Fixing Washington: The Public Online Information Act

The deal is to tell us what's really going on, how things work, where the money goes.

A lot of documents reveal that, but if they're on paper only, they might as well not exist.

This new proposed law would require that all executive-branch government stuff be online and searchable. (It's a start.)

(There'd be obvious exclusions, like for legitimate national security.)

Here's the info from the Sunlight Foundation:

In the age of the Internet, government is transparent only when public information is available online. The Public Online Information Act (POIA) is legislation, introduced by Rep. Israel, that embraces a new formula for transparency: public equals online. No longer will antiquated government disclosure practices bury public information in out-of-the-way offices and in outmoded formats.

POIA requires Executive Branch agencies to publish all publicly available information on the Internet in a timely fashion and in user-friendly formats. It also creates an advisory committee to help develop government-wide Internet publication policies.

(Disclaimer: Because of stuff like this, I'm on the board of Sunlight.)