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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Law - "Internet advocate argues for open access to government law and policy" [More]

From the Daily Emerald, the independent daily newspaper of the University of Oregon, this report from CJ Ciaramella, dated Oct. 26th. Some quotes:

As part of its Open Access Week, the University libraries hosted a lecture on Friday by Carl Malamud, an influential Internet advocate who argued for open access to government law and policy. * * *

“Americans have always had an interest in reading the law,” Malamud said at the beginning of his lecture.

However, Malamud said government, especially state governments, have been stubborn to the point of obfuscation about putting their laws online, even going so far as to copyright them.

“How can we say we’re a nation of law, not a nation of men, if the law is hidden?” Malamud said.

Malamud came to Oregon’s attention when he recently came to the defense of University economics professor Bill Harbaugh. Harbaugh had scanned and uploaded the Oregon Attorney General’s Public Records and Meetings Manual, which the attorney general asserts copyright over and sells for $25, to the Internet.

Malamud uploaded the document to Public.Resources.Org and sent a letter to the attorney general arguing the document could not be copyrighted.

Another example of a “wrongheaded approach” to public documents is the Oregon Fire Marshal, which sells the Oregon Fire Code for $100. An online version of the code can be viewed online, but the document cannot be searched, printed or downloaded.

Last year, Malamud convinced the Oregon state legislature to drop an attempt to copyright the Oregon Revised Statutes.

However, Malamud said that Oregon is not particularly unusual in this regard. He said that 26 states assert some form of copyright over their laws and regulations.

Malamud said that open access to law also serves the public interest by making the statutes more user-friendly.

“Once you take down the fences around public domain, you not only get access, you get innovation.” Malumud said,

As an example, Malamud cited OregonLaws.org, a Web site started by a Lewis & Clark student that catalogs the Oregon Revised Statutes. However, unlike the state of Oregon’s Web site, the statutes are completely searchable, divided by subject and even include secondary sources such as news articles to give context to the statutes.

In a related story, Wired has a story dated Oct. 14th and headed "California County Hoarding Map Data Ordered to Pay $500,000." Kim Zetter writes:
A California county’s three-year battle to prevent a nonprofit group from obtaining public mapping data has ended disastrously for the county after it was ordered by a court to pay the group $500,000 in legal costs.

Last February, Santa Clara County, the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, was ordered to hand over the public records to the California First Amendment Coalition for a minimal duplication fee after initially trying to charge $250,000 for the data and then appealing to the federal government to designate the data a national security secret that couldn’t be released. This week the county paid out to the coalition twice the amount in legal fees that it had once hoped to rake in as profit for the data.

“It sends a very, very clear message that if they ignore their obligations under our open government laws, they better treat that as a real liability,” Peter Scheer, executive director of the coalition, told the San Jose Mercury News.

In 2006, the coalition used the state’s sunshine law to ask for a digital, data-rich map compiled by the county. Called a geographic information system, or GIS, parcel basemap database, the map shows the boundaries of 450,000 real estate parcels in Silicon Valley, along with overlaid aerial photos, street addresses and other data.

The county demanded $250,000 for the information, along with a signed nondisclosure agreement asserting that the coalition wouldn’t redistribute it, even though other California counties provide the same data for free or charge a minimal duplication fee.

So what about Indiana? The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette had this story yesterday, headed "Allen sits out statewide digital map." Ron Shawgo writes in a long story that begins:
A plan that officials say could save lives and improve economic development, disaster response, transportation, water quality and natural resources is receiving near statewide support – but not from Allen County.

Despite an appeal by the Indiana Department of Homeland Security and other state agencies for counties to help address what one official calls "our most pressing needs," Allen County has declined.

All of this over some maps.

More than 80 percent of the state’s counties have contributed computerized maps to the IndianaMap initiative. The statewide map is free to anyone, accessible on any office, home or field computer and has unlimited uses.

A study last year showed that the freely available electronic maps pay for their expense many times over in statewide economic development.

But for the kinds of maps the state wants – land parcels, addresses, roads and jurisdiction boundaries – Allen County charges $15,000.

A map shows that 16 other Indiana counties have declined, most notably Lake County.

The ILB has written about the accessibility of our building codes several times, including this entry from March 15th, headed "Indiana fire codes could be tougher" says Star. And they could be accessible, says ILB."

[More] Don't miss "San Francisco, the city that's open for data," from The Guardian. Also, "To do more with less, governments go digital" from the Oct. 10 NY Times.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 27, 2009 10:35 AM
Posted to General Law Related