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Object Lesson in Non-Transparency At Energy.gov

Posted by timothy on from the but-it's-a-dry-heat-death dept.

Harperdog writes "Dawn Stover recounts her attempts to access information at energy.gov, the U.S. Energy Department's 'cutting-edge, interactive information platform,' which apparently isn't any of those things. Especially frustrating were her attempts to locate important documents related to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. An interesting read for anyone interested in true government transparency."

4 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Perhaps a less sensitive subject? by icebike · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One wonders if accessing information about Coal or Natural gas production would be easier than information about Nuclear waste storage.
    It might be she stepped into a Homeland Security issue, and managed to get herself on a watch list. All these documents were supposedly transferred in 2010. That would put it squarely in the Obama administration's Open Government time frame, but it was also during the height of the irrational security theater phase of locking up information about everything from Atomic weapons to Water supplies.

    Google would have been more fruitful, as the article states.

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    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    1. Re:Perhaps a less sensitive subject? by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have tired using data.gov to try to get the GIS data for the trails in national parks, I also tried the national parks service without any luck. So it isn't just sensitive info that is impossible to get.

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      Time to offend someone
  2. Appearance Is Everything by jasnw · · Score: 5, Informative

    After working with a variety of US Government agencies over my 40+ year career I learned many lessons about how these agencies work. A major one was how mandated actions or behaviors were handled. It wasn't important that you actually did what the mandate called for, it just needed to APPEAR that you did. This website experience from TFA sounds very much like this behavior.

  3. Re:Non-transparency or a bad website? by acwnh · · Score: 5, Informative

    You couldn't have read the article too closely since the author's first name, Dawn, is usually a woman's first name.
    The article goes into a fair amount of detail regarding information that used to be available prior to the new-and-improved-and-consolidated website energy.gov. Based on the contents of the article, I personally would conclude that the author's complaints are valid.