Would Your Employer Hide from PBS Frontline?

Earlier this year, PBS Frontline aired a report on U.S. airline aircraft maintenance practices. Frontline had been contacted by workers and others in the industry to investigate vastly increased outsourcing of aircraft maintenance, steps taken to help U.S. citizens fly more cheaply.

The show aired reporter Miles O'Brien at the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) industry trade show asking a former United Airlines executive about this outsourcing. The executive invited O'Brien to visit one of their supplier's plants in China, and Frontline took him up on the offer. But shortly before the trip was to start, the trip was called off. No reason was given. O'Brien then resolved to visit a U.S.-based firm, ST Aerospace Mobile, a large Singapore-owned repair facility in Alabama. 

ST Aerospace is a 7,000 employee global firm. Its Mobile subsidiary performs repairs for United, USAir and others. ST Aerospace would not agree to an interview with Frontline. Instead, Frontline staff had to rely upon secret video taken by current and former employees, and disguised voice-over interviews. Lacking its own on-screen voice, ST Aerospace had to reply to concerns over quality and workforce expertise in a letter. (Letters -- A quaint approach in today's e-media world. The letter is posted on the PBS web site).  A separate ST Aerospace email followed later.

Firms deserve the opportunity to defend themselves, and have the right to ignore requests for discussions when they feel it is not in their best interest. However, ignoring reputable outlets like Frontline creates the impression of an enterprise trying to shield themselves from the spotlight of transparency. 

Fast forward to April and Southwest Flight 812. William McGee of Consumer Reports, who had also been interviewed for the Frontline story, revived the debate with his NYT op-ed piece on aircraft maintenance practices after a 5-foot hole opened up in a Flight 812's Boeing 737-300 over the Arizona desert. As one who has flown on Southwest out of Phoenix perhaps a hundred times, often over that same stretch of desert enroute to San Diego, the incident was of special interest.


Was this plane maintained at contractor Aeroman's facility in El Salvador, one of the several third party MRO facilities in the U.S., or at its in-house maintenance outfits in Phoenix, Houston, Dallas and Chicago?  According to news reports, the in-house Dallas facility performed the last "maintenance check" of the plane. Attempts at external transparency may be foiled, but in this comparatively regulated industry, there are likely electronic repair histories to be studied by those seeking internal transparency of quality procedures.


p.s. In the previous episode of this series, Continental Airlines also refused to be interviewed. 

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Would Your Employer Hide from PBS Frontline?

Don't Hide, Just Kill Transparency Funding

Modest attempts (by IT standards) to create more U.S. federal government transparency tend to cite several  related projects: the IT Dashboard, usaspending.gov and data.gov. Current budget wrangling targets all of these initiatives for cuts. InfoWorld's Eric Knorr added his voice to a growing list of concerned experts in the IT community. And who wants to do the cutting and hiding? According to some, "the provision to cut these programs started among House Republicans and was re-introduced by Senate Democrats."

Save the Data!, a call to action by transparency advocate Sunlight Foundation recommends that citizens work to get the word out. That means signing Sunlight's letter to Congress, crafting a letter to the editor of the local paper, or producing a blog post.

In keeping with principles espoused elsewhere, seven reasons to not only preserve but to expand these programs can be given:

1. "iFedApps" Provide a sort of FedApps store in which citizen-developed apps can be vetted and hosted. These can include specialized local applications that would not otherwise see the light of day. It's not just about the apps. There is value in promoting citizen responsibility for monitoring and interpreting the actions of government. With most citizens disengaged except once every four years, or perhaps events related to personal hot-button issues (abortion, gay marriage, antiwar sentiment), fostering a habit of sober analysis across a wide range of policy issues can't hurt.
2. Compensatory Transparency With much of lawmaking happening behind closed doors or with secret holds, sometimes the only way to learn about laws is to study their effects -- especially through funding effects, but also through crowdsourcing and simple information sharing. These latter opportunities are not directly supported by data, but by informed discourse that is stimulated by the availability of data.
3. Data Quality Must Evolve Data is not knowledge. Initial attempts to release useful, complete and standardized data for use by a broad audience -- whether by the government or others -- needs to evolve over time. Programs such as these need time to get it right. Analysis of one dataset will leads to calls for others that were not originally anticipated. Experts in diverse fields may need to weigh in. Effective visualization tools may not be immediately available.
4. Support Critical Decision-making Some data that can only provided from federal datasets can guide decision-making that can affect the economic viability of individual businesses and the soundness of policies. In the absence of data, policymakers are free to make claims that appeal to constituents but cannot be confirmed or denied by looking at the evidence. Some datasets may lead directly to business opportunities, as argued by Clive Thompson.
5. Incentivize Cost-Saving It may be human nature to be more interested in new ideas, new technologies and new gadgets rather than cost avoidance. Certainly this has been argued in the energy sphere (Montana's Governor Schweitzer notes, "energy efficiency provides the best homegrown defense against high-energy prices and it produces the quickest results"). It may be true in many  spheres of government, especially as ways to reduce health care costs and defense spending become more urgent in light of federal debt obligations. Ingenious ways to save must start with a good understanding of where spending occurs and what factors drive it. As today's businesses understand, a healthy IT infrastructure is a necessary, if not sufficient, component in identifying or executing cost saving ideas.
6. Kick "Informed Citizenry" Up a Notch  Taken as a suite -- the datasets, tools and support staff -- the e-government transparency initiatives should (despite their limitations) provide a rich resource for teachers and learners. Make the idea of "an informed citizenry" concrete. Being informed takes more than reading front page news stories or press releases. The confluence of mathematics, public policy, government, environment -- and more -- provides deep, practical introductions for students that are far richer than the artificial "word problems" posed in many textbooks. Worse, the latter examples tend to be mono-disciplinary, which is to say, unrealistically narrow in focus. Paraphrasing Don Rothman, the National Writing Project says "students must grapple with complexity in order to learn."
7. Urge Politicians Toward Digital Literacy Budget cuts may reduce digital literacy among students, but it's too late for many politicians. Widespread use of open datasets could demand that politicians who lack this expertise must seek out subordinates with expertise in the tools, data and metadata, and  social ecosystem supporting public information portals. Indirectly, this could lead to other benefits, such as:
1.  healthier and judicious use of FOIA requests; 
2. better management of federal programs so that datasets can be created efficiently and distributed in more timely fashion; 
3. increased adoption of digital metrics to assess the results and value of federal programs. 

