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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luke
morgante
@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.
luke
morgante