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Transparency Advocate Campaigns To Lead GPO
BigTimOBrien writes "In this interview with O'Reilly Broadcast, Carl Malamud discusses his grassroots effort to build support for his appointment as Public Printer of the United States, running the Government Printing Office — an agency that opened its doors the day Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated. Malamud has published his plans and platform on yeswescan.org: 'For over 20 years, Carl Malamud has been publishing government information on the Internet. In 2008, Public.Resource.Org published over 32.4 million pages of primary legal materials, as well as thousands of hours of video and thousands of photographs. In the 1990s, Malamud fought to place the databases of the United States on the Internet. In the 1980s, Malamud fought to make the standards that govern our global Internet open standards available to all. Malamud would continue to work to preserve and extend our public domain, and would place special attention to our relationship with our customers, especially the United States Congress.'"
...I'm tired of having to search in hundreds of different locations for little scraps of information that should be freely available from one portal.
4. Security. GPO produces passports and other secure documents. The current design for passports uses an RFID chip, which means that an American can be picked out of a crowd merely by having a passport in their pocket. If nominated and confirmed, I would ask security expert Bruce Schneier to form a Blue-Ribbon Commission to reexamine the design of passports and other secure documents so we can better protect the privacy and security of all Americans.
And we know what Schneier's stance is on those RFID chips: he has long opposed them. So does this mean that we will see a reversal of the policy on RFID tags in passports? Gods, I hope so.
My blog
I run several websites.
I would never claim to be qualified to run a whole government agency.
They're using their grammar skills there.
...Exploring the Internet: A Technical Travelogue. He relates a couple of funny episodes dealing with various ISO bureaucrats... good stuff.
The Army reading list
In his particular case, his website was fighting against states and municipalities that were trying to claim copyright on their laws and restrict their distribution, and he had previously had done similar work with data from both the SEC and US Patent Office:
Tech activist takes on governments over 'copyrighted' laws
Patent office slammed for not posting data
So yes, I'm guessing that his website might give him some suitable experience for this position.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The rather uncommon quality dubbed "Common Sense" being foremost among them.
I can't think of anyone who would bring more practical innovation to this particular problem...
...it is expected we will soon be able to see through the notes.
Is anyone disturbed that "government transparency" is being applauded? Sure, it's a good thing, but it's supposed to be mandatory in a democracy(the people run the government, not the other way around). So why do I keep reading and hearing about how great it is that they're tossing scraps of information to the public?
... with some government organizations (YOU, DHS!) having policies about department "intellectual property", good luck.
Seriously, I'd have thought that any government work was both public domain and only infringe-able if it was used with intent to defraud. Apparently some believe that they should have full trademark and copyright protection concerning things.
And wouldn't you just love to pay not only for passport processing, but also for "licensing" the flag to fly at your house?
a decade or longer before it was fashionable to decry the lack of transparency in government databases, carl was out there creating technology and deploying content to prove that what should be done also *could* be done. as a brass knuckled visionary carl could give us the kind of open government that everybody likes to talk about these days but few know how to build. carl also has the executive, financial, political, and administrative experience to pull this off. like the sign says "if you don't like the news go out and make some of your own" ... or just hire carl malamud as the next head of the GPO. --paul vixie