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posted by martyb on Wednesday December 26 2018, @07:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the information-wants-to-be-free dept.

Congress approves act that opens US government data to the public

Congress has passed a bill that could make it easier for you to access public data released by the government. The House approved the OPEN Government Data Act on Saturday, while all eyes were on the shutdown, as part of a larger bill to support evidence-based policymaking. It requires that federal agencies must publish any "non-sensitive" info in a "machine-readable" format (essentially in a way that's legible on your smartphone or laptop). The act also insists that agencies appoint a chief data officer to oversee all open data efforts. Having passed the Senate last Wednesday, the bill is next headed to the President's desk.

The US public already paid for the data to be gathered, analyzed, and reported; why shouldn't they be able to freely access it?


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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 26 2018, @11:12PM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday December 26 2018, @11:12PM (#778780) Homepage Journal

    Don't take it too seriously, ed. I was just giving DM some well-deserved crap. I have complete faith they'll manage to screw it up somehow. They're politicians. If they actually made everything not suck, they couldn't rile anyone up to vote for them anymore.

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