Tag Archives: open government

Coalition asks Open Government Partnership to place the U.S. government under review

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White House fence, DC, 2025

In March 2025, a coalition of organizations and individuals who work on government transparency and accountability in the United States respectfully requested the Open Government Partnership (OGP) to immediately place the United States government under review for actions contrary to the principles and policies of the partnership. 

US Orgs Ask Open Government Partnership to Place US Government Under Review

The OGP Steering Committee declined to do so, citing lack of precedent in its letter, despite the USA repeatedly acting “contrary to process” in the design & implementation of the 4th & 5th U.S. National Action Plans from 2017 to 2023.

Click to access USA_Contrary-to-Process-Letter_20230811.pdf

In a new letter transmitted today, Daniel Schuman, and Alexander B. Howard, founder of this very publication, filed an addendum identifying instances of the Trump administration violating the principles of the Open Government Partnership, as requested by the OGP Secretariat. 

OGP Must Act Concerning US Government Backsliding on Open Government Principles

We once again respectfully requested the OGP Steering Committee formally trigger a response policy case regarding the United States’ departure from OGP values.

It is our view that the U.S. government should have remained under review after the Trump administration openwashed participation, submitted a weak, prebaked plan, and made a mockery of good governance during the pandemic in 2020. 

The Biden administration’s failed consultation and similarly weak, prebaked plan did not right the ship of state over the past four years. Instead, the President directed public attention, news media reporting, state capacity, and global government participation to the “Summit for Democracy,” and deprived OGP domestically of all of them. 

In effect, former President Biden and his advisors created a weaker multistakeholder initiative without a secretariat, steering committee, independent review mechanism, or policies for membership, co-creation, implementation, review, or suspension, which has now been relegated to history.

While the Open Government Secretariat and Open Government Advisory Committee were founded by the Biden administration in 2023 and 2024, to address serious deficiencies in process and outcomes, enabling a more robust co-creation process for the 6th NAP, both Secretariat and Advisory Committee were dissolved in 2025. 

The GSA is now misrepresenting US government activity, falsely claiming on its website that there is a “current plan” and that staff are “leading reporting on existing commitments in existing national action plans” (none since 2024), “conducting engagement sessions with civic organizations and members of federal, state, and local governments” (none since 2024), and “actively collaborating with the public (no evidence). 

The OGP Steering Committee should recognize that unprecedented actions in the USA require a more robust response than continued silence and inaction. Thank you to everyone who continues to serve in our union and around the world.

At Congressional Transparency Caucus event, experts warn of increased secrecy & corruption

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On June 10, 2025, the U.S. House Transparency Caucus hosted a discussion about current issues, promising proposals, and ongoing successes in government transparency in the Rayburn building.

Our founder was present to record the event and pose questions. Video is embedded below.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WjVGQyh7yco

Congressman Mike Quigley (D-IL-5), chair and founder of the Transparency Caucus, gave opening remarks about the importance of open government in American democracy, reflecting on his experiences in Chicago and Washington, DC.

The cost of corruption is dollars, but the real cost of corruption is the loss of public trust. That trust has been on steady decline for the last 20 years,” said Quigley. “If we can improve the openness in communication between the government and the people, we can build a government that works better for the people.”

Panel Participants:
-Courtney Bublé (Moderator), Congress Reporter with Law360
-Lauren Harper, Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy with the Freedom of the Press Foundation
-Demian Brady, Vice President of Research with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation
-Jason Powell, Policy Director with the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)

“Another thing we need to pay attention to is the destruction of records and agencies discontinuing the practice of maintaining certain records,” said Harper. “You can not get a FOIA response if an agency has destroyed those documents. Or if it has opted to stop creating those records.”

Members of Congress “don’t lose their pensions until they’re finally convicted. That means many can sit in jail, and appeal, and still collect their taxpayer-funded pension,” said Brady. “The last piece of transparency we need for that is from the Office of Personnel Management, but they haven’t answered my emails since 2020.”

“Sunlight in government is essential to a functioning democracy,” said Powell. “As part of DOGE’s efforts to reshape the government, on April 1st the CDC’s entire FOIA office was suspended without prior notice or without a plan for how the statutorily required work would continue. The CDC is now not able to respond to new [FOIA] requests, existing requests, or make statutorily-required proactive disclosures.”

