White Paper on Transparency
Introduction
Recent years have seen a great but nascent convergence among the people at large and all levels of the governments that serve them. What has made this convergence possible and effectual is the information and communications medium of the Internet. This convergence is creating a massive and enduring change in the concept of "transparency," or the ability of citizens to discern the essential operating data of governments.
The effort to effect this convergence is still in its early stages, resulting in an ad hoc approach that lacks overall context. That this early effort is fragmented is no surprise, nor is it grounds for criticism. In transparency as in most endeavors, one learns by doing. The powerful Internet systems of 2008, with organized XML and CSS standards and data segregated from format, were preceded by nearly two decades of sometimes painful learning and ad hoc html development, and today's systems will surely seem crude compared to coming Web 2.0 systems. Similarly, and indeed in large part as a result of the continuing Internet transformation, today's efforts at making government transparent to the citizens it serves will soon be superseded by vastly superior systems.
The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions hereby issues this Policy Brief, White Paper on Transparency, published by the Center for Transparent and Accountable Government, to explore and explicate the current state of readily available government data in Ohio and the nation.
Background
Beginning in the early 1980's or soon after, when desktop computers started becoming ubiquitous in government and elsewhere, it became true in theory, if not in practice, that any document, once typed, was digitized, and need never be typed again. Practice did not match theory, however, and it remained true that documents often must be printed or otherwise processed in some cumbersome way to make them available to the public.
With the rise of the Internet in the early 1990's, this dynamic changed. Digitized documents could now be uploaded and propagated at essentially zero marginal cost. If, in 1985, ten citizens wanted, independently, a copy of their township's budget, essentially ten distinct efforts were required to make the data available. Today,once the information is available to one, it is as easily available to 10 million - or so it would be if the information were maintained in a format that is even minimally Web-capable.
The easy availability of government data has had consequences for representative government that our elected officials do not always agree are happy ones. Over significant objection from many of their colleagues, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, and Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat, were both among the initial sponsors of one of the seminal online transparency achievements to date, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.
Matching the bipartisan effort in favor of transparency was another bipartisan effort to block transparency. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, both attempted to stall what became known as the Coburn-Obama Act.
Despite such efforts, this first milestone in transparency resulted in a Web site, USAspending.gov, which provides a searchable database of government contracts and awards, including recipient, amount, date, awarding agency and purpose.
Mike Maurer is director of the Center for Transparent and Accountable Government at the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions. He is an attorney and a former Statehouse reporter.