This latter result, improved measurement, even if achieved in subtle ways, is nothing short of subversive. ◦

Don't Hide, Just Kill Transparency Funding

The D.B. Coopers of School Budget Politicos

Sometimes the best way to hide an injustice is to slip into the landscape -- think D.B. Cooper in a prior life as a public schools budget analyst.  The NYT reports in an opinion piece that as New York state edges warily toward belt-tightening and a modicum of transparency, disparate treatment of school districts is business as usual. The Times compared Mohawk Valley's Ilion district with nearby (to me) Long Island's Syosset. At Ilion, more than a third of the students are eligible for free or reduced-cost lunches. Despite some increased funding over the past decade, Ilion offers only four of 34 AP classes. The budget for Ilion is $25M a year, and the proposed state budget would cut that another $1.1M. Couple that with reported mandated costs for raises, benefits and the budget will have to absorb a loss of $2.4M over the prior year. (New York state pension expenses -- which will cost all districts -- are required by the New York constitution, which the Times says "makes it illegal to reduce benefits for workers already enrolled in the system.")  Due its impoverished rural employer base, Ilion is relatively more dependent on state funding. That funding amounts to $14,100 per student after the adjustments.

Syosset's budget for its 6,600 students is $188M, but it gets only 13% of its funding from the state, where as Ilion relies upon the state for 75%. The district offers almost 30 AP courses, and was ranked as having the best arts education in the U.S. in 2002. Syosset's district will receive $1.4M less from the state according to the proposed budget. The amount isn't provided in the story, but I'd estimate that the district faces similar mandated cost increases -- perhaps $9.77M using a proportional rule of thumb. Using that estimate and the proposed reductions, the Sysosset per capita budget amounts to perhaps $27,000 per student. That's roughly twice as much as at Ilion.

According to the Times writer, 

Districts like Syosset also benefit from loopholes in the state funding formula that drive hundreds of millions of dollars each year toward wealthy and moderate-income school systems that could do without it.

What are those loopholes? What has happened in the recently passed New York budget? Where will school districts cut back in light of anti-tax activism? No public education policy maven, I don't have the answers, but let's see the numbers. These public education policy decisions deserve greater transparency.

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The D.B. Coopers of School Budget Politicos

Transparency in Bird Watching: Satellite Hagiography

One multimedia artist / academic tackled transparency in a big --or at least expansive way.

Kathy Marmor's work, "Bird Watching" (see the swf video), is described more fully in Leonardo (subscription required), but here's the abstract.

Space satellites are invisible instruments of globalization that influence governmental policies. This paper examines remote sensing satellites as optical devices capable of redefining human cognition. They represent accessibility and openness through the more agreeable paradigm of transparency. However, transparency, like surveillance, is based on the interconnection between power, knowledge and perceptual experience. Artists use a variety of tactical practices, including amateurism, to tease apart these connections. Amateurism dedicates itself to the politics of knowledge. The author concludes, based on examples of her work and that of others, that the potential for political intervention exists when knowledge is paired with action.

This work was brought to my attention by an ACM Siggraph email alert. In the Siggraph presentation, she spoke of the "Cartesian split between mind and body . . ." and made reference to the Lisa Parks' Cultures in Orbit text.  She closed that talk by reminding her audience that we are all "participants in the culture of surveillance and that we're accountable as global citizens." 

On her web site she introduced the work in this way:

While researching satellites for Bird Watching I discovered that I could intercept their signals as they pass overhead on an inexpensive radio scanner. I also came across an organization called AMSAT ( a group of amateur radio operators) who make their own communications satellites. This type of amateurism reminded me of artists who characterized themselves as bio-hobbyists because their work and research often incorporated scientific techniques. 

My research on satellites focused not only amateurism as a tactical practice, but also on globalization and surveillance. The paper I wrote for Leonardo (that is forthcoming in 2008) discussed remote sensing satellites as optical devices capable of redefining human cognition. My paper suggests that although satellites support a supposedly innocuous paradigm of transparency, that transparency like surveillance, is based on the interconnection between power, knowledge and perceptual experience.

Personal note: Cross-post to PoetryAndScience.com. 

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Transparency in Bird Watching: Satellite Hagiography

WNYC's Lehrer Show Probes Effectiveness of U.S. Transparency Initiatives

WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show recently mounted an effort to explore through crowdsourcing the usefulness of the USA Spending Database to citizens and researchers. Accompanying Lehrer's team for the radio analysis was US CTO Aneesh Chopra and Beth Noveck, Deputy Director for Open Government. Some of the issues raised, but not well addressed:

• Are specialists are needed to perform analytics on the data provided?
• Is it necessary to know "what you're looking for" in advance?  In other words, you don't know what you're missing.
• What resources are provided to citizens if they believe there is data that should be available, but has not been provided? 
• Does the initiative include mechanisms to encourage (or require) transparency through process workflow and other techniques?