More information on the House Transparency Caucus is available at Congressman Quigley’s website.

More information on the Advisory Committee for Transparency is available at transparencycaucus. info

U.S. National Archives reminds all officials that public records on Signal must be preserved under the law

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On April 25, 2025, the senior advisor to the acting Archivist of the United States (AOTUS) sent a memorandum to the heads of federal departments and agencies on the management responsibilities they have with respect to electronic messages that constitute public records.

In the memorandum (below), Jim Byron, Senior Advisor to Secretary Marco Rubio, Acting AOTUS, reminds agencies the obligation all officials have to memorialize official business conducted on a personal device or account by forwarding or copying an official account with the electronic correspondence.

Byron observes that “the use of the auto-delete function on digital messaging applications may prevent agency officials from meeting this critical obligation, possibly resulting in the permanent loss of federal records,” but this conflicts common sense.

The memorandum does not reference the March 25, 2025 guidance from the White House to staff at the U.S. DOGE Service, which is far clearer.

That policy emphasizes that “the basic rule is to preserve all work-related communications and records, regardless of format.” 

Messages that constitute public business that are sent on personal devices and on Signal must be archived, which means any auto-delete feature in the app should be disabled, not enabled by default — including those in the chat Acting Archivist Rubio was on with the National Security Advisor.

Screenshot of NARA memo header

Federal Records Management Responsibilities for Agencies

Congratulations to all of you on your recent appointments to federal service.

I write to make you aware of resources that are available to you and your employees regarding records management in your agencies.

All federal employees create and manage records as an integral part of their responsibilities in performing agency missions. Federal records protect the rights and interests of the public, allow officials to be held accountable for their actions, and document our nation’s history. Also, good records management helps your agency operate more effectively and efficiently.

It is crucial agency heads work with their Senior Agency Official for Records Management and Agency Records Officers to communicate the importance of their records management responsibilities to all staff, including political appointees.

Together, federal agencies and the National Archives work toward government transparency, public engagement, and accountability by promoting our obligations under the Federal Records Act (FRA). The FRA, at 44 U.S.C. § 3101, charges you, as the agency head, with creating and preserving federal records containing adequate and proper documentation of the agency’s activities so that the legal and financial rights of the Government and individuals affected by the agency’s activities are protected.

The emergence of —and increasing reliance upon — new forms of electronic communication can make records management more challenging, but no less important. The FRA imposes strict requirements on the use of personal accounts to conduct agency business. If any agency employee uses a personal account to engage in official business, they must copy an official account or forward their message to an official account within 20 days. 44 U.S.C. § 2911.

The use of the auto-delete function on digital messaging applications may prevent agency officials from meeting this critical obligation, possibly resulting in the permanent loss of federal records.

It is thus vital that you ensure staff are properly trained on their FRA obligations. Agency heads must ensure that their records management programs provide effective control over the creation and maintenance of records, 44 U.S.C. § 3102, and safeguard against the removal or loss of records, 44 U.S.C. § 3105.

We encourage you to take prompt action to ensure that your recordkeeping policies are up-to-date, and that they adequately educate agency staff how to create, maintain, and dispose of federal records, especially when using third-party apps. Additional details about the appropriate maintenance of electronic records, including metadata retention requirements, can be located at 36 CFR Part 1236.

Questions related to FRA compliance may also arise when agencies transfer their functions to other agencies. Agencies must ensure that:

Paper and electronic records are properly identified and segregated from non-records, as those terms are defined by federal law;

Temporary paper and electronic records are only disposed of in accordance with a NARA-approved agency-specific or General Records Schedule; and

Paper and electronic records are transferred to another federal entity, inactive storage, or NARA only in accordance with the procedures outlined in 36 CFR Parts 123 | to 1235.

NARA will be issuing additional guidance and resources to assist agencies with fulfilling their records management responsibilities when consolidating and reorganizing.

