Open Government
Last update: July 12, 2006
Introduction
The Washington Office actively engages in promoting the public's "Right to Know" information created and collected by or for the federal government. This concept is an expansion and strengthening of the long-standing principle that government should make this information available.
From 1981 until 1998, the Washington Office published Less Access to Less Information by and about the U.S. Government, a selective chronology of efforts to restrict and privatize government information. These efforts continue and the Washington Office continues to be actively engaged in combating them. The public's right to information has come under steady pressure and challenge since September 11th, on the ostensible grounds of "national security" and "sensitive homeland security." Recently, information is being withdrawn, restricted and changed on what seem best characterized as ideological bases. Moreover, the challenges to right-to-know are increasingly to public access to records of the federal government, through statutory restrictions, administrative actions, and Executive Orders. The ability to obtain access over time to government information that is 'born digital' is another problem of increasing dimensions.
In addition to the information on this site, we encourage you to join the 'govinfo' listserv. The list is primarily for exchange of information about federal information policy and the volume varies. To subscribe:
1) You have to be a registered user. If you are not, go to
http://lp-web.ala.org:8000/ and register.
2) Go to same site & enter as Registered User or go directly to
http://lp-web.ala.org:8000/reguser/main/
3) Scroll down to the list.
Once subscribed, the Utilities page for the list allows you to do all sorts of things, including going to the Archives. You can search these, or look through the logs.
Alternatively, you can get access to the archives without subscribing by going to
http://lp-web.ala.org:8000/guest/main
scrolling down to the list, and going to the List Archives.
Related ALA Pages:
Other sites of interest include:
OpenTheGovernment.org
A coalition of library organizations, journalists, consumer and good government groups, environmentalists, labor and others united out of a concern for what U.S. News and World Report called a "shroud of secrecy" descending over our local, state and federal governments – is focused on making the federal government a more open place to make us safer, strengthen public trust in government, and support our democratic principles.