Comment on open government data for today's forum

[Alexander Howard]

Dear Open Government Secretariat,

I look forward to seeing some or all of the Secretariat this afternoon
at the OpenGovHub. Thank you for your many efforts to reboot the
executive branch's work on open government.

I write today to comment on data transparency in the federal government.

In some ways, the situation in 2024 is radically better than it was in
2014, much less 2004.

Across the immense enterprise of the executive branch, agencies are
publishing data online at a scale that dwarfs the disclosures of years
past, from scientific data to regulatory disclosures to health data to
campaign finance data to education data and much, much more.

But in other ways, we are far behind where we should be. Far too much
information remains locked up in paper form, non-machine-readable or
proprietary formats, obscure servers, or overclassified systems.

It is most welcome that the U.S. government is investing more in data
science capacity to make open government data more understandable and
useful and to use modern Internet technologies to explain it. Many
agencies are already pursuing this work, notably the Treasury
Department at USASpending.gov.

But, as we wrote in response to the White House at the end of 2022, a
key commitment was not included in the reasoned response, despite it
being a clear priority of organizations committed to open government
for many years, nor the 5th NAP.
https://governing.digital/2023/01/18/the-white-houses-reasoned-response-dismissed-civil-society-priorities-and-undermined-the-open-government-partnership/

Conspicuously missing from this reasoned response and 5th NAP was a
commitment to issue guidance on the OPEN Government Data Act and
oversee its implementation, including ensuring every agency has a
Chief Data Officer who is wholly dedicated to improving public access,
usage, and understanding of public data.

This should have been a top-level commitment in this theme, alongside
other ambitious commitments to open government that our coalition
called for:
https://governing.digital/letters/letter-to-president-biden-on-advancing-ambitious-new-commitments-on-open-government-to-defend-democracy/

The General Accountability Office has been highlighting the need for
this guidance to improve federal information transparency for years
now, and yet, oddly, there is no OMB official scheduled to attend
today's forum to announce a draft policy for public comment, in the
spirit of open government.
https://www.gao.gov/federal-information-transparency

This void in White House leadership and lack of accountability for an
ongoing failure to deliver on Congressional mandate, unfortunately
calls into question this administration's actual commitment to data
transparency.

There should be a NAP5.5, with an official accountable for every
commitment and a commitment to publicly identify a human steward for
dataset listed on data.gov – likely an agency CDO – creating iterative
feedback loops between data stewards and the press, public, and other
stakeholders, including scientists and engineers.

Making the public information the federal government holds in trust
for the American people open to us online will require far more
resources, commitment, and leadership than are currently being applied
today. Fortunately, this goal is directly connected to making this
information AI-ready, as required under the executive order President
Biden issued. The recent RFC issued by the Department of Commerce
makes this explicit connection:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/17/2024-08168/ai-and-open-government-data-assets-request-for-information

It's long past time for the White House to issue guidance on open
government data and for the United States government to then
collectively move forward with making public information open and
accessible to the public it serves.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Respectfully,
Alex Howard