Money in politics. Intrusive government surveillance of the Internet. Personal privacy and media freedoms under threat. All of these issues sit at the frontier of the open government agenda. And virtually none of them are currently present in the more than 1,000 commitments made by governments through their Open Government Partnership National Action Plans. That…
“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” said a defiant President Obama—now in full damage control mode—to a crowd Friday in California. Unfortunately for the administration, the claim is too little, too late. Had the disclosure come at the program’s inception and been justified as a way to prevent attacks at home and overseas, perhaps…
The Associated Press just published a fascinating investigation into the use of secret, non-public email addresses by senior US government officials. While the AP has yet to uncover a smoking gun suggesting that the alternate emails were being used to deliberately evade disclosure of information under US Freedom of Information laws, the controversy raises important…
Last week, I had a chance to attend the three-year stocktaking retreat for the Transparency and Accountability Initiative, an important donor collaborative comprising several leading foundations and non-governmental organizations active at the international level in promoting government transparency and accountability. During one of the discussions focused on the community's challenges around learning and evidence-based strategy,…
There's a new code.org celebrity video making the rounds that features tech luminaries such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Will.i.am (wait, you didn't know he was a technologist?) advocating the idea that all kids should learn to code. It's a well-produced video featuring famous luminaries and comes on the heels of an ongoing debate…
Earlier this week, the Knight Foundation opened a new Knight News Challenge, this time focused on promoting innovative approaches to "open government." The announcement has received quite a bit of attention; any time you commit up to US$5 million in funding for something, people's ears tend to prick up. We've spent plenty of time here…