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Obama Announces Open Data Policy With Executive Order

Posted by timothy on from the except-you-guys-in-the-atf dept.

In an overdue but welcome move, President Obama today issued an executive order mandating "open and machine-readable data" for government-published information. Also, kodiaktau writes "In a move to make data more readily available, the United States of America has announced the Project Open Data and has chosen GitHub to host the content." Ars has a great article on the announced policy, but as you might expect, it comes with caveats, exceptions, sub-goals and committees; don't expect too much change per day, or assume you have a right to open data, exactly, in the eyes of the government, but — "subject to appropriations" — it sounds good on paper. (I'd like the next step to be requiring that all file formats used by the government be open source.)

6 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Only right use of an Executive Order I've seen by ModernGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is the first time that I've seen someone talk about President Obama and Executive Orders in a way that makes sense. It is my understanding that Executive Orders have to do with the internal operations of the government, not as a mechanism of usurping congress when it comes to laws that have an effect on the American public.

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    Sig: I stole this sig.
    1. Re:Only right use of an Executive Order I've seen by msauve · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not just Obama. There's a rich history of Presidents using EOs to try and get out of their duty to execute the law. It's been a bipartisan dereliction of duty (and illegitimate power grab).

      But yes, you're right in that this sounds like a legitimate use - ordering an execution of the law which makes it more accessible.

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      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:Only right use of an Executive Order I've seen by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is my understanding that Executive Orders have to do with the internal operations of the government, not as a mechanism of usurping congress when it comes to laws that have an effect on the American public.

      People seem to forget Executive Order 9066, which led to the creation of internment camps for "Japanese-americans" (or as I call them, citizens) during WWII. There's a great many more examples of executive orders going far beyond "internal operations of the government." And yes, Obama, like every other president has penned some questionable executive orders.

      Of course, even snarking the President on slashdot is a hanging offense, so god help me for suggesting this; But it's clear that every administration. Every. Administration. Has used executive orders to expand the power of the executive branch, or as you put it "usurping congress". Whether this is a problem or not depends largely on your personal political preferences and which party controls the white house at the moment... but historically, they have a long tradition of going far beyond "internal operations of the government"... at least as I suspect you're thinking of it.

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      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    3. Re:Only right use of an Executive Order I've seen by msauve · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It constantly amazes me - the two parties have focused the electorate against each other, while they collude in common cause - building and maintaining power.

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      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    4. Re:Only right use of an Executive Order I've seen by msauve · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Executive orders have been held to have force of law in US History except under two cases"

      Growing wheat for your own use has been held to be "interstate commerce." So much for that argument. Don't quote judicial decisions as part of a logical argument, they're two different worlds.

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      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    5. Re: Only right use of an Executive Order I've seen by Ksevio · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Right...a confusing and hostile situation (which the President and staff clearly botched) that happened over an evening is comparable to a planned out and very public taking of American's rights?

      It might be fun to jump on the whole government conspiracy bandwagon, but the two situations are in no way comparable. There are a lot of questions about Benghazi and some answers may seem obvious now in retrospect, but the Japanese Interment was clearly wrong.