Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, November 14, 2008

More recommendations on openness for the new U.S. administration

Moving Toward a 21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda: Recommendations to President-elect Obama and Congress, report, November 2008. The report is endorsed by a number of groups and individuals, who were convened by OMB Watch and OpenTheGovernment.org.

The [Chief Technology Officer] should ensure that agencies create websites that use open source software and distribute data in open formats that are accessible to all search engines. [The Office of Management and Budget] should direct agencies to actively make all their online resources searchable by major public search engines and available in open formats. ...

The president should direct agencies to minimize the use of copyright claims on government-sponsored materials and include a statement on websites establishing that in the absence of expressed copyright agency-produced materials are copyright free. While there is no legal obligation for a government agency to provide a notice that no legal copyright exists on its materials, such a statement would help clarify the ability of the public to freely share and reuse government provided information. ...

Contractors, grantees, and other government consultants are not considered government employees for purposes of copyright. ... When a copyrighted work is transferred to the U.S. government, the government becomes the copyright owner, and the work retains its copyright protection. The government should minimize the copyright claims it allows for materials produced under contract with federal agencies. ...

The next administration should create incentives to convert government documents to no-fee, electronic, publicly available documents. Currently, private companies enter into non-competed agreements with agencies – often Memoranda of Understanding that are not public – and create subscription/charge-based access to public records that they have digitized at “no cost” to the government. There is little ability for alternative models, such as consortia of government entities, libraries, and others, to present themselves as options to maintain no-fee electronic public access in the face of such non-competed agreements. ...

Government should have an affirmative legal obligation to disclose information to the public in a timely manner, thereby expanding the presumption of openness. ...

Congress should pass a law that would require agencies to disclose newly collected electronic information holdings in a timely manner and justify in writing reasons for withholding information. Reasons for nondisclosure should be no more numerous than the current [Freedom of Information Act] exemptions or responsibilities for national security classification ...

[I]t is increasingly easy to make electronic information – in all its formats – publicly accessible. Moreover, as discussed throughout this report, a functioning democracy requires an informed and active citizenry, which can be accelerated through affirmative dissemination of government information. Thus, this law would cover all information holdings – from spending information to regulatory actions to enforcement actions to directories of federal employees to e-mails to audio and video collections. ...