Government accountability: New online information sharing can supplement whistleblowers

An open government  blogger, Micah Sifry, is optimistic that new information sharing websites will allow citizens affected by government projects and subsequent waste, fraud and inattention to share their complaints and initiate action. In his book WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency, Sifry cites the website Seeclickfix.com adopted by around 500 cities which allows citizens [...]

Microsoft aggressive in competing with other vendors for open government market

Microsoft is using Sharepoint, Bing, SQL, and Azure to command a share of the traffic on open government while Google and Amazon are joining Microsoft in offering to host public data on their cloud services. -DB Information Week December 15, 2009 By J. Nicholas Hoover With the open government movement in full swing and the [...]

Medicare payment data to go onto public Web site

The Center for Medicare is planning to put up information about Medicare payments onto a Web site so that the public can track where the money is going. Some are concerned that this way of ferreting out fraud may also result in invasions of privacy. -DB NextGov November 19, 2009 By Aliya Sternstein The Obama administration [...]

Feds can’t certify accuracy of stimulus reporting data

An investigation of the government site with reports from stimulus recipients shows that much of the information is not validated and contains numerous errors. -DB Sunlight Foundation Commentary November 18, 2009 By Paul Blumenthal Recovery.gov is supposed to be a transparency clearing house for information on the federal stimulus spending appropriated in the $787 billion [...]

Open government group finds little influence of campaign money on stimulus contracts

The National Institute on Money in State Politics checked campaign contributions against awards for stimulus contracts and found that only 3.2 percent of contract recipients donated to state political campaigns. -DB Project on Government Oversight (POGO) November 5, 2009 By Ingrid Drake A few months ago, POGO blogged about our concerns that many state and [...]

Sponsor for open government conference criticized for shortfalls in its software’s transparency

The Sunlight Foundation criticized Adobe for only publishing budget summary tables in PDF saying that that format prevents manipulation of data for adequate analysis. Adobe said it would keep PDF since in some cases it expedited access to information but wanted to present information in other useful formats as well if the government would support those [...]

Not all transparency experts talk trash about Recovery.gov

Some online transparency scholars working outside of Washington, D.C. are encouraged by features of the official Web site of Recovery.gov that tracks stimulus spending saying that they are impressed with the site’s ease of use. The site made its first post of stimulus data on October 15. -DB NextGov October 21, 2009 By Aliya Sternstein Some [...]

Stimulus fund recipients post spending records online

Those awarded stimulus fund contracts are complying with government requirements to post the details of their expenditures online, so far submitting 112,000 reports to the data collection Web site. -DB NextGov October 14, 2009 By Aliya Sternstein Stimulus fund recipients appear to be complying with requirements to report their spending activities online. As of Wednesday [...]

For all its glaring faults, a reviewer finds promise in New Recovery.gov

A Sun Light Labs member examines New Recovery.gov, the government site that tracks stimulus spending, to find a lot needing improvement but a lot to be commended including  contracts and grants in the same venue. -DB Sun Light Labs Review September 29, 2009 By Tom Lee Recovery.gov relaunched yesterday, and we’ve spent some time playing [...]

Obama administration making headway in transparency efforts

While its efforts have been criticized, the Obama administration has launched promising initiatives to bring accountability and transparency to government and continues to work on improvements. -DB OMB Watch Commentary August 18, 2009 At the close of President Obama’s first 200 days in office, the administration has demonstrated a willingness to experiment with new technologies and [...]

Open government group pushes for release of Defense contractor ratings

Hopeful that President Barack Obama’s early commitment to transparency is genuine, the FOIA Group, Inc. is asking the Defense Department to allow public access to a Defense Department database that rates contractors. -DB NextGov August 14, 2009 By Aliya Sternstein The Obama administration, committed to becoming the most transparent in history, upheld a Bush-era practice of [...]

Groups abound to monitor recovery spending

Besides the government agencies formed to audit recovery spending, there has been a number of other groups set up to help the public track the money and conduct oversight. -DB The Presidential Transition A Weblog of the IBM Center for the Business of Government Commentary August 12, 2009 By John Kamensky The Recovery Act created a [...]

Report finds states lag in providing tracking of stimulus spending

A Washington research firm representing 35 public interest groups has found deficiencies in the Web performances of states as they track stimulus spending. Only four states were found to provide employment data when job creation is one of the chief goals of the recovery plan. -DB NextGov July 29, 2009 By Aliya Sternstein A study released [...]

New recovery transparency czar promises nonpartisan stance

Head of the new stimulus oversight board says there will be times that information posted on Recovery.gov will embarrass bodies receiving stimulous money but promises to conduct thorough monitoring of spending to prevent waste and fraud. -DB National Journal July 16, 2009 By John Maggs After 10 years as inspector general of the Interior Department, Earl [...]