Thank you for your attention to these matters. If you have any questions about your agency’s records management responsibilities or would like to discuss anything further, I invite you to contact William Fischer, Acting Chief Records Officer at NARA, at william.fischer@nara.gov.

cc

Senior Agency Officials for Records Management Agency Records Officers

General Counsels

Why the Trump White House is neither the most transparent nor most accessible ever

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188 years ago, President Andrew Jackson had a 1,400-pound block of cheddar cheese brought to the foyer of the White House and opened the People’s House to thousands of Americans to talk with him and his staff. That remains the “most accessible” White House ever.

In 2025, the Trump White House isn’t disclosing visitor logs, ethics waivers, financial records, or presidential tax returns.

Propaganda on state social media

The record shows the Press Secretary’s claim that they are the “most transparent White House in history” to be false.

Interviews with dozens of friendly influencers doesn’t make a White House historicallly transparent.

Disclosing open data, reports, and discussions an administration do not have to post helps.

Forcing staff to sign nondisclosure agreements… doesn’t. Nondisclosure agreements in the Trump White House were an unconstitutional restraint on the free expression of public servants. NDAs alone invalidated historic claims of transparency.

If this White House is using NDAs, renewed claims of historic transparency are even more ludicrous.

The “most transparent administration in history” would honor the Presidential Records Act and fire a National Security Advisor who set records to auto-delete in a Signal chat, not tolerate lawlessness.

Why the Open Government Partnership is failing to have a positive impact in the United States

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On Monday morning, I read Daniel Schuman’s excellent newsletter focused on the First Branch of the United States government, which included a section that collected several notable developments in the open government space. These updates include: 

  1. The launch of the General Services Administration (GSA) Open Government Secretariat’s new website. This website replaces the now defunct page at open.usa.gov — which not to be confused with the GSA’s old and degraded open government website at GSA.gov/open which is required under the Open Government Directive. This new website does not list public meetings that were held prior to 2021 in its public engagement section, neatly memory-holing what occurred under the Trump and Obama administrations. (There will continue to be readouts available about that history on this website, however, for as long as it stays online.) I was interviewed about this new open government website for the GSA; I’m sorry to report that it does not include many of the government-wide resources and initiatives I’d requested. Instead, it’s primarily focused on compliance with the Open Government Partnership’s requirements to maintain an online repository of commitments, as is the Secretariat itself. Daniel has curated a useful set of links related to open government that’s more up to date than the GSA page,
  2. The GSA’s formal Request for Comment on the 6th National Action Plan for Open Government in the Federal Register, with the statement that “the United States Federal Government is initiating the co-creation process for its 6th U.S. Open Government National Action Plan” and seeks feedback by November 16th.
  3. The membership of the new Open Government Federal Advisory Committee, which Daniel now chairs. Speaking at at the iirst meeting of the FOIA Advisory Committee for the 2024-2026 term, Alina Semo, director of the Office of Government Information Services, said that the first public meeting of this new OG FAC will be in October – I believe on the 23rd. That has not been publicly announced, yet.

Generally speaking, this is all good news. I want to highlight a specific issue, however, which is crucial to understanding why the Open Government has not had the positive effects in the United States that people in other nations participating in the global multi-stakeholder initiative have seen: Neither Congress nor the judicial branch has ever been involved. 

Daniel has framed the Secretariat’s efforts as an “executive branch” plan, which isn’t inaccurate within the scope of the mission that has been defined for them by GSA leadership — and presumably this White House:

But saying that OGP is only about the executive branch of the federal government in the United States reflects also a specific design and governance choice that the Obama White House made. That choice has undermined the impact, influence, and relevance of the Partnership in the United States ever since, given that neither the Trump administration nor Biden administration took any action to change it.

I raised this issue in April at the Transparency Caucus briefing in Congress. Jump ahead to 54:30, where I ask if U.S participation in the Open Government Partnership is “doomed” unless we see a President engaging the American people about it and Congress involved.

There are other factors that have led to the ongoing failure of OGP in the United States. The Open Government Partnership commissioned research in 2020 that explored that question and called on the U.S. government to “seize the moment” in spring of 2021, which I participated in. 

Unfortunately, as with the recommendations for how the United States could lead by example that I made in June 2023, few of the policy or process recommendations were adopted by the Biden administration.

