Better Federal Web Transparency

by on November 13, 2007 · 4 comments

The Google Public Policy blog likes S. 2321, a bill to amend the E-Government Act of 2002.

According to the Googlers, “it directs the Office of Management and Budget to create guidance and best practices for federal agencies to make their websites more accessible to search engine crawlers, and thus to citizens who rely on search engines to access information provided by their government.”

Who says everything Google says and does is interesting?

But seriously, more government transparency is better. And my effort at government transparency and public involvement shows opinion on S. 2321 running at . . . well, take a look for yourself! Get out the vote, Google!

Update: Jerry and I seem to have written about this at about the same time. Look to him for more substance. Me, I’m just links, quotes, snark, and widgets.

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About Jim Harper

Jim Harper is the Director of Information Policy Studies at The Cato Institute, the Editor of Web-based privacy think-tank Privacilla.org, and the Webmaster of WashingtonWatch.com. A Poli Sci major at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Jim served as Editor-in-Chief of the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly in his final year at Hastings College of the Law. Prior to becoming a policy analyst and advocate, Jim served as counsel to committees in both the U.S. House and Senate. He avoids genuine life experience by watching lots and lots of reality TV.

Read more articles by Jim Harper.

  • http://www.jerrybrito.com Jerry Brito

    Thanks for posting this, Jim. I hadn’t sen the Google blog post on this.No doubt they like it, this would make it a lot easier for them “to organize the [government's] information and make it universally accessible and useful.” One thing I don’t understand is, how can anyone be opposed to this bill? If anyone’s reading this who voted against the bill on WashingtonWatch.com, I’d love to know why.

    Also (Harper) check out the privacy portion of the bill. Could that explain any opposition to the bill?

  • http://jerrybrito.com Jerry Brito

    Thanks for posting this, Jim. I hadn’t sen the Google blog post on this.No doubt they like it, this would make it a lot easier for them “to organize the [government's] information and make it universally accessible and useful.” One thing I don’t understand is, how can anyone be opposed to this bill? If anyone’s reading this who voted against the bill on WashingtonWatch.com, I’d love to know why.

    Also (Harper) check out the privacy portion of the bill. Could that explain any opposition to the bill?

  • http://www.cato.org/people/harper.html Jim Harper

    Hmmmm. The amendment re: Privacy Impact Assessments is unremarkable . . .

  • http://www.cato.org/people/harper.html Jim Harper

    Hmmmm. The amendment re: Privacy Impact Assessments is unremarkable . . .

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