From: Investigative Reporters & Editors
By Matt Rumsey, Sunlight Foundation
On Feb. 6, the Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to the Sunlight Foundation explaining how it planned to comply with our FOIA request for Enterprise Data Inventories. These inventories are compiled by 24 federal agencies as part of President Barack Obama’s 2013 open data executive order.
The release, which we believe will represent the largest index of government data in the world, is not just important for open government advocates. It’s important for journalists, researchers and more.
President Obama has made opening government data a priority throughout his term, but has not always been successful in making data easily accessible. The Sunlight Foundation has argued that, for an open data policy to be truly effective, the public must have access to a comprehensive list of government data holdings.
Already, government data sets are regularly used to inform reporting, conduct public oversight, create visualizations, and more. Public access to a proper index of government data will only expand these opportunities.
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