Neither Trump nor Biden ever called on all Americans to participate on air, online, or on the world stage using the bully pulpit, online or off. Championship sports teams and athletes have gotten far more presidential recognition – and thus public attention – than open government has since 2016. (Before, too, if we’re being honest, but former President Obama’s participation in a UN event in New York City in 2015 with other world leaders elevated this work far more than anyone since.)

Neither White House ever effectively engaged the American public, press, or media companies about OGP. They never formed partnerships with tech companies or non-government organizations that work on or deploy civic technologies like pol.is, while resetting the official defaults for public communications from the administration to opacity, “on background.”

The Biden White House ignored coalition letters and refused to co-create commitments, revise them, or add new ones based on our priorities.

Instead of “standing with the people demanding transparency” and accountability from our government – as President Biden called on everyone to do in December 2021, presumably including his own administration – the White House has mostly maintained strategic silence, leaving it to an extraordinary public servant – GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan – to gamely lead these efforts without top-down air cover.

The cumulative outcome of leadership, design, and governance choices over the last decade has meant that OGP’s platform or processes have not been a useful platform to reverse low trust and faith in U.S. government, despite the vigorous efforts of civil servants who remained engaged or scrubbed in, in hopes of helping keep it alive in other nations where the visibility was helpful to members of civil society there. 

More than three years on, the future of OGP in the USA still depends on White House leadership — but it will be the next administration that co-creates that future or abandons it — unless President Biden decides to make open governance a priority in the last months of his term with the executive actions we’ve been calling for since he won election in November 2020.   

The future of the Open Government Partnership depends on White House leadership

I look forward to reading more responses to the GSA RFI that explore why OGP hasn’t worked in the USA, which the federal government and philanthropic community can apply to making this work meaningful in the future. No one involved wants to spend more time on an approach to open government that’s flailing.

Now that the GSA has officially kicked off the co-creation process, nongovernmental organizations, the press, and the American public will all need to decide whether legitimizing OGP through our participation is worth or not it in 2025.

The first step is in highlighting why OGP has failed to deliver the results domestically that former President Obama’s “signature good governance” initiative has provided internationally.

If the next President is not willing to reify OGP through their personal participation, making clear that policy, programs, and legislative reforms are on the table, and then acts to expand OGP’s remit to Congress and the courts, set your expectations for impact in the United States accordingly.

Open Government Partnership IRM recommends US government revise approach

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There are reasons to be hopeful about open government as the United States as the new year begins, but also cause for grave concern. In December 2023, researchers at the Independent Review Mechanism (IRM) of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) confirmed what good governance advocates have said since 2017: the federal government is still not meeting the standards for open government domestically that the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) encourages other nations to adopt internationally.

Instead of standing with people demanding transparency from U.S. government, as President Biden encouraged other nations to do in December 2021, the White House refused to hold meetings in person in 2022 and 2023 and to incorporate the priorities of the (dwindling number of) good governance organizations and individuals willing to participate in voluntary multi-stakeholder processes after years of eroding trust and inaction.

Instead of seizing the moment and reviving the process with renewed leadership, the Biden administration starved OGP of attention, capacity, and relevance while creating a far weaker multi-stakeholder initiative, the Summit for Democracy.

The White House did not co-create a new “National Action Plan” for Open Government in 2022 with the American people and then announce it in a press conference, embrace accountability for the failures of the previous administration, and then use participation and collaboration to build back public trust.

Instead, the IRM found that the White House pre-drafted and then published a report full of vague, mostly pre-existing commitments – including many that were not relevant to government transparency and accountability – ignored expert feedback regarding opaque processes and flawed product, and then published yet another weak open government plan online over the holidays in December 2022.

This is unfortunately not novel. The OGP IRM has found the United States to have repeatedly acted contrary to process for years now. Nonetheless OGP restored the country to good standing after the Trump White House delivered a new plan in 2019 – despite ample cause for keeping a corrupt, secretive administration under review prior to a historic pandemic and attempted auto-coup.

