I first became aware of the massive statistical infrastructure of the U.S. government because much of its data collections have privacy consequences. The Census Bureau, for example, has turned a simple instruction to count people (“[An] Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.” ) into a large organization with lots and lots of different information products.
Recognize that the process of collecting, compiling, and disseminating information is an economic function. This Federal Register notice on federal statistical practices does so, with some interesting spin:
To operate efficiently and effectively, our democracy relies on the flow of objective, credible statistics to support the decisions of governments, businesses, households, and other organizations. Any loss of trust in the integrity of the Federal statistical system and its products could lessen respondent cooperation with Federal statistical surveys, decrease the quality of statistical system products, and foster uncertainty about the validity of measures our Nation uses to monitor and assess its performance and progress.
Without us, you’d be lost! And if federal statistical agencies just disappeared, that would be true. Statistics are an important tool of government and business.
But . . . is it government’s responsibility to develop and deliver statistics to business? Or is that another dimension of corporate welfare? Here in Washington, there are statistics “user” organizations whose mission is to preserve the flow of data from government to business – to collect another set of goodies free – or, most accurately, at the taxpayers’ expense.
In my former life as a lobbyist/consultant, I represented a very cool satellite remote sensing company called Digital Globe. You’ve probably seen their stuff on Google Maps, and TV networks often use their imagery to illustrate news stories. Given my libertarian predilections, I was painfully aware that this company was in competition with a rather substantial competitor, the U.S. government, and in this area, like so many, the competition was hydra-headed.
If the market for geospatial data weren’t already well occupied by government suppliers, Digital Globe and its many competitors would be producing better information products than are available in the government-dominated market, and the costs of doing so would fall where they should – directly on users.
I’m not asking you to be convinced yet, but just think about having the corporate sector pay its own way for the data and statistics it uses.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.