The discussion can be found in WNYC's broadcast archives.

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WNYC's Lehrer Show Probes Effectiveness of U.S. Transparency Initiatives

Get the Facts Before Negotiating an Annual Fuel Contract

The U.S. Energy Information Administration of the DOE maintains a valuable resource which supports transparency in pricing for consumer energy.  In the northeastern U.S., heating oil is one of the primary sources for home energy.  If memory serves, it's always been deregulated, with consumers free to select among numerous, typically small local providers -- and there are a few much larger providers as well. With further deregulation, now other utilities also allow consumers to shop for fuel sources.

But where can one turn for objective information on wholesale fuel prices?

Not only does the site house historical data for multiple fuel categories such as heating oil, diesel and natural gas, but it features a tailorable and downloadable capability for obtaining just the information needed to support local decision-making. The agency also offers a weekly newsletter with analysis of current U.S. and global market conditions, including trends for the upcoming year and the long term prognosis for certain fuel categories.

A basic fact to arm oneself with for negotiating annual heating oil contracts is a region's average retail price per gallon.  For example, for heating oil less any applicable tax in September 2008, it was 366.60 for the Northeast region, whereas in September 2009 it was 235.20.  (Contract prices will be lower).

Weaknesses to bear in mind:

• Very local market conditions are not included; analysis and historical data is collected for large geographical regions, and prices can vary greatly within those regions
• Current presentations on the site do not facilitate direct energy source comparisons, e.g., heating oil vs. natural gas comparisons
• Longer term (beyond a year) forecasts for supply and cost are not provided
  

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Get the Facts Before Negotiating an Annual Fuel Contract

Are you sure about that, Dr? Health care Transparency and SocNet Pervasiveness

A recent incident reported by an IT blogger ("How I tweeted my way out of spinal surgery") involved a woman who suffered a spinal injury while in rural Pennsylvania. According to patient and IT specialist Sarah Cortez, the rural hospital's staff involved attempted to persuade Ms. Cortez to undergo back surgery -- she believes at least in part because of her appealing top tier health insurance coverage.

ZDNet's Michael Krigsman looked into the facts surrounding the case and cited the patient's assertion that in addition to serving as a revenue enhancer, the case might boost the hospital's accreditation statistics. Ms. Cortez resisted the staff's attempts at what she believed to be intimidation and reached out to Twitter followers to provide names of neurosurgeons in Boston where she lived. She was successful in this attempt while still hospitalized and despite the obvious difficulties in reaching knowledgeable practitioners on short notice.

Krigsman concludes that the incident reflects two emerging trends relevant to enterprise transparency:

1. That "social networking causes a balance of power to shift from the enterprise to its customers. Customers don't care about an organization's internal communication hierarchies. . ." Twitter allows customers to use alternate channels to test or even contest judgments offered by house experts whose authority was previously difficult to question.
2. Krigsman believes transparency is "inevitable" as "ad hoc collaboration groups" and "transient social collaboration" urge enterprises toward more responsive processes.

The motivations for the enterprise may be defensive. Krigsman reminds his readers that "every customer is a potential broadcaster reporter."

The implications for the professions -- physicians, attorneys, and accountants take note -- are unmistakable. Whatever the privacy, public policy, professional practice and public ignorance considerations that may cloud any given decision, be prepared for some patients to question, "Are you sure about that, Doctor?"

For a more nuanced view of web enabled health content, its publishers and information consumers, research such as this study by J. Segal may demonstrate some intrinsic limits on transparency. Some limits may be imposed by weaknesses in communications that underlie such attempts.

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Are you sure about that, Dr? Health care Transparency and SocNet Pervasiveness

NY State: Translucent vs. Transparent

The devil is in the details. WNYC took a look at three New York state web properties claimed by their associated political factions to further the cause of transparency in the state. WNYC's Andrea Bernstein reached the conclusion that the amount of information being disclosed fell short of full transparency, calling the content "sparse." As Photoshop users will understand, transparency can be adjusted using a slider. Bernstein has revealed a slider setting well within the comfort zone for three NY state political factions.

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NY State: Translucent vs. Transparent

UK "E-Petition" Aimed at Family Law Opaqueness

In 2007, an "e-petition" -- perhaps one day a sometime weapon of transparency advocacy -- was circulated in the UK requesting greater transparency in family justice. There is little doubt that finding and agreeing upon common outcome measures, not to mention privacy and child protection considerations, would be contentious, but the issue serves to highlight how many hitherto darkened corners of the social machinery have yet to be illuminated.

As the petitioner's creator wrote at the time:

We cannot understand how the decisions of the Family Courts affect real families because of the secretive nature of them. Because the courts do not follow up on the results of their decisions, we cannot understand whether or not their decisions work for the good or the bad of families and thus it is difficult for the courts to improve the way they manage family dispute.

Full transparency, of course, could disclose a full array of legal procedural and financial facts, such as legal fees, postponements, court costs, rulings, opinions on the conduct of judges -- far beyond only family court.

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UK "E-Petition" Aimed at Family Law Opaqueness

Sunlight Foundation Receives $4M from Omidyar Network (March 2009)

The Omidyar Network, started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, has committed $8M to the Sunlight Foundation since 2007. In March of this year, the Network announced a $4M grant to "support Sunlight's efforts to improve access to existing government information, digitize new information, and create new online tools to foster greater government transparency."

