Is Government Transparency Headed for a Detour?
With a year in office, and perhaps under some pressure to deliver on promises of transparency and change, the White House went on a little PR offensive this week. It rolled out a blog post and a video claiming the transparency successes of the administration’s first year. A lot has gone on, and it’s worth a review. It’s also worth noting some signals that the government transparency project could be heading for a slight detour.
In the video — a little infomercial-y, but tolerable and interesting — federal chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra cites several examples of government use of technology. A system called ISDS Distribute helps the government monitor flu outbreaks, for example, akin to Google.org’s Flu Trends. Chopra touted the benefits of machine readability and the Agriculture Department’s release of data about a thousand most commonly eaten foods. (I’m not sure if this is it, but if not it’s probably something similar. Someone like Mike could use it to build a site that is further along than 1996′s state-of-the-art.) And Chopra discussed the platforms they are building at apps.gov to help agencies draw on the participation and engagement of the public. Putting aside how these illustrate the federal government’s distended role, these are all fine things.
White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen cited the release of visitor records as “one of the big innovations in the White House” over the past year. (Good, yes. But “big”?) Eisen dodged the question about why health care negotiations are not on C-SPAN.
In response to a question about putting federal advisory committees online, Chopra told of a recent meeting of the President’s Council of Advisers for Science and Technology, which was telecast live on the web and archived.
Finally, Chopra touted the planned January 22nd roll-out of data feeds from every federal agency under a recent open government memorandum — three “high-value data sets” per agency. In working toward this, Chopra said, “the conversation is all about what would help you do what you do better. How can we advance our shared goals of reducing disparities in health care, improving our commitment to renewable energies, advancing our collective educational results?”
This language and some of the examples cited in the video cause me to worry that the transparency effort may be heading for a detour. Rather than substantive insight into government management, deliberations, and results, we might get a lot of data-oriented play-toys.
Assessing the Claim that CDT Opposes a National ID
It was good of Ari Schwartz to respond last week to my recent post querying whether the Center for Democracy and Technology outright opposes a national ID or simply “does not support” one.
Ari says CDT does oppose a national ID, and I believe that he honestly believes that. But it’s worth taking a look at whether the group’s actions are consistent with opposition to a national ID. I believe CDT’s actions — most recently its support of the PASS ID Act — support the creation of a national ID.
(The title of his post and some of his commentary suggest I have engaged in rhetorical excess and mischaracterized his views. Please do judge for yourself whether I’m being shrill or unfair, which is not my intention.)
First I want to address an unusual claim of Ari’s — that we already have a national ID system. If that is true, his support for PASS ID is more sensible because it is an opportunity to inject federal privacy protections into the existing system (putting aside whether it is a federal responsibility to manage a state system or systems).
Lock It Down, Centralize It, Federalize It
Speaking of the Center for Democracy and Technology, Leslie Harris gave a terrific quote to Forbes.com for an article on cybersecurity:
The Rockefeller-Snowe Bill represents just the sort of heavy-handed regulation that could stifle innovation and hurt the economy, argues Leslie Harris, president and chief executive of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “If you lock things down too tight and try to centralize and federalize all kinds of standards, you’re on a collision course with the innovators who may be making the next great tech product in their backyard,” she says.
The question is why CDT doesn’t apply this thinking to the field of identification and credentialing.
EPIC on PASS ID: a National ID Card
The Electronic Privacy Information Center has produced a very thorough analysis of the PASS ID Act, which would revive the REAL ID national ID program.
The EPIC analysis states flatly, “The bill would establish a national ID card,” and, “The intent of this legislation is to facilitate a National ID system.”
That’s quite a contrast to Ari Schwartz at the Center for Democracy and Technology, who alone believes that PASS ID “prevents the creation of a National ID system.”
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