{"id":1086,"date":"2020-04-14T18:02:34","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T18:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtocollegereadingandwriting\/?post_type=chapter&p=1086"},"modified":"2020-08-06T19:02:59","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T19:02:59","slug":"article-4","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtocollegereadingandwriting\/chapter\/article-4\/","title":{"raw":"Why Aren't Governments as Transparent as they Could Be?","rendered":"Why Aren’t Governments as Transparent as they Could Be?"},"content":{"raw":"

by Ryan Thornburg<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n

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\"Illustration<\/a><\/div>\r\n
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\r\n\r\nIn the quarter century since its creation, the Web has been a printing press and broadcast studio for millions of people whose voices would otherwise have been heard by only a few close friends. It opened a whole new world of sharing, and today nearly three-quarters of all Americans say digital technologies have improved their ability to share their ideas and creations with others, according to\u00a0a 2014 survey<\/a>\u00a0by the Pew Research Center.\r\n\r\nThat means most of us are opening to the public minute details of our lives\u2014where we eat, who we love, and how we spend money\u2014all out in the open for others to see.\r\n\r\nAll this new sharing has been driven by the open standards of the Web, but also by commercial interests such as Facebook and Google. The data that these new publishing and aggregation platforms collect and organize about their users is their primary tool for driving revenue from advertisers who are eager to get the right messages to the right people at the right times.\r\n\r\nIn addition to all the public sharing we\u2019re doing, we\u2019re also giving companies data that most of us would probably rather not be public\u2014credit card and Social Security numbers, passwords, driving habits, impolitic emails, and nude photos.\r\n\r\nWe open our private lives to these companies usually with explicit, though uninformed, consent. A computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon\u00a0recently reported<\/a>\u00a0that it would take the average person about 250 hours to read all the privacy policies of the websites he or she visits in a year. We so badly want those companies to help us make public our ideas and creations that we blindly trust them to keep all that other stuff private.\r\n\r\nBut that trove of data is a rich target for hackers, spies, and detectives alike. With Apple, Sony, Ebay, Snapchat, Home Depot, Target, and JPMorgan Chase all infiltrated in the last year, is it possible that an American doesn\u2019t do business with a company that\u2019s been hacked? Add in\u00a0the National Security Agency\u2019s collection of millions of phone records<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the interest that law enforcement at all levels has in social media data<\/a>\u00a0and you\u2019ve got a recipe for a lot of unintended disclosure of stuff you might want to keep to yourself.\r\n\r\nWe are living in a time of radical openness\u2014not of our governments, but of ourselves.\r\n\r\nAs we willingly open more of our lives to the public, government agencies are increasing their surveillance of us and also failing for the most part to take full advantage of digital technologies\u2019 ability to make public life more accessible and our public officials more accountable.\r\n\r\nIn the wake of last year\u2019s broad debate about police conduct, body cameras are flying off the shelves like iPhones.\u00a0Iowa is considering legislation<\/a>\u00a0that would require all law enforcement officers to wear them, but one version would keep those videos private unless everyone captured by the cameras consented to its release. And in Minnesota,\u00a0the head of a state police association said<\/a>\u00a0that public access to body camera videos \u201creally serves no public purpose.\u201d In other words, police would be able to use the video to defend their actions, but nobody else would be allowed to use the videos to defend theirs.\r\n\r\nAs our governments\u2019 powers of surveillance and their ability to be transparent are both increasing dramatically, we\u2019re giving them the former without demanding the latter. I can\u2019t think of anything more un-American and infantilizing than this kind of deference to government.\r\n\r\nSadly, it\u2019s not just new technologies that are eroding open government principles. New government laws, policies, and practices at all levels are going into place to further shield the government\u2019s digital records from public scrutiny. In Washington, the state agency that monitors and publishes the campaign finance reports of lobbyists and political candidates is\u00a0facing budget cuts<\/a>, even as the rest of the state government spending grows 15% in the governor\u2019s proposed budget. In North Carolina last year, the governor tried to implement a new \u201cspecial services fee<\/a>\u201d for records requests that take longer than 30 minutes. At the federal level,\u00a0an Associated Press analysis<\/a>\u00a0last year showed that the government denied public records requests because of national security concerns a record 8,496 times\u2014up 57 percent from the prior year, even while the number of records requests increased only 8 percent.\r\n\r\nSome government agencies see this growing demand for public data as a revenue opportunity. In North Carolina,\u00a0I filed an amicus brief<\/a>\u00a0this year in a state Supreme Court case that I hope will stop the Administrative Office of the Courts from wholesaling its raw feed to data retailers.\r\n\r\nPublic data is certainly big money for some vendors as well. One company that provides records management systems to law enforcement,\u00a0Public Engines<\/a>, enters into contracts in which it attempts to claim proprietary rights to the data. Public Engines has gone so far as to help police deny records requests and sue people who scrape the public data off their sites in order to protect their millions of dollars of investment in the platform. And more than one salesperson for other data vendors has told me of meetings in which government officials have asked how they can use technology to give the illusion of transparency without making the data as useful as possible.\r\n\r\nAs citizens, it\u2019s tough to argue that we\u2019re always using open government laws the way they were intended\u2014to hold government accountable. Instead, we often use them to shame or threaten other citizens. The 2014 midterms saw\u00a0Democrats in North Carolina\u00a0and\u00a0Republicans in Alaska and Colorado\u00a0send mail to potential voters reminding them that public records would let their neighbors and party leaders know whether they showed up to vote. Those shaming tactics change behavior too, according to\u00a0a field study<\/a>\u00a0done by Microsoft Research and a University of Michigan professor.\r\n\r\nWhile it would be hard to argue that the Internet hasn\u2019t made governments at all levels more open, they clearly are\u00a0not as open as they could be<\/a>, nor are they as transparent as its citizens are. In a democracy, that\u2019s an odd paradox.\r\n\r\nIf radical transparency is good for each of us, why don\u2019t we demand it of government?\r\n\r\nPlenty of people do<\/a>, but one of the other paradoxes of open government is that the same platforms that promote our self-disclosure have also siphoned away advertising revenue from newspapers and local television stations that have been over the last century the most powerful and consistent advocates for open government. Journalist numbers are dwindling and their companies\u2019 investments inlegal fees that can range from $10,000 to $100,000<\/a>\u00a0to pursue a government agency that shuns transparency.\r\n\r\nCitizens can help in this effort by using sites like\u00a0muckrock.com<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0open-nc.org<\/a>\u00a0to share public data they\u2019ve requested. Or, maybe the next time you open up your life on social media, you\u2019ll use the #opengov or #foia hashtags to share how you help keep the spirit of open government alive as well.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"