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Sunlight Foundation Receives $4M from Omidyar Network (March 2009)

Lost Bush Era Email Message Excuses, Delays Persist

On The Media's cleverly titled report "Delete All" documents an ongoing attempt by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) and GMU's National Security Archive to obtain "lost" | "deleted" (nonexistent?) email from the Bush Administration. CREW told Bob Garfield today that they believe the Obama Administration has yet to demonstrate their full commitment to transparency, at least where this subject is concerned.

As CREW's Chief Counsel Anne Weisemann noted in a separate Wired story, the federal appeals court ruling was unhelpful, but "starting with his own offices, President Obama now has the perfect opportunity to make good on his promise of transparency." The White House Office of Administration is claiming that they're not an agency, so they need not comply with FOIA. CREW and, according to Wired, 36 other groups, sent a letter to the Obama Administration requesting a better outcome than they secured from the Bush Administration.

Speaking as an IT professional, most galling of all is the claim that the email has gone missing or unavailable due to "problems with the email system." Um, right. The email system for the White House is probably run on PhP Horde with support from some part time student in Bulgaria. GMU's National Security Archive advises that as of January 2009, the White House "had not recovered files from computer workstations or collected external computer storage media that may contain missing emails."

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Lost Bush Era Email Message Excuses, Delays Persist

"X-Men" Leads US Army Blogger to Claim Greater Transparency

A casual editorial posted on Army Live on May 3 (see in Google cache) posted a mostly positive review of the film X-Men: Wolverine, and took this occasion to lodge a minor complaint against Hollywood writers. The author had seen the film, and despite liking it overall, took offense at a recurrent plot that has U.S. Army generals taking part in "secret government plots." The US Army blogger reminded readers that the Army has a Public Affairs office in Los Angeles, which is available for consultation with directors and screenwriters (as well as other equally serious obligations, one assumes). The office has sent Army personnel to movie sets to offer guidance.

The Army Live writer went on to offer this opinion:

[The] U.S. Army expends great effort in being as transparent as possible. They weigh the balance between release of information and national security, and communicate as much as possible with the American public. . . those who have experienced war firsthand are that much more sensitive to human suffering than others in this world, and that much more inclined to acts of compassion and concern. And in today’s information world, they are more open to releasing information than most major corporations I’ve worked with - they understand the obligation they have to communicate honestly with the American public.

http://armylive.dodlive.mil/2009/05/03/x-men-origins-and-the-us-army/

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"X-Men" Leads US Army Blogger to Claim Greater Transparency

EFF, Public Information Decry Inaction on Intellectual Property Treaty Disclosures

A lightly discussed agreement known as ACTA, or Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, has been the subject of criticism by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Information. In a joint press release, the non-profits report that more than a thousand pages of content regarding ACTA are still being withheld.

The release of this information is ostensibly under the purview of the US Trade Representative (USTR). EFF and Public Knowledge (PN) filed for this release under FOIA in September 2008. This apparent indifference to public process is odd in light of what the EFF/PN press release calls the "official summary" provided by USTR. The USTR's official summary of the process released last month, the EFF International Affairs Director claims, "recognized the lack of transparency so far while doing nothing to broaden stakeholder input or engage public debate. The radical proposals being considered under the Internet provisions deserve a more transparent process with greater public participation."

There are several potentially far-reaching and worrisome regulations under consideration in ACTA:

• ACTA could establish far-reaching customs regulations over Internet traffic in the guise of anti-counterfeiting measures
• Some multi-national IP industry companies have publicly requested that ISPs be required to engage in filtering of their customers' Internet communications for potentially copyright-infringing material
• Possible mandatory disclosure of personal information about alleged copyright infringers
• Possible "Three Strikes" policies requiring ISPs to automatically terminate customers' Internet access upon a repeat allegation of copyright infringement.
  

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EFF, Public Information Decry Inaction on Intellectual Property Treaty Disclosures

Transparency in Cybersecurity: Weakness or Wisdom?

Federal Computer Week reported on a National Research Council news conference that raised concerns about the US policy and framework for launching cyberattacks. The NRC has a committee on Offensive Information Warfare responsible for the report. discussed several technical and logistic aspects of cyber attacks, which the NRC advises needs more oversight.

"The report recommended that the government have a clear, transparent and inclusive structure for making decisions on whether to launch a cyberattack. The government should also do a periodic accounting of cyberattacks undertaken by the military and agencies with the results available to senior decision-makers. "

Disclosure Note The Transparency Wonk is an employee of Secure Decisions, a division of Applied Visions, Inc. This post does not reflect any official position of the firm, research results or opinions of co-workers.

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Transparency in Cybersecurity: Weakness or Wisdom?

Did Feds Sabotage B of A Transactions' Transparency?

The plot line moved on to "stress tests" and additional capitalization through private equity, but last month's WSJ Bank of America story that got the Wonk's attention happened earlier. The Wall Street Journal's headline was "Busting Bank of America," but Marketplace had covered this several days earlier as "Did Government Block Transparency?"

The issue was how much pressure Henry Paulsen and Ben Bernanke put on the Bank of America CEO to proceed with B of A's acquisition of Merrill Lynch. CEO Ken Lewis was "having second thoughts," according to the story, and according to testimony released by New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Lewis was told he'd be fired if B of A didn't go ahead with the deal. Marketplace's Steve Henn interviewed Columbia's John Coffee, who said that this sort of arrangement resembled the Freddie Mac foreclosure prevention program that was going to cost Freddie Mac $30B; Coffee dubbed this tactic part of a "shadow governance regime." Coffee called for an independent agency to press for greater transparency and oversight.

