Tag Archives: open government

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.

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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 →

Biden administration asks for comment on broken commitments on open government

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WH.gov/open is still a 404.

In an email posted to a newsgroup addressed to the “open government community,” the General Services Adminstration asked for comment on which of the past commitments the United States has made to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) should be submitted for a “people’s choice award” at an international summit in December.

At a basic level, the problem with this outreach is many of the dozen listed commitments are of questionable value, or have been rescinded.

For instance, the United States withdrew from a flagship commitment when the Trump White House withdrew from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in 2017. The Institutional Review Mechanism should not have listed it.

“Amendments to the Freedom of Information Act” were not achieved through OGP: the Department of Justice lobbied against reforms, and the Obama White House did not push for reform, resulting in a weaker bill.

The Trump administration censored open climate data and pushed out climate scientists who collected and published it, instead of “promoting” it. The former president directed hatred towards a whistleblower who came forward about the president’s corruption, instead of strengthening whistleblower protections. And so on.

The fact that the IRM put these commitments forward at all places considerable doubt on whether the IRM researchers are accurate arbiters of US government performance or record. It also casts doubt on whether the Biden administration is willing or able to be an honest broker regarding what’s happened to open government initiatives or policies over the past decade. The tepid criticism in the most recent IRM report on the U.S. government’s record on open government, from 2019, did not acknowledge the Trump administration’s attacks on transparency, much less the impact on public trust that would later be so devastating in the pandemic.

At a higher level, however, the fundamental problem in September 2021 is that the Biden White House has not publicly or privately re-engaged with many of the good governance watchdogs and open government advocates that have repeatedly called on the administration to act on the reforms.

To echo an indictment of the last administration’s “opacity by obscurity,” not introducing this call for comment on open government commitments at a press conference and taking questions on it falls far short of the bare minimum we should expect of the United States government. If it’s not issued in the the Federal Register or blogged about at WhiteHouse.gov, why should Americans take it seriously?

That’s a compounding mistake. Instead of rebuilding the broken trust between US government, the people it serves, and the reformers who seek to strengthen it, the White House is not using its convening power or capacity to be publicly responsive to the legitimate concerns of watchdogs exhausted by years of devolving good governance.

There is no reason that GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan, an honorable human with a long record of public service, should not have done so, save that it would be more appropriate if it was coming from the White House. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have had little to say or do regarding the multi-stakeholder initiative that the current administrator for U.S. Agency for International Development once called President Obama’s “signature good governance initiative.”

After the most corrupt administration in U.S. history showed the dire weaknesses in a system built upon adherence voluntary democratic norms, that has been a profound disappointment for anyone that hoped to see more than a return to the mixed record of the Obama administration. President Biden and Vice President Harris should be holding U.S. government accountable with executive action.

They should be marshaling support for legislative and regulatory reforms externally, & making it clear to faithful civil servants and allies internally that this White House is committed to cultural changes as well, after years fear and chaos, by putting officials on the record and appointing senior ethics officials.

They also should be honest about how past reforms came to pass, what came of them, and what has happened to them since. Neither Data.gov nor USASpending.gov were achieved as the “result” of OGP. White House petitions were ignored under the Trump administration and have not been brought back by this one. So why are all three listed on the GSA’s open government page?

It’s worth noting that this void in public engagement itself violates the final commitment in the most recent National Action Plan for Open Government, which was to Expand Public Participation in Developing Future U.S. National Action Plans:

“Citizen engagement and public participation area among the most important elements of the NAP co-creation process. During the development of this NAP4,everyday Americans provided some of the most thoughtful and engaging ideas. As we begin to contemplate a fifth national action plan, we will prioritize including a more geographically diverse and diffuse representation of citizen stakeholders in the development of the document.We will aim to conduct a series of consultation sessions, in-person meetings,and livestreamed discussions around the country to generate ideas, encourage public input, and engage in conversations with the most important stakeholder–the American public.”

None of that happened after the plan was released in early 2019.

An administration genuinely “committed to transparency” and good governance can and must build back better, from the Office of Management and Budget issuing guidance on the Open Government Data Act (and enforcing it) to shifting its posture on declassification and the Freedom of Information Act.

It’s time for this White House to provide much more than diplomatic cover at the State Department for the civil servants who kept both the spirit and practice of open government alive over the past four years.

There’s no shortage of good ideas, only the political will and personnel capacity dedicated to implementing them.

In 2021, We the People need a Public Chair to ask the White House public questions and pose petitions

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Today, the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the White House is open to bringing back the “Skype seat” again and to taking questions from it. Psaki noted she took Q’s on Twitter — she then replied to … Continue reading →

Open letter on open government to Press Secretary Psaki and White House officials

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Dear Secretary Psaki and the Office of the Press Secretary, My name is Alexander B Howard; you may have noticed me tweeting at you this past couple months during the transition and now the administration. I came to DC over … Continue reading →

In a dual crisis of of pandemic and protest, DC extends “vote-by-email” to people who requested an absentee ballot

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Digital democracy reforms tends to advance or retreat in fits and starts, but when exigent circumstances require more from us and our governments, change can happen unexpectedly. On May 26, I requested an absentee ballot, intending to cast my vote … Continue reading →