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Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

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Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

#11

Post by danso »

ekianjo wrote: post #4
pratheekrebala wrote: post #3

FOIA officers will still find a way to send me scanned PDFs of spreadsheets.

You obviously did not read the article. > public information should be open by default to the public in a machine-readable format, where such publication doesn’t harm privacy or security

This policy exists in many states. But plenty of local reporters have tales about how officials respond with PDFs because they either don't realize that the PDFs are generated from a (legacy) system that could output XLS/CSV, or because they fear that Excel sheets/text files are alterable. The benefit of having the law, though, makes it easier to convince officials to tell their IT people to get it right, under threat of lawsuit.

Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

#12

Post by lykr0n »

jcriddle4 wrote: post #8

Interesting that the Federal Reserve was exempted from this legislation.

The Federal Reserve [board] bases its data on data from the Reserve Banks (think Federal Reserve of New York)- which are private and get data from banks chartered in the region (so the New York Fed is partially owned by JP Morgan). Requiring the Federal Reserve [board] to release underlying data could get sticky and be a legal minefield.

Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

#13

Post by mikestew »

ekianjo wrote: post #4
pratheekrebala wrote: post #3

FOIA officers will still find a way to send me scanned PDFs of spreadsheets.

You obviously did not read the article. > public information should be open by default to the public in a machine-readable format, where such publication doesn’t harm privacy or security

Not only are you being rude by implying the article went unread, you’re also showing an astounding lack of imagination (perhaps stifled by a need to point out the errors of others). Parent is saying that despite whatever parts of the law you care to snarkily quote, government employees will find a way to screw it up.

Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

#14

Post by danso »

cptskippy wrote: post #10
danso wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, the author, Alex Howard (who I'm friends-via-Twitter with), is as familiar with this as anyone. He was previously a senior analyst at the Sunlight Foundation, which is a prominent open-government organization: https://sunlightfoundation.com/author/ahoward/ The submitted post includes a link [0] to an article he wrote a couple days back, which provides more context on "How did open government data get into the U…

> (who I'm friends-via-Twitter with) Full disclosure? Odd brag?

It's someone who I mostly learned/knew through social media and am friendly with, even though we've never worked together and maybe have met in person a couple times at conferences.

Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

#15

Post by Rexxar »

ekianjo wrote: post #4
pratheekrebala wrote: post #3

FOIA officers will still find a way to send me scanned PDFs of spreadsheets.

You obviously did not read the article. > public information should be open by default to the public in a machine-readable format, where such publication doesn’t harm privacy or security

Scanned pdf of a spreadsheet is clearly machine-readable, as you can read this document with your computer.

Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

#16

Post by cptskippy »

danso wrote: post #14
cptskippy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (who I'm friends-via-Twitter with) Full disclosure? Odd brag?

It's someone who I mostly learned/knew through social media and am friendly with, even though we've never worked together and maybe have met in person a couple times at conferences.

I wasn't sure if you were disclosing the relationship because of the nature of your comment or if you were just bragging about knowing them. It is/was odd.

Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

#17

Post by danso »

cptskippy wrote: post #16
danso wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's someone who I mostly learned/knew through social media and am friendly with, even though we've never worked together and maybe have met in person a couple times at conferences.

I wasn't sure if you were disclosing the relationship because of the nature of your comment or if you were just bragging about knowing them. It is/was odd.

My opinion is that he’s an expert on the legislation, but I wanted to be clear that I could be biased :)

Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

#19

Post by icebraining »

yohann305 wrote: post #18

I wonder if this open data can be (will be?) used by a foreign entity and be turned against the american people? It should be open but not free-for-all

"open but not free-for-all"

What would this mean in practice?

Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States

#20

Post by yohann305 »

icebraining wrote: post #19
yohann305 wrote: post #18

I wonder if this open data can be (will be?) used by a foreign entity and be turned against the american people? It should be open but not free-for-all

"open but not free-for-all" What would this mean in practice?

Available to us citizens only
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