FCC Announces Transparency Plans on a Scanned PDF

by on March 15, 2010 · 10 comments

What struck me most about the executive summary of the FCC’s “National Broadband Plan” is that they published it in one of the most opaque formats going: It’s a PDF scan of a printed document.

This means you can’t cut and paste the bullet point that says:

Increase civic engagement by making government more open and transparent, creating a robust public media ecosystem and modernizing the democratic process.

This and other observations/snark in my recent Cato@Liberty post join Adam’s early comment on the FCC’s incredible cost claims. Undoubtedly, there will be more here at TLF.

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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.

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  • http://tinyurl.com/CowboyBooksBlog fgoodwin

    That is rather odd.

  • http://techliberation.com/author/berinszoka/ Berin Szoka

    I OCRd the document and uploaded it here, in case you want a version you can search or copy text from.

  • RickRussellTX

    The original was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.

  • http://techliberation.com/2010/03/15/5-regulatory-hot-potatoes-that-could-derail-the-fcc-national-broadband-plan/ 5 Regulatory Hot Potatoes That Could Derail the FCC National Broadband Plan

    [...] the fact that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to release the executive summary of its long awaited National Broadband Plan via a PDF of a scanned printed [...]

  • gregelin

    National Broadband Plan officially released today (March 16, 2010) in print, PDF, and online HTML:
    http://www.broadband.gov/plan/

    Also launched today:
    FCC's Spectrum Dashboard (beta) – http://reboot.fcc.gov/reform/systems/spectrum-d…
    FCC's Consumer Broadband Test (beta) – http://www.broadband.gov/qualitytest/about/

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