The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

Open Government Plans 2.0: Some Agencies Make Strides, Others Just Go Through the Motions

By SUZANNE DERSHOWITZ

On April 9, federal agencies across the government released updates of their Open Government Plans, a key component of President Obama's Open Government Initiative. With delegates from 53 countries converging last week in Brazil for the first annual meeting of the global Open Government Partnership (OGP), now is a good time to take stock of the renewed commitments in the updated plans and evaluate the government's progress on the road to implementation. Overall, the results have been mixed.

When the initial Open Government plans were released over two years ago in response to the White House Open Government Directive (OGD), OpenTheGovernment.org and its partners (including POGO) conducted a comprehensive review and audit with agency rankings. POGO evaluated the Open Government Plans of the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Energy (DOE), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). We will be particularly interested in taking a closer look at these agencies’ updated plans.

The Open Government Plans were to serve as “living documents” to be updated every two years as part of an ongoing dialogue. In the updated plans, agencies were supposed to develop initiatives and provide concrete timelines for building openness, participation, and collaboration into their standard operating procedures.

So how do the Open Government Plans 2.0 stack up? What real steps have agencies made toward implementation?

New FOIA Portal Gets High Marks

By ANDREW WYNER

A House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee belatedly celebrated Sunshine Week this past Wednesday by hosting a hearing on FOIA in the 21st century (the House was out of session during Sunshine Week itself). The witnesses, selected both from good government organizations and federal agencies, all testified before the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement Reform  on the importance of online Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) services. Witnesses were not, however, in complete agreement in exactly how to bring FOIA into the 21st century.

The FOIA Portal, being developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Archives (NARA), and the Department of Commerce, received high marks from Members of Congress and witnesses alike. Acting Subcommittee Chairman Mike Kelly (D-PA) and Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-VA) were both enthused by the FOIA Portal and the positive impact it would have. Sean Moulton, director of Federal Information Policy at OMB Watch, stated  “Congress should make it clear it’s best for every agency to participate.” Moulton said that the problem with FOIA is “a lack of consistency. The FOIA portal offers a level of consistency across government.”

Connect with Our Experts -- Plug in to POGO's Social Media Networks

By JOE NEWMAN

A minute before 3 p.m. on Dec. 22, the Project On Government Oversight reached a milestone, of sorts.

Paraphrasing a line from the movie Animal House, Scott Amey, POGO's long-time general counsel, launched his first salvo into the twittersphere, boldly venturing into a brave, new (to him) world.

For us at POGO, it  capped a pretty remarkable transition into social media that took place in 2011. Consider that 30 years ago when POGO was founded, or even 8 years ago when Scott rejoined POGO as general counsel, interaction between our staff and the general public was pretty much a one-way affair. You read about our reports if they were picked up by the media and, if you were extremely motivated, you might have tracked down our address and sent us a letter.

Now, not only can you keep up with our investigations and daily musings on a slew of social media networks, you can actively engage with some of the non-profit world's top experts on national security, government accountability and federal contracting (to find a list of Scott and other POGO staffers on Twitter, click here).

Egyptian Students Who Participated in Twitter Revolution Visit POGO

By DANA LIEBELSON

Earlier this week, when POGO asked a group of visiting college students if any of them ran their own political blogs, half put their hands up. When the students were asked if they used Facebook and Twitter for political activism, they all raised their hands.  

As you might have guessed, these were not your average twenty-somethings—they were young Egyptians who participated in and witnessed the so-called ‘Twitter Revolution’ in Egypt. They visited POGO as part of a week-long study tour through the U.S. organized by Internews Network.

With the help of a real-time translator, POGO staff spoke to the students—most of whom are aspiring journalists—about blogging, accountability, and the role of independent watchdogs in the democratic process.

Pentagon Looking to Develop Twitter, Facebook Special Ops

By JOE NEWMAN

The Pentagon is gearing up for a looming social media war--battles the military envisions will be won by being one step ahead of Twitter- and Facebook-powered insurgencies.

For the Pentagon that means developing social media tools that combine the code-breaking know-how of its intelligence services with the propaganda skills and manipulation techniques of its Pys-Ops group. On top of all that, the Pentagon hopes it can revolutionize the analysis of social media trends and conversations.

It's all part of the Defense Department's new Social Media in Strategic Communication program, which the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) first announced a few weeks ago.

DARPA, the Pentagon's secretive research agency, is offering a $42 million contract to the company that can go where no social media tracker has gone before. DARPA posted a request for proposals in July that basically says don't bother applying if your idea is nothing more than the next step in social media analytics. In other words, it means creating social media analytics light-years ahead of anything on the market or even on the drawing board. Following the trending topics on Twitter ain't going to cut it.

Will Government's Embrace of Social Media Boost Transparency?

By JOE NEWMAN

Back in April, when I was asked to talk about social media and government transparency at this week's Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference, one of the first things I did was make a list of Members of Congress who "get" social media.

It was a very short list. For one, most Members of Congress leave the tweeting to their staff. The other thing is that their Twitter feeds are often one-way conversations. They’re social only in the sense that they want you to hear what they have to say--but who knows if they’re listening to you. When Twitter is used effectively, it’s as a tool to not only inform and entertain but to engage.

Anthony Weiner was one of the exceptions. Before his awful implosion, his Twitter feed was humorous, insightful, engaging. It represented an unprecedented milestone--our democracy entering an age where the American public for the first time could have instant, unfiltered access to a Member of Congress. Unfortunately, it also answered the question of whether there’s such a thing as too much transparency.

What will be the fallout of Weinergate? Will it be a setback for government transparency via social media?

FAPIIS: An Inauspicious Debut, But Starting to Show Signs of Life

By Neil Gordon

It’s been two weeks since the federal government’s contractor and grantee responsibility database, the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) went live on a public website. As you might recall from our initial review, we were not very impressed. This is how we summed up our feelings to Bloomberg Government:

The public version of FAPIIS certainly looks like and feels like a database that the government doesn’t want the public to see or use.

Other users were even less impressed—and more blunt. The Sunlight Foundation said FAPIIS “may be the worst government website we’ve ever seen.” OMB Watch called it a “steaming pile.” And here’s a quick rundown of the initial reactions from POGO’s blog readers:

• “an insult to the American public”

• “a waste of time and money”

• “This database sucks.”

Knowing this overwhelmingly negative public response would spur immediate corrective action from the General Services Administration, POGO decided to pay FAPIIS another visit. The site still looks the same—the same drab design, broken security certificates, and clunky search engine—but contractor and grantee responsibility data is starting to appear.

For example, on the search page I set the “Name” pulldown menu to “contains”, typed a letter or number in the name field, clicked the “All Government-entered FAPIIS Records” button, and the following information popped up (click to enlarge):