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

Sun Apr 17 13:18:30 UTC 2011

Hi Bryan,

Considering what we face in France towards open government, one main
barrier would be the desire from authorities to sell its data, which
pushes the adoption of licences on opendata that can be costful,
restrained to the so juridically unclear concept of non-commercial
uses, or just submitted to conditions acceptation, which all make it
often very distant with the international definition of open knowledge
and the 10 principles of Open Data.

Discussing and arguing on a regular basis with them helps making
authorities consider better choices like Paris did for example, but to
us that would definitely be one of the biggest barriers towards open
progresses!

Cheers,

Benjamin Ooghe-Tabanou for Regards Citoyens
http://www.RegardsCitoyens.org

2011/4/16 Brian Gryth <briangryth at gmail.com>:
> So just to follow up with the group on my thoughts:
> Here is my list of potential legal barriers:
> Open Meeting Laws
> Open Records Laws/Records Retention (here I am think of all the exceptions
> to the open record rules and defining what a record is.)
> Procurement/Appropriations
> Privacy (protection of PII and other sensitive information related to
> citizen)
> Section 508 compliance
> Security/Unauthorized disclosure (The video Alex pointed to raises the issue
> of an employee inadvertently exposing his or herself to violation a
> disclosure law by saying something on a social media site).
> Intellectual Property
> The regulation of speech in a public or semi-public forum.
> Further thoughts?
> Thanks all for the help.  Keep the information coming.
> Cheers,
> Brian
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Brian Gryth <briangryth at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Stephen,
>> Thank you much.  I will read the Bojorquez and Shores article.  (Anyone
>> interested in the article here is a link to a
>> copy http://texasmunicipallawyers.com/pdf/OpenGovt-theNet-TTAdmin-Fall09.pdf.)
>>
>> It seems paradoxical that Open meeting laws would be a barrier, but I
>> would agree that they maybe interpreted as you suggest and as the Florida AG
>> opinion states.  For anyone not familiar with the argument, the main barrier
>> is the notice requirement that requires decision making members of an public
>> body to give notice of meetings when those decision makers are going to
>> discuss a topic of government business.  So in the Florida AG opinion, AG
>> found that if two city council members engage in an exchange on Facebook
>> then the Florida open meeting law applies because if two or more members of
>> the council discuss a matter of public concern then notice must be provided
>> of the meeting.  So even if the discussion was initiated by a citizen, the
>> members of the council cannot discuss the matter without providing notice of
>> the discussion.  So the end result is a potentially open discussion between
>> the public and members of the city council are foreclosed because of the
>> state's open meeting law.  (Make sense?)
>> As for contracting issues, I am fortunate to be presenting on the same day
>> as another attorney is presenting on cloud computing contracting issues.  So
>> he will hopefully cover most of the computing issues.  My focus is on open
>> government efforts in general and to provide pointer to the things
>> government attorney need to keep in mind when advising government leaders on
>> how to proceed with a open government effort.  (If interested the program
>> promotional material are
>> at http://www.cobar.org/cle/photos/ProgramPages/CGAIT.htm.  Once the program
>> has been recorded the session will be available for purchase individually
>> from CLE in Colorado).
>> Thanks,
>> Brian
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Stephen LaPorte
>> <stephen.laporte at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> 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
>>>>
>>>> View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc:
>>>>  http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/577LoIW7y6N6LvXCGByDfs
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Alissa Black  | Government Relations Director
>>> 415.625.9635 | @alissa007
>>>
>>
>
>
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