The WSJ reported that "Mr. Lewis was considering invoking his rights under a material adverse condition clause to kill the merger." Lewis also disliked the dilutive effect the transaction (and others that followed) would have on shareholder value. Paulson, fearing public panic, was reported to have said "We do not want a public disclosure." Just whom could not be trusted with this knowledge is unclear, but WSJ reports that former SEC chief Christopher Cox and the Financial Stability Oversight Board (FSOB) were not among the privileged few.

Marketplace also posted the full text of Cuomo's letter on the subject.

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Did Feds Sabotage B of A Transactions' Transparency?

USAF ISR Exec Cites Transparency Need

In an April 2009 appearance, General David Deptula, USAF Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), told a group at Goodfellow AFB that the USAF is "heading toward in integrated, full-spectrum ISR program throughout air, space and cyberspace."

His remarks extended beyond this observation, which was also noteworthy for its inclusion of cyberspace in the ISR spectrum. Deptula indicated that ISR is moving "to the tactical level" rather than being "husbanded at higher levels." The USAF is increasing the number of enlisted ISR airmen by 25 percent over the next three years and changes are reportedly underway to overhaul ISR training. Based on the General's remarks, the training may extend beyond ISR itself to its broader context:

Creating an Air Force ISR enterprise where the source is transparent, analysis predictive and distribution immediate is a must for the joint force if we are to survive and thrive against the threats and security challenges in front of us.

Critics of USAF-managed drone operations, and those overseen in support of CIA and Special Forces have asked for greater transparency. Teaching transparency fundamentals in ISR training could involve exposing intelligence hypotheses to a somewhat broader audience, while not compromising secrecy, and lead to more robust critical thinking by intelligence officers. What this curriculum should consist of should itself be transparent.

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USAF ISR Exec Cites Transparency Need

Federal Computer Week Launches Government Transparency Coverage

The surge in public discourse, if not public policy, surrounding transparency is not lost on those providing reportage to the government and government contractor community. In May, Federal Computer Week (FCW) launched a landing page and associated stories called "Transparent Government Solutions."

In introducing the new coverage, Jeff Erlichman wrote:

Tracking where the money is going is only one element of transparency. Full disclosure of government rule making and how government programs are operating are two others, but there are many, many more – and many, many more waiting to be discovered.

The low-hanging fruit is about so-called Government 2.0 and Vivek Kundra, the new administration's relatively inexperienced federal CIO. As FCW notes, there's much more to it. For starters, FCW indicates they'll be tracking the work of Greg Elin (Sunlight Foundation), Jerry Brito (GMU), and Teresa Nasif (Office of Citizen Services at GSA).

The FCW story points to these emerging issues:

• Tradeoffs between data security, accuracy and privacy
• Social networking and other citizen engagement
  
• Federal / state / local government inter-agency transparency
  
• More than chasing the money
  

The Federal Computer Week report was produced by Custom Media Group, referred to as an "independent editorial arm of 1105 Government Information Group." A PDF of the current version of the report was also provided.

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Federal Computer Week Launches Government Transparency Coverage

Radical Transparency's Use Cases

An emerging entry in Wikipedia is "radical transparency." Two references are cited so far:

• Wired's 2007 article "The See-Through CEO" by Clive Thompson


• David Brin's book "The Transparency Society"

Thompson opines that "the internet has inverted the social physics of information." He cites the 2007 actions of Redfin, the online real estate brokerage firm, which was moved through its blogs and press releases to disclose aspects of the clubbish brokerage business. For example, Redfin's blog includes a spreadsheet with its current (April 2009) transaction summaries.

Bill Moyers' Journal featured an interview with Daniel Coleman. Coleman discussed his book, Ecological Intelligence, in which he promotes life cycle assessment (a concept taken, I'd argue, from late 70's IT, when it was introduced for federal IT oversight). Initiatives thought to be "green" might turn out to be less so when the full life cycle of the product or process are considered. (Coleman recommends GoodGuide.com).

Beyond Redfin and life cycle initiatives, what are the use cases for radical transparency?

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Radical Transparency's Use Cases

"Transparency 2.0" an IT Cover Story

The May 11, 2009 issue's cover story for Information Week is Mary Hayes Weier's "Transparency 2.0." Weier concludes a fairly detailed analysis of the White House's recovery.gov project by calling it:

". . . the government's most modern and complicated attempt at transparency, and it will say much about the administration's ability to turn vision into action. If it can build recovery.gov and the web-based information supply chain behind it, it will be a platform for more disclosure. But if Recovery.gov becomes the Web version of a Potemkim village, with an impressive graphical Web front end to flat spreadsheets, unpredictable data updates, and an army of manual maintenance, it'll add nothing but costs" (p. 60).

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"Transparency 2.0" an IT Cover Story

Consumer Reports Calls for Transparency in Health Insurance

Consumer Reports' story "Hazardous Health Plans" (May 2009) revealed the effects of what must be called deceptive health insurance plan descriptions. Coverage gaps big enough to drive truck through (my insensitive wording) caused CR to term such plans "junk insurance." Perhaps surprisingly, some of these junk plans are still offered by major firms such as Aetna ("Affordable Health Choices"). After reciting several harrowing stories, CR offers its own list of recommendations for lawmakers. It comes as no surprise to the Wonk that one recommendation calls for enhanced policy transparency. In some states, consumers are not able to examine the details of policies they purchase until after they have joined. If they change their minds after seeing the details, CR observes, consumers run the risk of going without coverage.

