"Attorneys suing the United States government over its use of vanishing Signal messages to coordinate military strikes last month in Yemen allege that new court filings by the government reveal a “calculated strategy” by Trump administration officials to evade transparency laws through the illegal destruction of government records.

US defense and intelligence agencies on Monday submitted supplemental declarations in court outlining their individual efforts to preserve the messages at the center of the “SignalGate” scandal. American Oversight, a watchdog organization whose attorneys are suing the government, claim the declarations reveal “troubling inconsistencies” in efforts by US officials to archive the material, with the Central Intelligence Agency in particular alleging that it had archived no messages of any substance.

“Using encrypted, disappearing messages on Signal for official government business violates the Federal Records Act and represents a calculated strategy to undermine transparency and accountability,” claims the group’s interim executive director, Chioma Chukwu."

https://www.wired.com/story/heres-what-happened-to-those-signalgate-messages/

"The Trump administration has begun its purge at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by dismissing 10,000 employees, with agency Freedom of Information Act offices being among the casualties.

This comes after HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a FOIA requester himself, promised “radical transparency” at the agency.

The entire FOIA office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was placed on administrative leave, and emails sent to CDC’s FOIA office received the response, “Hello, the FOIA office has been placed on admin leave and is unable to respond to any emails.” Most FOIA staff at the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health were also let go.

Bloomberg reporter Jason Leopold noted that CDC’s FOIA website was briefly taken entirely offline, but was restored after public outcry.

It’s important to note that even if CDC or other agency FOIA office websites are taken offline, requesters can visit FOIA.gov to find contact information for agencies and continue to submit requests. Agencies are still obligated to respond to requests even if their entire FOIA office has been sacked."

https://freedom.press/the-classifieds/rfk-jr-promises-radical-transparency-then-closes-foia-shops/

Happy Sunshine Week, now more than ever!

#government #opengovernment #transparency #publicrecords #righttoknow #foi #foia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Week

"Disproportionately, the datasets that are no longer accessible through the portal come from the Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of the Interior, NASA, and the Environmental Protection Agency. But determining what is actually gone and what has simply moved or is backed up elsewhere by the government is a manual task, and it's too early to say for sure what is gone and what may have been renamed or updated with a newer version.

This is because data.gov doesn’t always host the data that it is indexing. Sometimes the data is hosted directly on data.gov, but other times it links to an individual agency’s website, where the data is actually hosted. This means archiving and analyzing data.gov is not straightforward.

“Some of [the entries link to] actual data,” Cushman told 404 Media. “And some of them link to a landing page [where the data is hosted]. And the question is—when things are disappearing, is it the data it points to that is gone? Or is it just the index to it that’s gone?”"

https://www.404media.co/archivists-work-to-identify-and-save-the-thousands-of-datasets-disappearing-from-data-gov/

Right.
We need more of you lot to buy your tickets ASAP, and not leave it to the last minute please.

https://2025.everythingopen.au/attend/tickets/

Oh! So you already have a ticket? Awesome, please convince a friend, colleague or family member that they should come too!

Oh! You're speaking? Spruik your talk!!

This time next weekend I'll be gradually making my way to the fair city of Adelaide, and I can't wait to see everyone, and learn all the things!

Also - these keynotes!?! Oh my!
@sjpiper145
@daedalus
@Trishh

PLZ BOOST!
#EverythingOpen #AllThingsOpen #OpenSource #OpenGLAM #OpenScience #OpenData #OpenGovernment #OpenJustice #Linux #Apache #Drupal

Here are some nonprofits supporting #OpenGovernment work that you might consider donating to today: https://digiphile.info/2018/11/27/how-to-support-open-government-on-givingtuesday/ from @digiphile

ProPublica and MuckRock are probably our favorites, but the whole list is good.

Did you know you can observe the Department of Elections as they process the thousands of remaining ballots?

Election staff are working hard to count ballots, verify voter records, and ensure the San Francisco election is safe and secure!

Watch the live streams at https://www.sf.gov/watch-elections-processes-real-time.

"Dear readers,

Welcome to Secrecy Tracker, where we dig into what the EU would rather keep under wraps.

My name is Alexander Fanta, and I am a journalist.

Together with colleagues from three media organisations – Follow the Money, EUobserver and Investigate Europe – we are launching a new newsletter to expose the lack of transparency within the European Union.

You’re receiving this newsletter once to highlight how the EU may be ignoring European citizens’ rights – by withholding access to documents, lacking transparency on who made decisions when and why, and letting legal deadlines pass unchecked. If you’d like to keep receiving these updates every two months, click here."

https://www.ftm.eu/secrecy-tracker-what-the-eu-is-hiding#

Imagine someone set up a fediverse server at a domain like publicwatchdog.nz, to host AP feeds people could use to follow specific aspects of NZ government activity. What feeds would you want to create or follow?

#DigitalCommons #Commons #FOSS #OpenSource #OpenGovernment: "Digital commons are community-developed resources such as software, data, information, culture and knowledge which are created, shared and maintained by communities. Examples include free and open source software (FOSS) and open content and data resources such as Wikipedia and Wikidata, which can be used by anyone without needing to seek the permission of intellectual property owners, unlike ‘proprietary’ alternatives. While much of the digital commons is more technical, such as software, the arts and culture sector makes important contributions to the commons too, especially as regards to free culture and knowledge, with Creative Commons licensed content (such as images, literature and music) being an example of the former and Wikipedia being an example of the latter.

As we identify in the Best Practices Guide, digital commons have a number of advantages over their proprietary rivals. If used by governments, they can save the public purse money and improve national sovereignty by reducing dependence on Big Tech. The open and transparent nature of digital commons can also help restore public trust in government technology, as the experience of open and closed COVID apps, including in the UK, demonstrated. The use of digital commons can furthermore increase the public’s democratic participation and access to data.

Governments can assume an important role in adopting digital commons solutions in the public sector, and support the digital commons more widely through industrial policies, as France and Germany have done. However, such connections between governments and digital commons projects are not well known, or documented."

https://ncace.ac.uk/2024/10/14/incorporating-digital-commons-into-government-policies-an-introduction-to-the-digital-commons-policy-councils-best-practices-guide/

Have a look at today's newsletter for many new features of the 2024 Canadian Open Data Summit, including a free virtual session, Slack channels for networking, and more! https://buff.ly/4dzMWKp #opendata #opengovernment #opengov #opensource #civictech #cods24 #yeg

Register today for #CODS24 in Edmonton October 30-31, and see data-impact rockstars like Sean Boots show us all the way! https://buff.ly/47neoKa #opendata #opengovernment #opengov #opensource #civictech

Time’s almost up.
@everythingopen

Just over 3 hrs til the call for sessions closes.

#EverythingOpen
#Linux
#OpenSource
#OpenData
#OpenGLAM
#OpenAccess
#OpenGovernment

State Supreme Court rules Open Records Act applies to private contractors working for governments

#OpenGovernment #EnergyMastodon

https://georgiarecorder.com/briefs/state-supreme-court-rules-open-records-act-applies-to-private-contractors-working-for-governments/

Does anyone know when the official dates for #FOSDEM will be announced? I couldn't see on https://fosdem.org/2024/

I am just trying to plan for next year.

Why would local governments withhold information from the public, rather than provide it on request — or even proactively?

Veteran journalist Miranda Spivack weighs in. https://www.sfpublicpress.org/why-do-governments-keep-information-from-the-public-a-veteran-journalist-weighs-in/