[open-government] UK Government transparency update (and democracy?)

Thu Dec 9 17:51:17 UTC 2010

Luigi

I obviously agree with you, and became terrified when I found out that
democracy, according to some working in the OGDCamp, is just an optional

(will send you a copy of the relevant snippets of email exchanges
separately, if you are interested)

What some of us defend and uphold by default  - democratic principles and
civil liberties as the foundation for good governance, including
self-governance - does not  always seem to be reflected in the philosophy of
current open government initiatives - quite the contrary, to my worry.

Democracy should never be taken for granted, but unfortunately  self
organisation is sometimes used as an excuse to justify the chaos where
 great inequalities, deliberate omissions and lack of democratic processes
become hidden and take place without anyone noticing.

Until we no longer can tell who is running the show, using what rules of the
game.

Perhaps at the next Camp we should propose this topic for discussion,  and
find a way to demand that the agenda is managed transparently and fairly.

I will analyse the ODGCamp corpus when its published to see if we find any
instances of the word democracy that I may have missed on the day

PDM

(are you the Luigi who gave me his card? i am still going thru my notes,
will catch up soon)

On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 4:29 PM, Luigi Selmi <selmi_luigi at hotmail.com> wrote:

>  If 'transparency of information' is not related to democracy I wonder why
> bother about it ? Open data and open government are steps towards a new kind
> of democracy, more partecipatory, something that goes beyond the
> representative democracy without falling into populism and
> plebiscitaniarism.
>
>
> Luigi
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 16:09:17 +0000
> From: paola.dimaio at gmail.com
> To: javier at openrightsgroup.org
> CC: open-government at lists.okfn.org
> Subject: [open-government] UK Government transparency update (and
> democracy?)
>
>
> Javier
>
> thanks for the update
>
> one the words that I have not seen come up much at the OGCAMP
> is 'democracy', in fact some people cringed when I dared mention it
>
> Some 'activists' seem to take the view that 'democratic process' is not
> that much related
> to 'trasparency of information'
>
> Let us know when you hear of something in that respect
>
> cheers
>
> PDM
>
>
>
> 2010/12/7 Javier Ruiz Diaz <javier at openrightsgroup.org>
>
> Dear all
>
> It seems they were listening during the OGD camp.
>
>
> http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/about-cabinet-office/plans-performance/transparency-privacy-data.aspx
>
> Tentatively good news, lets see the details in the next few days.
>
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