[open-government] [CityCamp Exchange] legal barrier to open government

[Stephen LaPorte]

Brian,

Not barriers per se, but attorneys will have questions about the exact scope of open government laws. For example, a public employee's Facebook or Twitter message can violate Texas' Open Meetings Act. See Alan J. Bojorquez & Damien Shores, Open Government and the Net: Bringing Social Media into the Light, 11 Tex. Tech Admin. L.J. 45, 61 (2009). The Attorney General of Florida posts a yearly manual for the Florida Sunshine Law, which illustrates some of these questions: What activity is within the scope of the law? Who must comply? What are the procedural requirements? <http://www.myflsunshine.com/sun.nsf/sunmanual>

Complying with open governance laws may have some influence on contracts with IT vendors. One attorney suggests four general questions for a vendor: Where is my data? How do I access my data? How secure is my data? How portable is my data? <http://www.govtech.com/pcio/Cloud-Computing-Four-Questions-to-Ask.html>

Cheers,
Stephen

On Apr 15, 2011, at 3:07 PM, Alissa Black wrote:

> Brian -
> 
> Definitely check out civiccommons.org for information on existing policies/directives/initiatives.
> 
> I would say legal barriers should be minimal for transparency (if you use non-sensitive data), and non existent for the others. If legal comes into play for "open" gov it will most likely because because of discomfort. In that case you can point to local open gov efforts in SF, Vancouver, and maybe others you find on civic commons.
> 
> Alissa
> 
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 11:36 AM, Brian Gryth <briangryth at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good day all,
> 
> I am preparing for a talk on open government that I will give in a couple of
> weeks.  The audience is government attorneys and IT managers.  So I thought
> I'd crowd source the answer to a few of questions to you all in the open
> gov/gov 2.0 community:
> 
> What are the biggest legal barriers to open government efforts?
> What are the biggest legal barriers to transparency?
> What are the biggest legal barriers to participation?
> What are the biggest legal barriers to collaboration?
> 
> If you have examples of specific laws or policies that would be great.  I
> know everyone will be tempted to say attorneys, which is fine, just tell me
> why?
> 
> Once I get my materials together, I will share them as soon as possible.
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Cheers,
> Brian
> 
> Brian Gryth
> Capital Hill, Denver
> About Brian Gryth: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/6lPv5c4wfouTQ0Nyv292Rv
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