by Ryan Thornburg<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Illustration<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

In the quarter century since its creation, the Web has been a printing press and broadcast studio for millions of people whose voices would otherwise have been heard by only a few close friends. It opened a whole new world of sharing, and today nearly three-quarters of all Americans say digital technologies have improved their ability to share their ideas and creations with others, according to\u00a0a 2014 survey<\/a>\u00a0by the Pew Research Center.<\/p>\n

That means most of us are opening to the public minute details of our lives\u2014where we eat, who we love, and how we spend money\u2014all out in the open for others to see.<\/p>\n

All this new sharing has been driven by the open standards of the Web, but also by commercial interests such as Facebook and Google. The data that these new publishing and aggregation platforms collect and organize about their users is their primary tool for driving revenue from advertisers who are eager to get the right messages to the right people at the right times.<\/p>\n

In addition to all the public sharing we\u2019re doing, we\u2019re also giving companies data that most of us would probably rather not be public\u2014credit card and Social Security numbers, passwords, driving habits, impolitic emails, and nude photos.<\/p>\n

We open our private lives to these companies usually with explicit, though uninformed, consent. A computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon\u00a0recently reported<\/a>\u00a0that it would take the average person about 250 hours to read all the privacy policies of the websites he or she visits in a year. We so badly want those companies to help us make public our ideas and creations that we blindly trust them to keep all that other stuff private.<\/p>\n

But that trove of data is a rich target for hackers, spies, and detectives alike. With Apple, Sony, Ebay, Snapchat, Home Depot, Target, and JPMorgan Chase all infiltrated in the last year, is it possible that an American doesn\u2019t do business with a company that\u2019s been hacked? Add in\u00a0the National Security Agency\u2019s collection of millions of phone records<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the interest that law enforcement at all levels has in social media data<\/a>\u00a0and you\u2019ve got a recipe for a lot of unintended disclosure of stuff you might want to keep to yourself.<\/p>\n

