Language in a document connected to the omnibus spending bill urges the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase public access to inspection reports of animal breeders and other facilities after the agency, citing privacy concerns, rolled back access to the information. The USDA removed inspection reports from a public database last February, leading to criticism […]
Read More… from Congress pushes USDA to reinstate public animal inspection reports
Are you better off now than you were three years ago? If you work in the U.S. Congress, probably not. Your workload has skyrocketed, your job has only gotten more complex, and what you’re paid is peanuts, considering you do one of the most difficult and important jobs in the United States of America.
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Read More… from Straight Talk from Staffers on the Growing Congressional IT Crisis
Yesterday at the 2016 Legislative Data and Transparency Conference, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan stood up and congratulated all of the people who have been working to open up the legislative branch of the United States to the public. Ryan also told us — and the online and television viewers — that he'd asked his team to keep moving ahead by publishing all legislative measures in a standard format.
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The Congress of the United States did a remarkable thing last week. It passed a major piece of legislation.
That in itself should have attracted more attention and generated more amazement than it did. Even more amazing is that the legislation was approved with bipartisan support. Continue…
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Read More… from The Missourian’s GEORGE KENNEDY: Freedom of information gets a boost from Congress
Although Congress is still struggling with open data, it remains far ahead of state and local legislatures when it comes to releasing data in machine readable and downloadable formats, according to a panel of experts and Congressional staffers.
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Read More… from Congress leads state legislatures in open data efforts — panel
On the first day of his presidency, Barack Obama issued a memorandum reviving the Freedom of Information Act. Calling for “a new era of open government,” the President directed federal agencies to adopt “a presumption of disclosure.”
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Four powerful lawmakers are pressing the Treasury Department to explain why it has not yet ensured that some of the tools used by the Recovery Operations Center will live on after the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board ceases operations this fall.
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Read More… from Congress pushes Treasury to let Recovery Board analytics tools live on
