[Editor: This is a guest post by Kel McClanahan, the executive director of National Security Counselors and an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School, where he teaches Law of Secrecy. He can be found on Twitter at … Continue reading
Congress has quietly made an open, license-free identifier for the recipients of federal grants the default option for agencies in the United States. While truly open grant data is not mandatory, every agency must now decide whether to use non-proprietary … Continue reading
This week, a new Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took the oath of office, but not the access credentials for @FDACommissioner on Twitter. Instead, Dr. Stephen M. Hahn began tweeting at @SteveFDA, after FDA staff changed the … Continue reading
Government secrecy, as measured by censorship or non-responsiveness under the Freedom of Information Act, is at an all-time high during the Trump administration. The Freedom of Information Act is getting worse under Trump for a variety of reasons. Continued secrecy … Continue reading
Like Google, Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat now has an online political ad library. That’s good news: every technology company that accept money to run issues and campaign ads should have a political ad file – particularly one that has aspirations … Continue reading
Under President Donald J. Trump, the American government has moved back from being more open to more closed, as Congressional hearings and watchdogs have documented since January 2017. The Trump administration has undermined trust in both government and the press. … Continue reading
In one hearing room at the U.S. Capitol, the Select Committee on Modernization held a relatively hearing on modernizing legislative information technology. In the other, another hearing showed why upgrading our Congress is needed as soon as possible, when a … Continue reading
In a world where corruption and maladministration allow injustice, tolerate criminality, or even lead to avoidable deaths, what public officials do on social media can fly under the radar as a matter deserving public attention. And yet, the United States … Continue reading
Today in Washington, DC, the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Data Coalition are hosting a public forum for feedback on the draft action plan for the new federal data strategy. Remote access is available for those … Continue reading
In May 2019, a new White House campaign to collect data on social media bias is raising free speech and privacy alarms – and the Trump administration has been far less than transparent about the project’s purpose or the policies … Continue reading