After documenting the White House’s failures to engage the American public at scale, collaborate in choosing and drafting commitments on transparency and accountability, disclose comments, or provide a reasoned response for ignoring the consensus recommendations of good governance organizations, researchers at the Open Government Partnership Independent Review Mechanism recommended that the U.S. government collaborate with civil society to identify verifiable commitments with the most potential and refine them in 2024. 

In their report, the IRM identified six “promising commitments” in a policy area that important to stakeholders or the national context which are verifiable, have an open government lens, and modest or substantial potential for results: 

  • Commitment 1: Production, dissemination, and use of equitable data 
  • Commitment 4: Public access to federally funded research 
  • Commitment 8: Data for environmental justice Commitment 18: Government-wide anti-corruption strategy 
  • Commitment 27: Access to government information through FOIA 
  • Commitment 35: Effective and accountable policing and criminal justice

The good governance community also called on the US government to add new commitments to the 5th NAP in August, which the White House has so far declined to do — despite a mechanism that would allow it, as in the 3rd NAP. 

Letter to President Biden on Advancing Ambitious New Commitments on Open Government to Defend Democracy

Unfortunately, the White House has yet to acknowledge the (incredibly) constructive criticism from the researchers by revising selected commitments – much less added new ones, as the Obama White House did in 2016.

Instead, the administration invested a million dollars to fund an Open Government Secretariat within the General Services Administration to track progress on the commitments the White House chose and host a series of virtual seminars in 2023, complying with the bare minimum of the Open Government Partnership’s requirements for documenting implementation.

The Biden administration also has yet to respond formally to the “contrary to process” letter the Partnership sent in August or the letter a coalition of good governance groups sent to the President, bring senior officials to in-person roundtables in DC and around the nation, fix an opaque process, and heal badly broken relationships.

There continue to be good faith efforts across the agencies in the executive branch, from the National Archives to the General Services Administration, but strategic silence from the White House on open government has signaled to civil society and officials alike that this is not a priority.

If the President and his advisors see the value of investing political capitol, oversight capacity, and top-level leadership in open government across the federal government, change is possible. It’s crucial to provide dedicated civil servants with the air cover and capacity to do the work necessary to bring dormant or dissolved policies, programs, and partnerships back online to build resilience against headwinds for American democracy at home and abroad.

If the United States does not lead by the power of our example in 2024, our government will lose an opportunity to build trust in democratic governance through accountability and increase resilience against authoritarianism though transparency.

The Department of Justice’s “FOIA Wizard” isn’t a magical solution for White House strategic silence on open government

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In December 2021, President Biden urged “every nation in the Open Government Partnership to take up a call to action to fight the scourge of corruption, to “stand with those in civil society and courageous citizens around the world who are demanding transparency of their governments,” and to “all work together to hold governments accountable for the people they serve.”

Almost two years later, the United States is still not leading by the power of our example by including the priorities of US civil society organizations in additional commitments and engaging the American people and press using the bully pulpit of the White House, despite rejoining the Open Government Partnership’s Steering Committee.

What was missing from President Biden’s remarks at the Open Government Summit

That disconnect was evident at a public meeting with the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) on September 26, 2023. Members of the public and press who are interested in a first look at the Freedom of Information “Wizard” the OIP has been building with Forum One Communications can watch recorded video of the meeting on YouTube, along with DoJ’s work on common business standards and the “self-assessment toolkit” the agency updated. All three of these pre-existing initiatives were submitted as commitments on FOIA in the 5th U.S. National Action Plan for Open Government last December.

The General Services Administration’s new Open Government Secretariat will post a “meeting record” at open.usa.gov — their summary of what happened — though it’s not online yet. (Slides are online, along with agenda and screenshots.)

We posed a number of questions via chat that Lindsey Steel from OIP acknowledged, though not always directly answered — like the U.S. government not co-creating any of the FOIA commitments that were being discussed with civil society, in the Open Government Partnership model. (Unlike other previous public meetings in 2022 and 2023, members of civil society were given the opportunity to ask questions on video.)

While it’s both useful and laudable for OIP to take public questions on its work, the pre-baked commitments they presented on were not responsive to the significant needs of a historic moment in which administration of the Freedom of Information Act appears broken to many close observers, and follow an opaque, flawed consultation that was conducted neither in the spirit nor co-creation standards of the Open Government Partnership itself.

