Web Leaders Seek More Searchable Government

WEB LEADERS SEEK MORE SEARCHABLE GOVERNMENT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
These days you can Google just about anything, from your favorite celebrity's pet to your boss's middle name. But using the biggest search engine to get information about the government often falls short. That's what leaders from Google and Wikipedia plan to tell the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs today, urging Congress to require federal agencies to make their Web sites, records and databases more searchable. "It could be unintentional oversight or incompetence," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center of Democracy and Technology, which plans to release a report today with OMB Watch, a watchdog group, that shows that basic government information often does not show up in results provided by search engines run by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com. Today's hearing comes nearly five years after the E-Government Act required government agencies to make information more accessible electronically. The law is scheduled to be reauthorized soon.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121001663.html
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