Open Government

President Obama issued a memorandum directing the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services to produce a Open Government Directive.

The major goals of this initiative are:

• Government should be transparent
  
• Government should be participatory
  
• Government should be collaborative

Although the major focus will be information transparency we hope that at same point the work group do also point out the need for process transparency, which will lead to the discussion of software transparency.

Let’s hope that the idea of Open Government does flourish and be an example to other countries.

P.S.
During the process of writing the above note, I went on searching to find the link to the Chief Technology Officer site. I could not find one. However, I found out that there will be a Chief Information Officer. I could not find a site for the US CIO, but found out the site for the Council of US CIOs.

Information is Power

Incredible!

Just read this, in the awakening of the AIG debts. The U.S. government invested over US$ 150 billion on the company as a way of protecting the whole financial system. Press and citizens are crying out: why the company use part of this money to pay bonuses to its financial department? I am quoting the LA Times: "AIG names firms that got bailout cash" by By E. Scott Reckard and Tom Petruno, March 16, 2009.

"AIG did reduce some of its bonus payments last week
under pressure from Treasury Secretary
Timothy F. Geithner but said it was legally obligated
to pay $165 million to the financial products employees,
or else they not only could seek punitive damages
but might quit. That could cause even higher losses,
the insurer said, because these are the only employees
with the knowledge to "unwind" AIG's complex financial deals."

This is, yet, another example of the importance of process transparency.