While the Open Government Partnership’s Independent Review Mechanism is far slower that press cycles in 2023, the independent researchers there have caught up with the USA’s poor performance since 2016. (Unfortunately, the OGP’s Independent Review Mechanism and Steering Committee’s governance processes both move too slowly to sanction governments during or after the co-creation process for failing to meet co-creation standards in a way that would have empowered US civil society in 2022.)

In a letter dated August 13, 2023, the Open Government Partnership formally informed the US government on August that it has acted contrary to process in its co-creation of.4th National Action Plan for Open Government and implementation of the plan.

The U.S. government’s response did not directly acknowledge any of the substantive criticism in the IRM or by good government watchdogs, much less announce a plan to address its failure to co-create a 5th National Action Plan last fall by coming back to the table.

Instead, the General Services Administration simply promised to do better in 2024 in a 6th plan and to keep updating the public on the work U.S. government was already doing.

The request of the coalition prior to the Open Government Partnership Summit was for the U.S. government to come back to the table and co-create new commitments that are representative of our priorities, not to continue hosting virtual webinars at which civil servants provide “updates” on pre-existing commitments in order to be in compliance with the bare minimum that OGP asks of participating nations.

With respect to FOIA, doing more than the minimum would look like the White House making new commitments to effective implementation of the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 and the Open Government Data Act through executive actions, including:

  • Building on U.S. Attorney General’s memorandum mandating the presumption of openness and ensure fair and effective FOIA administration.
  • Convening the U.S. Digital Service, 18F, and the nation’s civic tech community to work on improving FOIA.gov, using the same human-centric design principles for improved experience that are being applied to service delivery across U.S. government.
  • Making sure FOIA.gov users can search for records across reading rooms, Data.gov, USASpending.gov, and other federal data repositories.
  • Restoring a Cross-Agency Priority goal for FOIA.
  • Advising agencies to adopt the US FOIA Advisory Committee recommendations.
  • Tracking agency spending on FOIA and increase funding to meet the demand.
  • Directing the Department of Justice to roll out the “release-to-one, release-to-all” policy for FOIA piloted at the direction of President Obama, which the State Department has since adopted.
  • Collecting and publishing data on which records are being purchased under the FOIA by commercial enterprises for non-oversight purposes, and determine whether that data can or should be proactively disclosed.
  • Funding and building dedicated, secure online services for people to gain access to immigration records and veterans records — as the DHS Advisory Committee recommended — instead of forcing them to use the FOIA.
  • Commiting to extending the FOIA to algorithms and revive Code.gov as a repository for public sector code.”

We continue to hope that President Biden will take much more ambitious actions on government transparency, accountability, participation, and collaboration in order to restore broken public trust in our federal government, acting as a bulwark against domestic corruption and authoritarianism.

White House “virtual listening session” on new OIRA guidance on broadening public engagement in rulemaking

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This post contains an audio recording (above) of a public Zoom call held on July 20, 2023 to update Americans on select commitments in the 5th U.S. National Action Plan for Open Government, more than six months after the White House published the plan online at the end of December 2022.

Officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) presented on their work on commitments to make the voices of the public heard.

The first half of the forum discussed new guidance on broadening public engagement in the regulatory process issued on July 2019, followed by questions about developing a framework for engagement for use across the federal government. OMB requests feedback on the questions below to go to publicparticipation@omb.eop.gov.

  1. Should the Federal government adopt a common framework for participation and engagement? What might such a framework include?
  2. How would you design an ideal process to develop such a framework?
  3. What points in the process (e.g., outline, first draft, final draft) are most important for public engagement?
  4. What engagement formats or activities would be most effective for developing a Federal framework?
  5. What might the Federal government do to make it easier for people to participate?

Our view? OMB should go back to the future. Review the Public Participation Playbook the Obama White House developed with the public in 2015, as part of the US government’s efforts to open government. Then, working in collaboration with the Office of Public Engagement, host a series of open government roundtables with the nation’s leading authorities on civic engagement and public participation in 2023 and 2024 that inform guidance for the federal government.

