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Bill Would Require Public Information To Be Online

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the common-sense-approach dept.

Andurin writes "A bill that was introduced in the US House of Representatives last week would require all Executive Branch agencies to publish public information on the Internet in a timely fashion and in user-friendly formats. The Public Online Information Act would also establish an advisory committee to help craft Internet publication policies for the entire US government, including Congress and the Supreme Court. Citizens would have a limited, private right of action to compel the government to release public information online, though common sense exceptions (similar to those for FOIA) would remain in place."

2 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Re:One place where they could mess up... by BergZ · · Score: 3, Informative

    Rush Limbaugh: Democrats "have reformatted the [economic recovery] bill -- they've made it a PDF file when they posted it. ... And, so, you can read every page, but you cannot keyword search it. It's not a text file as legislation normally is as posted on these public websites. They don't want anybody knowing what's in this." http://mediamatters.org/research/200902130016

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  2. Re:Is PDF "user friendly"? by mi · · Score: 4, Informative

    Which is only evil if your PDF reader respects restriction flags...

    It is evil regardless of that — whether it is successful or not, the very attempt by the government to prevent me from printing a legal document is evil...

    oh, right, in the USA that is required by law.

    Actually, in the case of kpdf, it can be switched off: edit the share/config.kcfg/kpdf.kcfg (an XML-file), and flip the ObeyDRM switch from true to false.

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