Government Technology

A California appeals court recently ruled that emails and other forms of electronic communication about public business are not subject to the state’s Public Records Act if they’re conducted on a private computer or device.

But the decision’s impact on government transparency policies may cause aftershocks well beyond the Golden State’s borders. The 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose’s March 27 opinion gives elected officials and government employees a free pass to conduct public business in secret on their own devices. And with other states grappling with data retention and transparency issues, the decision could serve as a model to pull back on open government efforts over the last several years.

The 6th District Court of Appeal’s ruling overturned a lower court decision that would have enabled a citizen to obtain messages sent on private devices through private accounts of the San Jose mayor and city council members. The California Supreme Court may take up the case, but if it doesn’t, the 6th District’s decision would stand, creating a precedent for similar situations in the future.

On March 12, 2014, a contest to connect New York City businesses with high-speed Internet came to a close.

Held by the New York City Economic Development Corp. (EDC), the ConnectNYC Fiber Challenge will award city businesses with dedicated fiber to their locations -- each of which is worth about $50,000. Now the EDC is working its way through more than 150 applications, giving out fiber connections on a first come, first serve basis. And according to Ian Fried, marketing and publicity director for EDC, none of the applicants have been turned away thus far.

"And we hope that as many contracts as possible can be negotiated," he said. This is the second round of the ConnectNYC program, which is funded by a franchise agreement with the city.

In the first round, 29 businesses were selected, and included a Holiday Inn in Long Island and a Kickstarter project. The EDC expanded the program by partnering with more ISPs, offering more applications and providing $14 million worth of fiber construction cost coverage for the winning businesses.

"This program doesn't just benefit tech companies," said Eric Gertler, executive vice president of the Economic Development Corporation (EDC). "We're living in an age where broadband is essential for all types of businesses." In New York City, a majority of people receive their Internet service through legacy copper wires -- which is incapable of supporting high performance services, so fiber is the next step.

This century, we face a much larger challenge than bringing 100 gigabyte connectivity to college campuses. We have to figure out how to feed 9 billion people and decrease poverty.

Government, higher education and citizens must all come to the table and work together to solve this problem with the help of technology, said Chris Vein, chief innovation officer for global information and communications technology at the World Bank.

In a keynote at the 2014 Internet2 Global Summit in Denver on Monday, April 7, Vein said that the World Bank is shooting for two goals: Nearly end extreme poverty by 2030 and grow the income of the bottom 40 percent of the population in each country. Three of his keys to solving this worldwide problem of hunger and poverty include bringing Internet connectivity to another billion citizens, transforming bureaucracy and innovating innovation itself. By bringing together public entities, private organizations, citizens, and the higher education research and development community, everyone can start building small solutions to solve these problems.

He suggested that governments needs to let go of control over data and open it up to the community so they could create panaceas for problems together. And they also need to highlight projects that are working well.

A social media monitoring tool developed in 2013 by Pierce County (WA), got its first real-world use in March during search and rescue efforts following the massive mudslide in Washington State.

Known as the FirstToSee Emergency Support System, the tool was used to search Twitter for the word “missing,” and relevant tweets were provided to emergency response officials.

Pierce County IT Director Linda Gerull says it's too early to gauge what impact the new technology had on efforts to rescue victims of the massive slide that hit rural Oso (WA) on March 22. So far, 33 people are confirmed dead and a dozen are still missing.

The monitoring system leverages existing social media technologies to "greatly improve emergency preparedness and management" in the Puget Sound region, according to the Piece County. Gerull said the idea for the FirstToSee system was developed by local emergency management professionals after noticing the public flocking to social media outlets to report incidents during times of crisis.

“This is not a replacement for 911,” she said. “It is used for non-life-threatening calls and allows us to see reports of flooding, what roads are closed and where there are trees down.” The new system is the result of a $550,000 Homeland Security Grant from the federal government and was developed by staff from Pierce County and the nonprofit Pacific Northwest Economic Region Foundation.

Longboat Key (FL) is setting an example for fiscal transparency.