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Consumer Reports Calls for Transparency in Health Insurance

Antidote For Some "Toxic Assets"

On Marketplace, Renita Jablonski interviewed L.A. Times columnist David Lazarus. Lazarus (check out his video) isn't happy with journalists' and politicians' references so-called "toxic assets." He points out some of those assets still have value and that the ongoing haste to unload them could prove to be counterproductive. The underlying issue, it seems to the Wonk, is transparency:

Jablonski: Well, tell me this: If you could, for a day, change your name to Tim Geithner, what would you do right now?

Lazarus: I think one thing I would do is to step right up and say all this lip service we've been paying to regulatory changes, here's what we're talking about. And what we're talking about specifically is far greater transparency in the marketplace.

Jablonski: But how do you create that?

Lazarus: How do you create that? It's reporting requirements -- very clear reporting requirements and very regular reporting requirements. And also consequences that come -- severe consequences -- when those reporting requirements are not met. Obviously, I'm simplifying very grossly. But at the same time, this is the culture that needs to come into place -- a culture of disclosure as opposed to a culture of denial.

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Antidote For Some "Toxic Assets"

Web content for recovery.gov: AIG's swap owners and value

Marketplace aired a commentary by Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Central to his worry was this:

The problem is that . . . we don't know who holds the swaps and how much they are owed. We don't know if the Fed is only honoring AIG's credit default swaps to ensure the solvency of banks and pension funds, or whether it may be paying off credit default swaps even in cases where hedge funds or other speculators were just making a bet that a bond would go bad.

So let's post these AIG transactions at recovery.gov, even if some customer privacy must be honored. And if this isn't possible for some reason, the amount of the swaps and a general description of the owners should be posted, if necessary filtered through a watchdog middleman.

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Web content for recovery.gov: AIG's swap owners and value

Data.gov Is Coming, but what about DoD?

From this Wired story, comes an obvious, but still novel suggestion: "Barack Obama and his new Chief Information Officer say they want to make government data more accessible and easier to use. But they'll need your help pointing out which datasets we need the most. Enter the Wired How to Open Up Government Data wiki."

I'd like to see the data from Department of Defense research more available to the public. E.g., there are numerous research summaries from SBIR and other funding sources that is ostensibly intended to promote commercialization -- yet this information is largely hidden not only from public view, but even from peer-to-peer contractor view in the DTIC database. Contractors could be required to author publicly visible versions of their work to promote both the self-interested commercialization angle and the civic duty to maximize taxpayer bang for the buck. Unfortunately, less and less has become visible on DTIC as more and more research summaries have been added. (I'm speaking as a worker in a defense contract organization with some level of access, so I'm already seeing much more than the public could see).

You may need special access to play, but a different, related initiative is underway in DoD for DoDTechipedia, as this recent email from a DoD information agency indicated:

JOIN THE BEST MINDS IN TECHNOLOGY ON DODTECHIPEDIA.MIL. Connect with colleagues. Share new ideas. Learn about emerging technical challenges or contribute solutions. The conversation is already under way on https://www.dodtechipedia.mil, the new science and technology wiki for the Department of Defense. With over 5,000 new users and 400 technology pages, all that is missing is your contribution.

Here's a related story about DoDTechipedia.

read more at Wired digg story ◦

Data.gov Is Coming, but what about DoD?

Self-aware Population: Prerequisite for Transparency?

Today on WNYC, Leonard Lopate and guests consider whether Obama's hoped-for transparency can be achieved without enhanced citizen self-awareness and education. Even for democratic states, many consider this hope recklessly idealistic.

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Self-aware Population: Prerequisite for Transparency?

"Show me the money!" At least 21 banks won't do it.

Today the Associated Press reported that 21 banks they contacted were unable or unwilling to account in detail for how they have spent the billions of taxpayer funds they've received.

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"Show me the money!" At least 21 banks won't do it.

What is "financial transparency"?

Opinions such as those by Christopher Cox (Chairman of the SEC) in "Swapping Secrecy for Transparency" are typical of many that recommend improved transparency as part of the solution for the current credit crisis. He suggests that Congress require that "dealers in over-the-counter credit-default swaps publicly report both their trades and the value of their trades."

What are the counter-arguments? Why weren't Congressmen who were around during the S&L crisis of the late 80's able to see this inevitable lapse?

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What is "financial transparency"?

CRM's Take on Transparency

In CRM magazine, writer Lauren McKay begins her story on transparency with:

"Imagine yourself looking in a mirror. What you find yourself looking at may not be what you were looking for. But isn’t seeing what’s real better than seeing an illusion? Aren’t we better off knowing what’s true?"

The essay suggests that "transparency is the new currency in CRM." For a really fast read, skim her What Transparency Is / What Transparency Is Not chart. My favorite: Transparency is not "a web site with no 'Contact Us' or phone number." Or a 'Contact Us' that has only an email address. ◦

CRM's Take on Transparency

CrowdSourcing as a form of Transparency

I've been experimenting with a hosted network management product called Spiceworks. While it has some neat ideas for larger networks, the target market is smaller networks. This Justin James Tech Republic story describes how Spiceworks is integrating crowdsourcing into the product. Whether this is ultimately successful may be debatable, but the notion of incorporating community-based works exposes some parts of the underlying technology, as well as how that technology is managed. I would argue that this is one form of transparency that can effectively leverage "web 2.0" capabilities.

<Tech Republic's trackback>

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CrowdSourcing as a form of Transparency

Plastics Manufacturers / Package Designers vs. Local Recycling Policy

I'm linking to one of several sites that lists the recycle codes for plastics. In my area, plastics recycling is limited to codes 1 and 2. I noticed that yogurt bottles, such as Silk Live Soy Yogurt, use code 5. Plus the size of the code is so small that I had to scan ,magnify and enhance the code image in order to read it. See the image.

