OGov Plans, Social Media Regs Out

You can now read the open government plans of every federal agency, the culmination of an experiment in transparency that President Obama launched the day after being sworn into office. In addition, the Office of Management and Budget has released guidance clarifying that Paperwork Reduction Act restrictions on collecting information from the public do not apply to most social media efforts.

OMB officials said federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra misspoke the other week when he said cookies also would be addressed in the guidance, but work is well underway on those instructions.

To find an agency's plan, type in the homepage of any department, followed by "/open." In addition, the administration intends to provide one-stop access to all plans at WhiteHouse.gov/open.

We will be analyzing the plans throughout the day and providing details on other related White House regulations that will be issued this afternoon.

A little background on the genesis of today's big developments: With a memo to agency heads, Obama signaled the beginning of an initiative to embed transparency, public participation and collaboration outside into the culture of every agency by using new technologies. That message was formalized in a December White House directive that instructed agencies to write long-term plans - due April 7 -- for institutionalizing his three-part concept of government transparency.

White House officials stress that today's milestone, the publication of the plans, is not the end of the open government effort. Rather, it represents the start of a process that will evolve in response to feedback from citizens, states, nonprofits, businesses and even journalists. The crafting of the plans themselves is the result of online brainstorming sessions with the public. The goal is to make requests under the Freedom of Information Act largely a thing of the past. To start, each agency's plan depicts a flagship activity that addresses one of the principles of open government. We hear HHS' flagship itinerary is standout.