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The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released its 2014 Open Government Plan. The OSTP plan highlights three flagship efforts as well as the team’s ongoing work to embed the open government principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration into its activities.

OSTP’s 2014 flagship efforts include:

• Access to Scientific Collections: OSTP is leading agencies in developing policies that will improve the management of and access to scientific collections that agencies own or support. Agency policies will help make scientific collections and information about scientific collections more transparent and accessible in the coming years.
• We the Geeks: We the Geeks Google+ Hangouts feature informal conversations with experts to highlight the future of science, technology, and innovation in the United States. Participants can join the conversation on Twitter and ask the presenters questions.
• “All Hands on Deck” on STEM Education: In support of President Barack Obama’s commitment to an “all-hands-on-deck approach, OSTP is bringing together government, industry, non-profits, philanthropy, and others to expand science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education engagement and awareness through events like the annual White House Science Fair and the upcoming White House Maker Faire.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) has released a report to the President, Better Health Care and Lower Costs: Accelerating Improvement through Systems Engineering.

The report comes at a critical time for the United States and for the health-care system in particular, with millions of Americans recently gaining health-care coverage due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). At the same time, the health-care system is challenged by rising costs, which now approach a fifth of the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP). A significant portion of those costs, however, does not produce better health or quality of care.

In consultation with a working group including experts from the health and engineering sectors, PCAST, in its new report, identifies a comprehensive set of recommendations to address these cost and quality challenges, including through an interdisciplinary approach known as systems engineering. Among the barriers that limit the spread of systems engineering in health care is the predominant payment system -- the fee-for-service method often discourages efficient care.

To overcome this challenge, PCAST notes that providers should be paid for value -- e.g., patient health-outcomes -- rather than the volume of tests or treatments administered. Systems engineering also depends on the availability of high-quality data that can be used for measuring progress, analyzing current challenges and opportunities, and enabling patients and providers to make more informed decisions. Finally, the report speaks to the need for the United States to build a health-care workforce that has the necessary “know-how,” recommending that systems engineering concepts should be embedded in education and training for a wide variety of people involved in health care, from clinicians to administrators to public-health officials.

Executive Order (EO) 13636, “Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity,” called on Executive Branch agencies to assess whether and how existing cybersecurity regulation could be streamlined and better aligned with the Cybersecurity Framework launched in February 2014.

The EO directs Executive Branch departments and agencies with responsibility for regulating the security of private-sector critical infrastructure to: (1) assess the sufficiency of existing regulatory authority to establish requirements based on the Cybersecurity Framework to address current and projected cyber risks; and (2) identify proposed changes in order to address insufficiencies identified.

The Cybersecurity Framework articulates a risk management approach based on best practices and globally recognized standards. It is a voluntary tool that organizations can use to strengthen cyber risk management.

After extensive research, we determined that the following departments and agencies were required to submit reports: Environmental Protection Agency (drinking water and waste-water), Department of Health and Human Services (medical devices, electronic health records, health exchanges), and the Department of Homeland Security (chemical facilities and transportation).

The Administration is taking action to modernize the federal infrastructure permitting process, cutting through red tape and getting more timely decisions, while protecting our communities and the environment.

For projects that are approved, this means states, local and tribal governments, and private developers will be able to start construction sooner, create jobs earlier, and fix our nation’s infrastructure faster.

The Administration is releasing a comprehensive plan to accelerate and expand permitting reform government-wide. The Administration’s plan adopts the best practices learned from the initial focus projects and calls on federal agencies to apply those practices going forward. By turning best practice into common practice, we can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal permitting and review of all major infrastructure projects. These reforms include:

• Improving Interagency Coordination to Increase Decision Making Speed.
• Synchronizing Reviews.
• Driving Accountability and Transparency through the Online Permitting Dashboard.
• Launching an Interagency Permitting Center to Institutionalize Reform.

