The United States federal government makes an overwhelming amount of data publicly available each year. Laws require these disclosures in the name of transparency and accountability, however, the data are often only nominally publicly available. The author finds that the data is not available online or even in electronic format, or when found online is often not available in an easily accessible or searchable format. If government information was made public online and in standard open formats, the online masses could be leveraged to help ensure the transparency and accountability that is the reason for making information public in the first place. When the government makes data available in a structured format, remixes of information known as mashups are made by tech saavy members of the public, enabling citizens to better scrutinize government's activities. When government does not make data available online, or makes it available but not in a structured format, third parties take it upon themselves to fill the void by implementing ingenious "hacks" to free the data. The study concludes by recommending that to the greatest extent feasible, government data should be made public online in structured, open and searchable formats.(Original source: http://www.mercatus.org/Publications/pubID.4397,cfilter.0/pub_detail.asp)