Officials might review what approaches were effective in engaging Americans with public health information in the pandemic, voting information, and extreme weather — and which were not.

That work should be part of a new open government plans at OMB and OSTP that are hosted at whitehouse.gov/open, showing President Biden’s commitment to government transparency like whitehouse.gov/equity shows his administration’s commitment to equity.

Screenshots of the presentation follow. (Our apologies: we missed slide 3 and 9.)

Should this White House publish slides or notes from this public session on its work implementing open government commitments, we will update this post.

(Officials said that the session was not recorded, so we are providing the above resources for the Americans who were unable to attend or who did not hear about this opportunity to engage with OMB and OIRA about broadening public engagement because this administration did not engage the public. As you’ll hear in the recording, the public participants in this listening session offered praise for the guidance and suggestions for improvement tempered with critiques of the opaque process, poor communications about the forum, and dissatisfaction at the lack of a cohesive way to track and understand this administration’s work on government transparency and accountability.)

How open government can prevent digital redlining

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[Graphic from The Markup’s investigation of secret bias.]

On the morning of March 16, the Data Coalition hosted a public forum on how to use artificial intelligence in public sector regulation. As the Coalition notes, Congress enacted the National AI Initiative Act and the AI in Government Act in 2020, which required the Biden administration to launch of the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) Task Force. The following remarks focus upon how open government can prevent digital redlining, as prepared for delivery in six minutes or less.

—

Today is National Freedom of Information Day, chosen in honor of President James Madison’s birthday, often cited as a founding father of open government in the United States. https://themarkup.org/denied/2021/08/25/the-secret-bias-hidden-in-mortgage-approval-algorithms

This public forum is happening during Sunshine Week, when we celebrate the public’s right to know and access to information.

That gives us a wonderful opportunity to talk more about how government transparency and disclosure can accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) while protecting privacy, security, and human rights.

As law becomes encoded by technology, code has become law. 

Accelerating AI in the public sector must not come at the expense of human rights, civil liberties, or the public’s right to know, which are central to democratic societies.

AI will be part of everyday life, but public sector algorithms have special importance: people don’t have a choice. From making unemployment decisions to getting loans to parole hearings to education and work, code is going to govern how we live, work, play, learn, and govern.

Public sector algorithms must be auditable to ensure that existing inequity and injustice is not codified in a rush to modernize. 

Open data and open source code can reveal and check algorithmic bias and racial, gender, or religious discrimination in public services, accommodations, and access to information.

Over the last five years, other nations have enacted laws and regulations that focus on the transparency, participation, and accountability of public sector algorithms, from France to the  Netherlands to New Zealand. 

In France, the Digital Republic Law mandates transparency of government-used algorithms. Public agencies are required to publicly list any algorithmic tools they use, and to publish their rules.

Imagine Congress ordering federal agencies to do so at Code.gov, and OMB forcing the issue.

Imagine an explicit extension of the Freedom of Information Act to code and meta data.

Imagine investment in the human and technical capacity of the SEC, FEC, & FTC to audit the use of AI across societies.

Imagine every city, state and democratic nation joining a global open algorithms network and committing to engaging everyone governed by code and upholding the rights of the people in these new systems.

Imagine a democratic vision for AI in the public sector that centers on human rights and the needs of the public to know in order to be self-governing, instead of authoritarian coercion, control, secrecy, opacity, and secrecy

The federal data strategy was part of the 4th National Action Plan for Open Government for the Open Government Partnership.

How many of you have ever heard of it? Please ask your colleagues in government when the General Services Administration and White House will begin co-creating a 5th plan that includes commitments on AI and democracy.

This Sunshine Week, please commit to pushing our government of, by, and for the people to collaborate WITH the people in developing legislation and rules that govern its use, codifying our “bill of rights” into the technologies we develop and use every day. 

What was missing from President Biden’s remarks at the Open Government Summit

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On December 15th, President Joe Biden delivered pre-recorded remarks to the Open Government Partnership Summit, an international conference that convened dozens of nations in South Korea to discuss the past, present, and future of open government. It’s not clear how … Continue reading →