Funding: The Open Society Foundations June 15 launched a $10 million Transparency Champions Challenge “to empower reformers around the world to improve government responsiveness and accountability.” The Open Society pledge of new resources to support the efforts of civil society and government transparency champions hinges on other governments, companies, and/or private foundations coming forward with similar commitments, with the goal of raising $50 million by 2014.
United Kingdom: A posting in the FOIMan blog “looks at new guidance issued by the Cabinet Office which appears to directly contradict the Information Commissioner.”
Open Data: An international conference on open data and agriculture is held in Washington, the first-of-its-kind G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture.
Europe: The LAPSI 2.0 network discusses its goals, saying it is focusing its attention in the first year of activities on the “legal interoperability” of licences. The LAPSI 2.0 network will also be “working hard to embed PSI and open data in the institutional culture of the public sector, and – if this does not work – on the enforcement of the rules on PSI and open data through efficient and effective redress mechanisms. While many public bodies have embraced open data, there are still many more that need to be convinced about the benefits for economic growth, participation and accountability.”
The group also said: Over the next two years, LAPSI 2.0, in cooperation with other projects and initiatives, will organise two conferences and a number of workshops on the legal aspects of PSI and open data. Our first conference is already planned: on October 24th, we hope to see you in Ljubljana for a great day on “The new PSI directive: what’s next?”. We are also planning workshops at the Samos Summit in July and you can find us at all the important open data events, including the OKCon in Geneva.
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United States: An overview article by the Associated Press on President Obama’s transparency record.
United States: Changes to Rhode Island public records are evaluated critically in an article by Tracy Breton in the Providence Journal, beginning:
Last September, at least on paper, Rhode Island was supposed to become a more transparent state.
Before adjourning in 2012, the General Assembly overhauled the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA), making revisions that Michael W. Field, the head of the attorney general’s Open Government Unit, said were “intended to open up new records.”
But there seems to be confusion over the interpretation of the law among police departments and state agencies, which in many instances are releasing less rather than more information.
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