Christy Clark Should Heed Today's Networked Public's Ability to Penetrate Secrets

We're about to get a new session of the BC legislature with a brand new Premier - Christy Clark. I hope she has kept up with world news while she's been campaigning to get her new job. If she hasn't, she and the Liberals she leads may not last long.

In just the relatively short time since Gordon Campbell decided to step down, the people of many jurisdictions of the world have shown the power of people connected by the internet to disrupt government and pierce the "big lie" that has kept many countries under the thumb of dictators.

The same thing is happening in the "free" world with the release of Wikileaks documents being one of the major turning points, but only as a high-profile example of what has otherwise been a fairly silent but pervasive move by private individuals to expose all manner of "private" or "secret" government activities at all levels.

Some governments "get it" - and have truly started to move toward open access to government activities and files. They're the beginning of a trend that will continue at an increasing pace.

I remember putting in bids to government back in the mid 1970s when for virtually all such purchases the bids of competitors were available after the close of the bid process. This was part of the process, and it was then and would be now a wonderful way to ensure that government got the best price for whatever it was trying to purchase. The fact that many times the request for purchase specifications were originally written by one favoured supplier was one of the annoying aspects - but at least we got to see what they'd finally bid for their specifications.

Today, try to find out what a competitor has bid - or details of almost anything and you hit the "privacy" barrier. I'm sorry, if my tax dollars are paying for it then I demand to know every single detail of what is going on. If you don't like your details being seen by me and the rest of the public then don't bid - your choice.

Same thing for all documents created by or for government and for which tax dollars pay. The US at least has the law that fruits of research paid for by tax dollars are put in the public domain - otherwise the world would not have things like the little attitude detectors in our cell phones and other items that were originally developed for missles. 

• "Crown Copyright" - there should be no impediment to the general public having access to and the ability to copy and use (for non-commercial purposes) any/every document the government publishes.
• purchase requisitions, RFPs, RFQs, etc. - every single one, down to the smallest, should be available to anyone to read and digest - in open data formats, not proprietary ones.
• documents, source data, raw statistics, everything - all should be available for download as generated in open and portable formats.

And as for past "mistakes" - we should be getting an independent inquiry into all that went on about the sale of BC Rail's rights of way, etc., and who got what, when and why. Everything!

Let the chips fall where they may - this will put the wind up any company in future that might want to try to do some sort of shaky business deal with our tax dollars' investments, etc.

Every single government owned entity must be held to exactly the same standards. BC Ferries, BC Hydro - all of them. If it is in our government's (i.e. we the people's) best interests to own such companies, then they must be open and above board 100%

Open, transparent government.

The alternative is that we'll find out on our own - and the results will not be pretty. The age of free-flowing information from government to the governed is here. It's just that some governments have not yet received their wakeup call. Hope Christy's has.

richard