowledge to examine patents adequately. Examiners are prohibited from consulting outside sources, often including the Internet. Still over 90% of applications are granted. This paper argues that the distrust of scientific expertise produces an information deficit that results in poor quality patents. It views patent examination as a case study, illuminating a general problem with administrative policymaking, namely the lack of accountability to and input from scientific experts. The Article puts forward a solution: “open review.” Under this model, scientific experts provide input to the agency by means of an online network; that expertise is directly tied to ultimate legal decision-making. Unlike ordinary peer review, called for in the Information Quality Act, open review adopts a broader vision of collaborative expertise that cannot be manipulated. By being both more expert and more participatory, it avoids the problems described in the literature on science in policymaking. Unlike other proposals for ex post patent reform, open review addresses the core problem of information deficit that cannot be solved by the courts. At this juncture when patent reform is uncertain to move either through Congress or the US Supreme Court, focusing our attention on the role of scientific expertise in agency practice may be our best opportunity, not only to bring about much-needed reform, but to do so in ways that are data-driven and empirically measurable. The United States Patent and Trademark Office agrees with the assessment: it will implement a pilot of open review in 2007

Innovations in Open Grantmaking

Grantmaking, in short, plays a vital role in helping our government, our researchers, and our communities confront 21st-century challenges. Despite grantmaking's importance, we have a decidedly 20th-century system in place for deciding how we make these billions of dollars of crucial public investments. To make the most of limited funding—and help build confidence in the ability of public investments to make a positive difference—it is essential for our government agencies to try more innovative approaches to designing, awarding, and measuring their grantmaking activities.Innovations in Open Grantmaking seeks to provide inspiration and early proof of concept regarding innovative practices at every stage of the grantmaking process. The examples and lessons included can act as suggested guidelines for future research and experimentation around more openly and effectively providing access to public money

Challenges and opportunities of democracy in the digital society: report from Dagstuhl Seminar 22361

Digital technologies amplify and change societal processes. So far, society and intellectuals have painted two extremes of viewing the effects of the digital transformation on democratic life. While the early 2000s to mid-2010s declared the "liberating" aspects of digital technology, the post-Brexit events and the 2016 US elections have emphasized the "dark side" of the digital revolution. Now, explicit effort is needed to go beyond tech saviorism or doom scenarios. To this end, we organized the Dagstuhl Seminar 22361 "Challenges and Opportunities of Democracy in the Digital Society" to discuss the future of digital democracy. This report presents a summary of the seminar, which took place in Dagstuhl in September 2022. The seminar attracted scientific scholars from various disciplines, including political science, computer science, jurisprudence, and communication science, as well as civic technology practitioners