We are living in a time of radical openness\u2014not of our governments, but of ourselves.<\/p>\n

As we willingly open more of our lives to the public, government agencies are increasing their surveillance of us and also failing for the most part to take full advantage of digital technologies\u2019 ability to make public life more accessible and our public officials more accountable.<\/p>\n

In the wake of last year\u2019s broad debate about police conduct, body cameras are flying off the shelves like iPhones.\u00a0Iowa is considering legislation<\/a>\u00a0that would require all law enforcement officers to wear them, but one version would keep those videos private unless everyone captured by the cameras consented to its release. And in Minnesota,\u00a0the head of a state police association said<\/a>\u00a0that public access to body camera videos \u201creally serves no public purpose.\u201d In other words, police would be able to use the video to defend their actions, but nobody else would be allowed to use the videos to defend theirs.<\/p>\n

As our governments\u2019 powers of surveillance and their ability to be transparent are both increasing dramatically, we\u2019re giving them the former without demanding the latter. I can\u2019t think of anything more un-American and infantilizing than this kind of deference to government.<\/p>\n

Sadly, it\u2019s not just new technologies that are eroding open government principles. New government laws, policies, and practices at all levels are going into place to further shield the government\u2019s digital records from public scrutiny. In Washington, the state agency that monitors and publishes the campaign finance reports of lobbyists and political candidates is\u00a0facing budget cuts<\/a>, even as the rest of the state government spending grows 15% in the governor\u2019s proposed budget. In North Carolina last year, the governor tried to implement a new \u201cspecial services fee<\/a>\u201d for records requests that take longer than 30 minutes. At the federal level,\u00a0an Associated Press analysis<\/a>\u00a0last year showed that the government denied public records requests because of national security concerns a record 8,496 times\u2014up 57 percent from the prior year, even while the number of records requests increased only 8 percent.<\/p>\n

Some government agencies see this growing demand for public data as a revenue opportunity. In North Carolina,\u00a0I filed an amicus brief<\/a>\u00a0this year in a state Supreme Court case that I hope will stop the Administrative Office of the Courts from wholesaling its raw feed to data retailers.<\/p>\n

Public data is certainly big money for some vendors as well. One company that provides records management systems to law enforcement,\u00a0Public Engines<\/a>, enters into contracts in which it attempts to claim proprietary rights to the data. Public Engines has gone so far as to help police deny records requests and sue people who scrape the public data off their sites in order to protect their millions of dollars of investment in the platform. And more than one salesperson for other data vendors has told me of meetings in which government officials have asked how they can use technology to give the illusion of transparency without making the data as useful as possible.<\/p>\n

As citizens, it\u2019s tough to argue that we\u2019re always using open government laws the way they were intended\u2014to hold government accountable. Instead, we often use them to shame or threaten other citizens. The 2014 midterms saw\u00a0Democrats in North Carolina\u00a0and\u00a0Republicans in Alaska and Colorado\u00a0send mail to potential voters reminding them that public records would let their neighbors and party leaders know whether they showed up to vote. Those shaming tactics change behavior too, according to\u00a0a field study<\/a>\u00a0done by Microsoft Research and a University of Michigan professor.<\/p>\n

While it would be hard to argue that the Internet hasn\u2019t made governments at all levels more open, they clearly are\u00a0not as open as they could be<\/a>, nor are they as transparent as its citizens are. In a democracy, that\u2019s an odd paradox.<\/p>\n

If radical transparency is good for each of us, why don\u2019t we demand it of government?<\/p>\n

Plenty of people do<\/a>, but one of the other paradoxes of open government is that the same platforms that promote our self-disclosure have also siphoned away advertising revenue from newspapers and local television stations that have been over the last century the most powerful and consistent advocates for open government. Journalist numbers are dwindling and their companies\u2019 investments inlegal fees that can range from $10,000 to $100,000<\/a>\u00a0to pursue a government agency that shuns transparency.<\/p>\n

Citizens can help in this effort by using sites like\u00a0muckrock.com<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0open-nc.org<\/a>\u00a0to share public data they\u2019ve requested. Or, maybe the next time you open up your life on social media, you\u2019ll use the #opengov or #foia hashtags to share how you help keep the spirit of open government alive as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div>