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Title

Opening Government Through Technology

Timestamp
Published at 10:23 PM on November 9, 2008
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There are 4 comments on this post. Add yours.
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Content

One of my favorite things about President-elect Obama is that he is the first president to truly understand the power of technology — to a large extent, it got him elected. Already, he is beginning to bring his powerful technology platform into government. I hope by that the end of his term we will see government data opened up with accessible and non-proprietary formats (like XML) which can be accessed by all citizens. The availability of this data will truly give news organizations, technologists, and students new ways to easily and effectively monitor government activity. Ethan Bodnar has written an excellent letter which reflects these principles and offers specific advice on what to do. Thankfully, these changes can easily be implemented, given the right team, and are (or should be) decidedly nonpartisan. I hope President-elect Obama learns from his success with technology on the campaign trail and brings that same edge to government.

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There are 4 comments on this post. You can add your own below.
Name
luke
Site
thebigsqueak.com
Timestamp
7:56 PM on November 11, 2008
Content
I would love if Obama made all government records available in xml. It is such a great format. It is good to see that the government is going to embrace rather than fear technology.
Name
morgante
Site
newlyancient.com
Timestamp
9:16 PM on November 11, 2008
Content

@luke: Yes, that would truly be cool. Some very interesting mashups could be created with this data. The District of Columbia already offers an amazing breadth of data in XML or RSS for anyone to use.

Name
luke
Site
thebigsqueak.com
Timestamp
1:57 PM on November 12, 2008
Content
That truly is amazing! They also have Google earth. :p
Name
morgante
Site
newlyancient.com
Timestamp
2:02 PM on November 12, 2008
Content
@luke: Yea, it is. I wish Vermont did this sort of thing. Seriously, they have live arrest feeds.

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