Access to Government Information Going Digital

12 June 2009

By Danielle Zielinski
Special Correspondent

Washington — These days, it seems you can find almost anything online.

New apartment? Yes. (craigslist.com, apartments.com, rent.com)

Long-lost high school sweetheart? Yes. (google.com, facebook.com)

Pictures of cats with crazy captions? Yes. (icanhascheezburger.com)

Safety reports on your child’s school? Maybe not.

For today’s Internet-savvy population, the expectation is that everything is available online, but in reality, governments are still leaving a lot of empty architecture in cyberspace.

A survey conducted in March as part of national "Sunshine Week" found that while increasing numbers of U.S. state government documents are being posted to the Web, some of the most basic and important records — like death certificates, gas pump overcharge records and school bus inspection reports — aren’t there. Sunshine Week is an annual event focused on open government and freedom of information.

A separate survey conducted by Openthegovernment.org identified the 10 most wanted federal government documents, which included records about the use of economic stimulus funds, court settlements involving federal agencies, and current federal contracts and subcontracts.

Advocates for freedom of information are looking at online access to records as the next battleground in the movement for more transparent and democratic government.

“Digital technologies can be a great catalyst for democracy, but the state of access today is quite uneven,” said Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, in announcing the Sunshine Week survey results. “The future of freedom of information is online access, and states have a long way to go to fulfill the promise of electronic self-governance.”

President Obama issued an Open Government Directive on his second day in office that promised greater openness and transparency would be one of the themes of his administration. On May 21, he rolled out the first of a series of initiatives designed to give citizens more access to government via the Internet. The launch included the debut of a site called Data.gov, where federal agencies will post data that can be used by software developers to make new Internet and cell phone applications. (See “Obama Administration Breaks New Ground on the Internet.”)

Historically, public participation has been limited to submitting comments on proposed regulations for federal programs and sending letters to federal officials. Advocates say providing online access to more information can help citizens to become more engaged in federal, state and local government.

“The benefits all around are tremendous,” said Debra Gersh Hernandez, coordinator of Sunshine Week. “For citizens, it’s huge. We are a participatory democracy. If you want to know if your kid’s school building has asbestos in it or when the next council meeting is … having things online is a given in this technology era.”

Posting government records and documents online is not only convenient for citizens, but greatly reduces the time and expense associated with government employees processing Freedom of Information Act requests, photocopying documents and mailing records, Gersh Hernandez said.

But there are challenges. For starters, many government agencies accumulated years of records before computers and the Internet became available, and the task of moving these older records from folders and file cabinets to the Web can be difficult and time-consuming. It is also important that once online, the information be organized well.

“They want to do it. They understand it’s important,” Gersh Hernandez said. “The trick is not just having it up there, but having it up there in a way that is user-friendly.”

With some records, such as court documents, divorce files and financial records, there are privacy concerns. But in almost all cases, there is a way to put some of the information online while ensuring that private information — such as Social Security numbers — isn’t compromised.

For both President Obama’s initiatives and state and local government transparency efforts, the greatest challenge may be changing attitudes and promoting a culture of openness. Some advocates have pointed out that the president’s Open Government Directive was itself slow in soliciting public input. But across the country, small steps are being made.

In the wake of the March resignation of a state Cabinet official over income from speaking fees, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an order to increase transparency and accountability of his staff by requiring that their financial forms be posted on the governor's Web site.

In South Dakota, the state legislature recently completed a thorough overhaul of public records laws, which included requirements for information to be posted and searchable online.

Open-government proponents hope that Obama’s promise to make the federal government more transparent will also improve the practices of state and local governments.

“Certainly, in terms of effort and movement, he’s very much moved things along,” Gersh Hernandez said. “It does start at the top.”