White House's Open Government Plan

Openness promotes accountability by enabling journalists, researchers, government officials, and the public to scrutinize, question, and ultimately improve how government works. But, as with many aspects of Democracy, openness must evolve.

In documents circulating among federal agencies and released to the public on Tuesday, the Office of Management and Budget has laid out plans to move Data.gov out of "beta" phase and into "government-wide execution."

On Tuesday, the White House Tuesday issued the Open Government Directive requiring federal agencies to take immediate, specific steps to open their operations up to the public. The Administration also released an Open Government Progress Report to the American People and previewed a number of other openness commitments that are poised to be released during the next two days.

Open government? There's an app for that. Or so the Obama administration proposes, rolling out a "transparency, participation and collaboration" directive for all federal departments and agencies at 11 a.m.