From The Center for Public Integrity:
Two southern states — Louisiana and Mississippi — made the biggest strides in the Center for Public Integrity’s latest financial disclosure rankings for state legislators, but 20 out of the 50 states still received a failing grade and three of those states have no disclosure requirements at all.
Archive of entries posted on June 2009
Louisiana, Mississippi Movin’ Up; 20 States Still Flunk
Putting Government Data online
Notes from Tim Berners-Lee:
Government data is being put online to increase accountability, contribute valuable information about the world, and to enable government, the country, and the world to function more efficiently. All of these purposes are served by putting the information on the Web as Linked Data. Start with the “low-hanging fruit”. Whatever else, the [...]
Washington Supreme Court hears case on Internet filters
From the Seattle Times:
The state Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether it’s constitutional for public libraries to refuse to disable their Internet filters for adults who want access to sites that have been blocked.
Stars and Stripes accuses U.S. military of censorship in Iraq
From CNN:
Stars and Stripes, the newspaper that receives U.S. military funding to help it cover and get distributed free to American forces in war zones, complained Tuesday of censorship by military authorities in Iraq.
In a story on its Web site, the newspaper known as Stripes said the military violated a congressional mandate of editorial independence [...]
From Canada – National archives reviews purchases of paper materials in digital age
From the Canadian Broadcasting Company:
Library and Archives Canada has put a moratorium on buying paper documents and books for its collection.
Doug Rimmer, assistant deputy minister of programs and services at Library and Archives Canada, told CBC News this week the moratorium is temporary and only applies to items it buys. It will still acquire documents [...]
Electronic disclosure bill gains support
From Politico:
The Senate is finally standing on the cusp of the electronic age.
A few weeks after Speaker Nancy Pelosi mandated that House expense reports be published online, the Senate is considering going digital with its own expenditures, and there are serious negotiations to finally pass a bill that would also mandate Senate fundraising reports be [...]
Rudd Government Launches Government 2.0 Taskforce
Press Release:
A taskforce to investigate how the Australian Government can use new ‘Web 2.0’ approaches to expand the uses of Commonwealth information and improve the way government consults and engages with citizens was launched today by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner, and the Special Minister of State, Senator Joe Ludwig.
The Government has a database for most everything
From Politico:
The government has answers. Lots of answers. Wondering which airline is the most stingy with passenger snacks? No problem. Want to know how many people were injured by vending machines last year? Got that, too.
Agencies and departments already boast countless registries and databases of seemingly bizarre, seemingly useless information, but lawmakers continue to call [...]
Debate flares on net rules
From The Australian:
Sydney will this week host a heated international debate on the regulation of the internet, as its peak governance body resists pressure from Europe to become more independent of the US.
The private, non-profit body ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which runs the internet’s network address system under contract from the [...]
French Govt Reworks ‘Three-Strikes’ Law
From Billboard:
The “three-strikes” saga continues in France following the Constitutional Council’s recent decision canceling the sanction side of the bill, with the government attempting to find a way around the legal ruling.
While the educational part of the bill, which allows the administrative authority Hadopi to issue warnings to infringers, had been passed into law, a [...]