In 2012, when the town’s commissioners requested an online budget module to replace paper reports and documents, the finance and IT departments delivered. The town’s employees were quickly able to access a financial database using RedBack Ecommerce to view a live feed from the finance department’s reporting system. When the town experienced a change in leadership, there was a push to share the same information to the public.

In mid-February, the town launched an online graph, using fiscal data that feeds directly from the finance department’s database, to display revenues and expenses. The chart is publicly accessible. “We are providing a high-level executive overview in a simple way,” said Kathi Pletzke, the town’s IT director. “You don’t need a business degree to tell if we’re on track with our budget with the tool.” The tables and charts, which cost about 25 hours of development time, or approximately $2,500, provide the most current view of the town's budgeted revenues and expenditures, as well as year-to-date amounts.

The online tool, funded by IT’s professional services budget, includes five fiscal years of current and historical expenditure data along with graphing tools and the ability to export the data to Excel for further analysis.

When Martin County (FL) was faced with increased telecommunications cost, CIO Kevin Kryzda used the phrase “rubber chicken circuit” to persuade community leaders, business owners and elected officials to build a county-owned fiber network rather than leasing services with an impending cost increase.

Kryzda, anticipating a price jump, began researching how the county could build its own network. Determined to lower the initially estimated cost of $9.8 million, Kryzda began a conversation with the Florida Department of Transportation about merging pieces of their networks to share costs.

According to the Florida Fiber report, a local relationship presented itself with Indiantown Telecommunications Service (ITS), a rural exchange carrier. Between 2006 and 2010, ITS had installed fiber-optic cable in and around the county and offered a 43-mile fiber swap. ITS would use Martin County fiber to expand its service area, and the county would use existing ITS fiber to avoid higher costs.

The savings associated with the agreement brought the expected cost of building the network to $4.14 million. Construction for the project commenced in January 2011, and the county no longer required Comcast’s leased lines after July 31, 2011. Additionally, since the launch, unanticipated uses for the county network appear on a regular basis.

“We now use fiber optics to interconnect 133 buildings throughout the county and elsewhere for the purpose of voice, video and data communications,” Kryzda said.

[Commentary] Though the debate about open data in government is an evolving one, it is indisputably here to stay -- it can be heard in both houses of Congress, in state legislatures, and in city halls around the nation.

Already, 39 states and 46 localities provide data sets to data.gov, the federal government's online open data repository. And 30 jurisdictions, including the federal government, have taken the additional step of institutionalizing their practices in formal open data policies.

Though the term "open data" is spoken of frequently -- and has been since President Barack Obama took office in 2009 -- what it is and why it's important isn't always clear.

“People tend to conflate it with big data," said Emily Shaw, the national policy manager at the Sunlight Foundation, "and I think it’s useful to think about how it’s different from big data in the sense that open data is the idea that public information should be accessible to the public online."

Among the benefits of open data are improved measurement of policies, better government efficiency, deeper analytical insights, greater citizen participation, and a boost to local companies by way of products and services that use government data. “The way I personally think of open data,” Shaw said, “is that it is a manifestation of the idea of open government."

[Commentary] The First Responder Network Authority is now two years into its ten-year life. But it appears to be going through a reboot.

Are its efforts stalled? The short answer is no. The longer answer: maybe. My take on what’s going on:

• I suspect there is an epic struggle going on within the Beltway for the control of FirstNet and its $7 billion in funding.
• FirstNet’s already had a hiring scandal.
• I think FirstNet has about 25 federal employees working for it. Their goal, I believe, is to have 100 or more full-time staff to do the work.
• Eight cities, regions and states around the country were funded for about $400 million under the federal stimulus (technically the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, ARRA/BTOP, a mouthful) or similar grants to build public safety LTE networks compatible with FirstNet. Many of these networks were well along. But when FirstNet was created in 2012, NTIA abruptly stopped seven of these projects, restricting their construction until FirstNet could review them and authorize them to be completed.
• In the fall of 2013 we in the states were hoping to have a lot of specifics in terms of materials and data requirements to conduct outreach and education for potential users in our states. We’re still waiting.

[Bill Schrier is senior policy advisor in the Office of the Chief Information Officer at the State of Washington]