This effort to modernize infrastructure permitting is part of the Administration’s broader commitment to increase investment in US infrastructure, as well as the President’s Management Agenda, which is dedicated to driving efficiency within government, spurring economic growth, and unlocking the full potential of the federal workforce. The Administration has also recently released the GROW AMERICA Act, a four-year, $302 billion transportation plan to modernize our nation’s roads, bridges, and public transportation, spur economic growth, and allow states and localities to make sound multi-year investments. The GROW AMERICA Act includes reforms to further accelerate the approval and delivery of projects. Together these efforts will help create the transportation infrastructure we need for the 21st century.

One year ago, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that made open and machine-readable data the new default for government information. This historic step is helping to make government-held data more accessible to the public and to entrepreneurs while appropriately safeguarding sensitive information and rigorously protecting privacy.

Building upon the Administration’s Open Data progress, and in fulfillment of the Open Data Charter, we are excited to release the US Open Data Action Plan. The plan includes a number of exciting enhancements and new data releases planned in 2014 and 2015, including:

• Small Business Data: The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) database of small business suppliers will be enhanced so that software developers can create tools to help manufacturers more easily find qualified US suppliers, ultimately reducing the transaction costs to source products and manufacture domestically.
• Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection: The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s entire digitized collection will be opened to software developers to make educational apps and tools.
• FDA Adverse Drug Event Data: Each year, healthcare professionals and consumers submit millions of individual reports on drug safety to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Currently, this data is only available through limited quarterly reports. But the Administration will soon be making these reports available in their entirety so that software developers can build tools to help pull potentially dangerous drugs off shelves faster than ever before.

In January, President Barack Obama asked me to lead a wide-ranging review of "big data" and privacy -- to explore how these technologies are changing our economy, our government, and our society, and to consider their implications for our personal privacy. Together with Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, the President's Science Advisor John Holdren, the President's Economic Advisor Jeff Zients, and other senior officials, our review sought to understand what is genuinely new and different about big data and to consider how best to encourage the potential of these technologies while minimizing risks to privacy and core American values.

On May 1, we presented our findings to the President. We knew better than to try to answer every question about big data in three months. But we are able to draw important conclusions and make concrete recommendations for Administration attention and policy development in a few key areas.

Our review raised the question of whether the "notice and consent" framework, in which a user grants permission for a service to collect and use information about them, still allows us to meaningfully control our privacy as data about us is increasingly used and reused in ways that could not have been anticipated when it was collected. Big data raises other concerns, as well.

One significant finding of our review was the potential for big data analytics to lead to discriminatory outcomes and to circumvent longstanding civil rights protections in housing, employment, credit, and the consumer marketplace.

We make six actionable policy recommendations in our report to the President: 1) Advance the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, 2) Pass National Data Breach Legislation, 3) Extend Privacy Protections to non-U.S. Persons, 4) Ensure Data Collected on Students in School is used for Educational Purposes, 5) Expand Technical Expertise to Stop Discrimination, and 6) Amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

[Podesta is a Counselor to the President]

As one of Brazil’s leading Internet scholars and chair of Netmundial Virgilio Almeida brought NETmundial to a close, the US government delegation rose in applause. And almost everyone else in the room rose with us.

We affirm the Multistakeholder Statement of São Paulo, the ideas it presents, the ideals it embraces, and the multistakeholder process that made it possible. We rose out of appreciation for the Brazilians and the Internet community leaders that brought us together and impressively managed a challenging conversation. And we rose in joint commitment to preserving, promoting, and expanding the benefits of a single, interoperable, open, and global Internet for all of the world’s people.

NETmundial clearly demonstrates the suitability of the multistakeholder approach over intergovernmental discussion to address Internet governance issues. We will carry this experience forward as we approach upcoming multilateral events like the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference in Korea in October, where we will work to ensure that the ITU remains relevant and responsive to the evolution of technology in its traditional areas of competence, and leaves issues such as Internet governance to the fully capable global multistakeholder community.

[Michael Daniel serves as Special Assistant to the President and White House Cybersecurity Coordinator. Lawrence Strickling serves as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Ambassador Daniel A. Sepulveda serves as US Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy at the US Department of State. Christopher Painter serves as Coordinator for Cyber Issues at the US Department of State. Scott Busby serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor]

[Commentary] In early April, the National Security Agency sent out a Tweet making clear that it did not know about the recently discovered vulnerability in OpenSSL known as Heartbleed. While we had no prior knowledge of the existence of Heartbleed, this case has re-ignited debate about whether the federal government should ever withhold knowledge of a computer vulnerability from the public.