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Plastics Manufacturers / Package Designers vs. Local Recycling Policy

Narus: Arms Supplier to Uncle Sam?

Exaggeration? Perhaps, but in the rerun of Frontline's Hedrick Smith report on domestic US spying, a pricey Narus box was the smoking gun that led a whistleblower to understand just how extensively AT&T had sold out information on millions of Americans to a covert federal program.

You can watch the show online. The interview with the Narus Marketing Director has the feel of an arms dealer working earnestly to wash his hands of the affair. As Tom Lehrer famously sang, "Once ze rockets go up, who knows where zey go down. That's not my department, said Werner von Braun."

Thinking of IT -- especially network IT -- as an integral part of the military-industrial complex, is a perspective that must be more widely adopted. The social responsibilities of its practitioners, deserve closer scrutiny. One first step is for them to review section 1.7 of the ACM Code of Ethics, i.e., Respect the privacy of others.

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Narus: Arms Supplier to Uncle Sam?

Credit Card Disputes

In a September 2007 story, Marketplace's Helen Palmer reported that consumers have little chance of seeing disputed credit card transactions resolved in their favor. This disadvantage is due to a cosy relationship between the National Arbitration Forum and the lenders.

This report was based upon an analysis by Public Citizen, which found that consumers lost 18,000 of 19,000 disputes. In 15,000 other cases, Public Citizen found that there was a settlement, one of the parties stopped the dispute process, or the borrower filed for bankruptcy protection.

The report's authors noted that nearly all credit card customer service agreements mandate binding arbitration. While arbitration is sometimes a cost effective and fair method of dispute resolution, in this case the statistics indicate otherwise.

An industry representative, Edward Yingling of the American Bankers Association, was contacted in Palmer's report. He objected to the conclusions, saying that it "varies wildly from other respected research on the topic," but neither the report nor other public outlets have identified said "respected research." Yingling did not refute the findings that consumers lost a disproportionate number of the cases studied.

WONK ADVICE
1. Arbitration outfits should be chosen by a neutral third party, and their findings should be published on the web.
2. The current incumbent, the National Arbitration Forum, should revisit the procedures involved in such settlements. If it is unable to improve this sorry record of biased adjudication, then it should be barred from participating in settling such disputes.
3. Citizens should be more proactive in reporting their difficulties in credit card disputes through means including epinions and other web-based forums.
4. Competition. Are there any lenders willing to brave real arbitration vs. this sham justice?
5. Support the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007. Introduced as S. 1782 by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) in the Senate and H.R. 3010 by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) in the House, this bill would help consumers by eliminating pre-dispute binding mandatory arbitration (BMA) clauses in consumer and employment contracts. Public Citizen has a web form to help compose a message to your elected officials.
6. Other states should follow California's suit by requiring that arbitration resolutions be disclosed. ◦

Credit Card Disputes

Push for Transparency in US State Finance

Only Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Indiana and Minnesota do it. Why doesn't your state or province? Do you know where you taxes are being spent?

Grover Norquist (of Americans for Tax Reform) and Ralph Nader co-signed a letter to all governors suggesting that they "emulate and go beyond the advances in bringing more openness to governmental expeditures put forth by several governors including Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana."

Is obfuscation intentional, or is the absence of transparency needed as a pork-concealing bureaucratic blanket? ◦

Push for Transparency in US State Finance

Customer List transparency

Publisher Reed Elsevier has felt the heat before about its promotion of international arms trade exhibitions, but this Scientist article makes clear that the temperature is rising. How many other firms would suffer if their customer lists were transparent? ◦

Customer List transparency

HON(or) Code for Health Science Reportage

The Health on the Net Foundation cites transparency as one of its eight key factors required for HON accreditation. ◦

HON(or) Code for Health Science Reportage

Conflict of Interest in Government Research by Proxy

The Environmental Working Group learned that a government agency, the Center for Evaluation of Risks to Reproductive Health, is outsourced to a Beltway (Alexandria, VA) firm, Sciences International. This discovery highlights an interesting instance of government by private sector proxy, but even more interesting is the government's apparent lack of transparency in awarding the contract to SI. It seems that SI previously had dealings with both Dow Chemical and RJ Reynolds, whom it is charged to investigate on matters before the Center.

To obtain this information, EWG used an infrequently used archive of web content, the Internet archive, which catalogs web content that's no longer available.

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Conflict of Interest in Government Research by Proxy

Who owns the media where you live?

The Center for Public Integrity has a simple utility that accepts a zip code and identifies the owners of TV and radio outlets in the immediate area. ◦

Who owns the media where you live?

"All Expense Paid" Travel -- Deductible, too

American Public Media's "Marketplace" has aired a continuing series of stories about lobbyist-subsidized travel for legislators, their families and friends. A recent trip included an expenses-paid "seminar" at an international golf resort. As the April 15 tax deadline nears, it's useful to recall that the lobbies who pay for these trips are able to deduct these payments as ordinary business expenses.

As Bill Adair of the St. Petersburg Times reported, the distinction between C3 and C4 non-profits is lost on many. Some nonprofits have both types of organizations, with the same individuals serving in both capacities -- so long as they keep separate books. The distinction affects contributors; C4 donors can't deduct their contributions because the funds may be used for lobbying. But this doesn't prevent the C4 organization from deducting lobbying expenses -- such as paid Congressional travel -- as an expense of doing business.

