Information & Ethics committee  I would love it. Not only can OMB Watch be helpful to you, but I would be happy to circulate them to other groups who have been working on this in the U.S. to get their perspectives.

Information & Ethics committee  I grew up right next door to Canada. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and I used to go over to Windsor. I love Canada. I should say, by the way, that I'm extremely impressed with the study you're undertaking. I hope I can learn from what you're doing. This is a very exciting time

Information & Ethics committee  Again, I will just speak for OMB Watch, rather than for a broader set of groups that have been meeting on this. For me, the number one issue is bringing the Freedom of Information Act into a modern-day model that promotes a voluntary disclosure requirement, which tells agencies

Information & Ethics committee  I don't have data like that, but I will say you raise an incredibly interesting point. Under our Recovery Act that I was mentioning, and our Recovery.gov website, the model caused all of our states to create state-level recovery websites that are relevant to that state's data. T

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, all.

Information & Ethics committee  Okay. I do think that a great amount should be attributed to the President's commitment to openness. It started with the inaugural address and was completed, as I mentioned, on the first day of office when he not only gave those principles of transparency, participation, and co

Information & Ethics committee  I would hope you're right. That's why I asked, is the barn door now open and you can't shut it? By the same token, if you don't have in the next administration, say, a White House team that is pushing aggressively, or you don't have detailed timetables like the Open Government Di

Information & Ethics committee  It was more of a question that I raised; that is, given that this President has placed a high priority on openness, let's assume another President comes in and puts less emphasis on it. If it isn't a law, but rather an administrative practice of this President, what happens?

Information & Ethics committee  On the timelines, they were very prescriptive in the Open Government Directive, and that was extremely helpful, because it also created this kind of high-energy movement by the agencies to meet this very tight timeframe. It was extremely useful. By the same token, there are no pe

Information & Ethics committee  I should be much clearer about that floor or standard I was talking about. That is what many of us outside of government have come together on to encourage the Obama administration to begin doing, because of this concern we have that while valuable information is being released,

Information & Ethics committee  I believe Australia is involved because of a lot of their performance efforts. I don't know if the U.K. is. There are a number of countries, from Brazil, India, China, and down the line, that have all been interested, and as you can imagine with the list I just gave, they're very

Information & Ethics committee  I think you're asking a very tough question about the downsides of transparency, but let me break it into two parts: the privacy side versus the security side. Too often we do privacy versus openness, privacy versus transparency. Instead, a good model of openness and a good mode

Information & Ethics committee  This is just a quick answer. No, members of Congress do not disclose who they meet with. All the transparency I'm talking about is executive branch, not legislative branch.

Information & Ethics committee  Before I do, I want to also restate your first point, which is.... I think we have to understand—at least, it's my personal belief—that open government and transparency are tools for a purpose. They are not solely solutions. They are tools to strengthen democracy, to empower peop

Information & Ethics committee  The Freedom of Information Act in most countries is a vital “right to know” tool. I am obviously a huge fan of the Freedom of Information Act. At the same time, I think it's outmoded today; I think what we want to achieve, as I tried to articulate in the brief, is a “right to k