But there are legitimate pros and cons to the decision to disclose, and the trade-offs between prompt disclosure and withholding knowledge of some vulnerabilities for a limited time can have significant consequences. Disclosing a vulnerability can mean that we forego an opportunity to collect crucial intelligence that could thwart a terrorist attack stop the theft of our nation’s intellectual property, or even discover more dangerous vulnerabilities that are being used by hackers or other adversaries to exploit our networks.

We have also established a disciplined, rigorous and high-level decision-making process for vulnerability disclosure. This interagency process helps ensure that all of the pros and cons are properly considered and weighed. While there are no hard and fast rules, here are a few things I want to know when an agency proposes temporarily withholding knowledge of a vulnerability:

• How much is the vulnerable system used in the core Internet infrastructure, in other critical infrastructure systems, in the US economy, and/or in national security systems?
• Does the vulnerability, if left unpatched, impose significant risk?
• How much harm could an adversary nation or criminal group do with knowledge of this vulnerability?
• How likely is it that we would know if someone else was exploiting it?
• How badly do we need the intelligence we think we can get from exploiting the vulnerability?
• Are there other ways we can get it?
• Could we utilize the vulnerability for a short period of time before we disclose it?
• How likely is it that someone else will discover the vulnerability?
• Can the vulnerability be patched or otherwise mitigated?

[Daniel is Special Assistant to the President and the Cybersecurity Coordinator]

Freely available data from the US Government is an important national resource, serving as fuel for entrepreneurship, innovation, scientific discovery, and other public benefits.

According to a recent report, open data can generate more than $3 trillion a year in additional value in key sectors of the global economy, including education, health, transportation, and electricity. Recognizing this, over the past few years, the Administration’s Open Data Initiatives have helped unlock troves of valuable data -- that taxpayers have already paid for -- and is making these resources more open and accessible to innovators and the public.

We discussed an array of new and exciting actions being taken to help make data easier to find and use so that we can help realize its potential value, including:

• The launch of Data.gov/Impact, which features examples of companies using open data in innovative ways, and insights about how they use open data in key sectors including education, transportation, energy, consumer finance, and consumer products;
• The launch of the Open Data 500 study done by the Governance Lab (GovLab) -- a research institution at New York University -- of 500 companies that are using open government data to generate new businesses and develop new products and services.
• The launch of a series of Open Data Roundtables with entrepreneurs and government agencies, convened by the GovLab, to help better connect business leaders who use open data, and who have ideas about ways the data could be more open and available, with government officials working to make the data easier to find and use in order to maximize its value to the public.
• The US Open Data Institute’s new open authentication system, which will make it easier for data producers to get “signatures” on information without locking them into PDFs -- making that data more available for innovators to use once it’s released.
• The US Open Data Institute’s new initiative to create and implement open source software and standards for open government data related to hunting and fishing, aimed at modernizing and streamlining the $75 billion industry.

[Meyer is Senior Advisor in the Office of Science and Technology Policy]

The Federal Communications Commission adopted a framework for making 65 megahertz of spectrum available for wireless broadband and other innovative commercial uses.

This action represents a significant milestone as we move the Administration’s ambitious spectrum agenda forward. The FCC’s ability to make available this spectrum depended in large measure on the efforts of an array of Federal agencies that currently occupy portions of the designated spectrum, which they use to operate hundreds of systems that are critical to national defense, public safety, and other vital agency functions.

The work of those agencies, under the guidance of the US Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, was set in motion by a 2010 Presidential Memorandum to find 500 MHz of spectrum held by Federal and nonfederal users that could be repurposed for wireless broadband service. Advances in the innovative uses of spectrum continue to benefit consumers, businesses, and government users while driving productivity and supporting job growth.

We look forward to continuing to implement the President’s ambitious agenda to add more spectrum to fuel to the Nation’s fast-growing wireless broadband economy. As part of this effort, we will continue to promote collaboration among agencies, the private sector, academia, and other stakeholders.