According to reports, Congress is about to cut funding for most if not all current federal government efforts to open up previously closed departmental databases.
Data.gov and other similar websites provide more transparency into government operations as well as provide free, open, linked data for businesses, researchers, and citizen advocates. Watch Tim Berners-Lee’s Feb 2009 TED Talk or any one of Hans Rosling’s TED Talks for a glimpse of how open data can help us understand the reality of what’s happening in our world.
Tim Berners-Lee Feb 2009 TED Talk photo by photonquantiqueCC BY-SA 2.0 on Flickr
Cutting funding for these open data sites will shut down an important new part of our information infrastructure and hamper public and private efforts to make government more efficient and effective. Much of the data could be very useful for young companies, which provide most of the new jobs.
Visit Sunlight Foundation’s website to weigh in on this issue.
Tags: accountability, open, transparency
August 31, 2011 at 12:36 pm |
[...] This is an example of what can be done with open, linked data… something we need more of, not less. [...]