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“The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) faces unique challenges in open sourcing its code. Unlike most software projects, code written by U.S. Federal government employees typically doesn’t have copyright protections under U.S. and some international laws. This can make it hard to attach an open source license to our code, and our team here at …
The Hill: “The White House recently deleted all of the data on its open data portal, which served as a public clearinghouse for data on everything from federal budgets to climate change initiatives. This is a red flag, since for eight years, the Obama White House championed the practice of making government data freely available …
Presidential Executive Order on Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda, February 24, 2017: “… Each Regulatory Reform Task Force shall evaluate existing regulations (as defined in section 4 of Executive Order 13771) and make recommendations to the agency head regarding their repeal, replacement, or modification, consistent with applicable law. At a minimum, each Regulatory Reform Task …
USGS: “Get your flip-flops and shorts out because spring is arriving very early this year . . . at least 2-3 weeks early across almost the entire Southeast, from San Antonio to Atlanta to Washington, D.C. This unusually early spring is likely to keep rolling north, already bringing surprising signs of spring to portions of the central Midwest …
FastCoExist: “Should sections of the Environmental Protection Agency‘s website go the way of the civil rights and climate-change pages of the White House website—in other words, disappear—the agency is prepared. Even if Donald Trump takes the whole EPA site offline, a mirror copy of the website exists online, and it reflects the way the site …
“During presidential transitions, GAO provides information specifically for new administrations as well as new Congresses. The resources and recommendations here can help policymakers and other leaders find ways to greatly improve government operations and potentially save millions of dollars. Three sets of resources are available here, specifically focusing on the issues and challenges that should …
Follow up to previous postings – Animal welfare information wiped from USDA website – today via The Hill – USDA reposts some animal welfare records after outcry: “The Department of Agriculture on Friday February 17, 2017] reposted some of the animal welfare records it had removed from its website, after outcry from animal rights groups …
NASA is posting climate change science info on social media that contradict views of Trump and his top officials: “If you peruse NASA’s social media feeds dedicated to climate change, you would have no clue a new administration has taken power that has expressed doubts about the reality or seriousness of the issue. Every day, NASA has …
“DataRescue events create trustworthy copies of federal climate and environmental data, while the Internet Archive, datarefuge.org, and a consortium of major research libraries holds these copies. See our sister project at www.librariesnetwork.org. See also: “Orientation to DataLumos – ICPSR’s archive to preserve valuable government data. Join us for a webinar on Feb 17, 2017 at 12:00 …
Follow up to previous posting – Animal welfare information wiped from USDA website – news via TIME on the freedom of information evangelist Russ Kick – “An Arizona man who has published thousands of animal welfare documents on his website since the government purged the once-public information is pledging to keep digging up data until …
Via AALL: On February 14, 2017 “the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) partnered with OpenTheGovernment.org and more than 60 other public interest groups and associations on a letter to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), asking OMB to issue guidance reminding agencies that they are required under the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. …
Cybersecurity: Actions Needed to Strengthen U.S. Capabilities, GAO-17-440T: Published: Feb 14, 2017. Publicly Released: Feb 14, 2017. “GAO has consistently identified shortcomings in the federal government’s approach to ensuring the security of federal information systems and cyber critical infrastructure as well as its approach to protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information (PII). While previous …