Something to bear in mind when planning a vacation with after-tax dollars. Others around you are deducting room service, green fees and martinis as a business expense. ◦

"All Expense Paid" Travel -- Deductible, too

Top Comptroller Job Goes to a Politico

Take note, ye aspiring young CPA's and career track accounting professionals. The top job in New York state has gone to a former Assemblymember Tom DiNapoli, a non-accountant. It will come as no surprise to seasoned big-organization technocrats that there is a little-publicized inverse relationship between between qualifications and high office.

As Karen DeWitt reported,

DiNapoli's own appointment was controversial, and generated a fight between Governor Eliot Spitzer, and leaders of the legislature. Spitzer had wanted an outsider with auditing experience for the job. The legislature reneged on an earlier agreement with the governor, and chose one of its own for the job. The move led to Spitzer castigating DiNapoli as "unqualified".

Less obvious is the public's acceptance of uncertified professionals for most specializations, except, so far, physicians. ◦

Top Comptroller Job Goes to a Politico

"OpenCongress.org" Opens for Business

Today NPR/WNYC's "On the Media" covered the launch of OpenCongress.org. The new web site is a joint project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation. The Foundation's technology advisor Micah Sifry, interviewed for the radio story, said that much of the information presented on the new site is "hidden in plain sight" or available only on print form not widely disseminated. Sifry suggested that legislators and their staffs will be able to examine Blogosphere buzz more readily, which might not have been readily available previously.

The site features include:

• An examination of Sen. Schumer's voting record, for example, allows comparison with other Senators with most-similar and least-similar voting records.
• Links to blog sites appear to be automated, which can result in spam-filled, poorly spelled and even more poorly reasoned commentaries along with the good
• Data from OpenSecrets.org details sources of campaign contributions, though the groupings can be odd, e.g., "Lawyers and Lobbyists"
  
• PRI's "Marketplace" has been featuring lobbyist-subsidized travel by legislators. That information is also available at OpenSecrets.org.
• Most-viewed Bills. E.g., today's most-viewed bill is H.R. 73, "Citizens' Self-Defense Act of 2007." Not surprisingly, the bills are not always covered well in the general press. (Nor should they, necessarily -- this would depend upon the particular bill, though the presence of buzz is a curiosity that is itself news).
• RSS feeds are available for Most-Viewed Bills, Most-Viewed Senators, Most-Viewed Representatives, Most-Viewed Committees, Most-Viewed Issues, specific committees (e.g., House Armed Services Committee)
  

OpenCongress.org is a model that would work well for state and local governments, but funding is required to make this possible. A lot of work goes into OpenCongress.org and OpenSecrets.org that is less easily funded for smaller constituent groups. ◦

"OpenCongress.org" Opens for Business

Transparency International Announces Central America Watch

President Bush is heading further south to encourage the use of biofuels that tariffs in the U.S. make infeasible to import, but a new TI initiative is focused on Central America. ◦

Transparency International Announces Central America Watch

What is "transparency"?

A popular expression these days, but some question whether it's just a slogan. As By CHELSI MOY of the Helena MT Tribune Capitol Bureau wrote:

For as much as the word has been thrown around this session, lawmakers don't seem to agree on its meaning. Some say transparency is the public's right to walk freely through the Capitol or access information. Some say it is the Legislature's ability to keep watch over the executive branch. Or, that it refers to the state budget.

One thing everyone agrees on is that transparency is a good thing. Knowing what the word means and how to achieve transparency, well, that's a little less transparent.

"It doesn't mean anything to me," said Attorney General Mike McGrath, who thinks the word is overused, and in most cases, inappropriately so. "I try to avoid using the word because it's trite and applied to anything people want to apply it to."

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What is "transparency"?

EFF vs. Department of Justice (October 2006)

2006-10-17 The FBI failed to file a public notice describing its "Investigative Data Warehouse" project, which was thought to be a database containing hundreds of millions of entries of personal information. The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a suit after the FBI apparently ignored two Freedom of Information Act requests for details disclosing the criteria for inclusion in the database and the current privacy policy.

A copy of the complaint is online at EFF.

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EFF vs. Department of Justice (October 2006)

Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006

There were attempts to block passage in both the House and the Senate, but the bill was eventually signed. One intended outcome is a free, searchable public web site that includes all federal contract awards by Congressional district, funding agency, and amount. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 was signed into law before the Democrats took control of the federal legislature.

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Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006

Missile Defense (was Star Wars) and the SBIR Program

Little transparency seems to be an elusive quarry at the MDA, according to this commentary by Carl Nelson. There appears to be, or to have been, major resistance to complying with SBIR rules for small business R in support of the program. Apparently Mr. Nelson speaks with some credibility on the matter. According to his web site, he "decided 10,000 SBIR proposals from 3500 companies and gave $300M to 700 companies" when he worked there. Perhaps more disturbingly, he reports inside information that:

"Rumor has it that BMDO has decided to ditch its 15-year SBIR success story and adopt the military model. That means that commercial potential will get lip service. If they like your engineering, any commercial fantasy will suffice. If they don't like your engineering, no great commercial story will save you. Look for opaque management, vague debriefings, and schedules that serve the bureau. The premium for proposers will be on schmoozing the internal BMDO people who are seizing the reins. Look for repeated and even sequential contracts to favored contractors who have learned to play ball with the internal people. Don't look for any announcements."

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Missile Defense (was Star Wars) and the SBIR Program

Central-American Anti Corruption website

TI launched their Central American Anti-Corruption Resource Network.

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Central-American Anti Corruption website

Open Access Publishing

Open Access helps with transparency, but who will fund the publishing industry? It's the same story [sic] as with the journalists and the decline of newspaper and TV journalism. ◦

Open Access Publishing