Who's Tweeting and What are They Saying?

Here's a look at the White House and Cabinet Departments' twittering (most recent twitter posts as of early evening Jan. 28 are listed). Eleven of the 15 Cabinet Departments had some kind of Department-wide twitter. Various bureaus and agencies within Departments may have their own Twitter streams, not considered here. For example the USDA lists 16 tweets coming out of the Department.

White House
(about 4 hours ago) Hit him with your best shot: submit your questions for Obama, vote on others via YT. He answers Monday http://bit.ly/QaZPN

State
(about 1 hour ago) Sec. Clinton will travel to Paris tomorrow to continue discussions with President Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Kouchner. #hillarytravel

Treasury: no

Defense
(18 minutes ago) "The Haiti Diary" Read Personal experiences from Haiti at this new DOD site: http://haiti.dodlive.mil/ @RedCross @UNHaitiInfo @southcomwatch

Justice
(35 minutes ago) ASG Perrelli on the Senate Declaring February National Teen Dating Violence Awareness & Prevention Month http://bit.ly/dvoXYb

Interior (News)
(Jan. 6) Secretary Salazar Launches Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reforms http://bit.ly/7al9z0

Agriculture
(3 hours ago) USDA Blog: 60 Turn Out For Jobs Forum in Washington State http://bit.ly/9Y5JOa

Commerce: no

Labor
(1 hour ago) Sec. Solis and DOL agency heads will unveil the FY 2011 budget request via live web chat on 2/1 at 1:00! http://s.dol.gov/2B #dolbudget

HHS: no

HUD
(about 2 hours ago) HUD & CPSC Issue Guidance on Identifying Problem Drywall in Homes http://bit.ly/ccAIpz

Transportation
(about 2 hours ago) Take a break from the high-speed rail excitement and read a great story about a brave, brave man. http://bit.ly/bKZxTq

Energy: no

Education
(22 minutes ago) Read Sec. Arne Duncan's message to the education community about the reauthorization of ESEA and the FY 2011 budget. http://go.usa.gov/l0z

Veterans' Affairs
(8 hours ago) Here's an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel on VA's "frontal assault" on the problem of Veteran homelessness: http://bit.ly/c6HAFv

Homeland Security
(about 3 hours ago) The Blog: Cross-posted from The TSA Blog. What’s wrong with this picture? Put quite simply, it’s a fake. The pictu... http://bit.ly/a7qTQo

White House's "The President's Cabinet Reporting to You"

The White House web team has come up with an interesting feature "The President's Cabinet Reporting to You." Clicking on a member of the Cabinet from a group shot brings up a short (about a minute) video from the Cabinet Secretary.

FY2010 Budget Rolls Off the Presses at GPO

January 27, 2010--Bob Tapella, the 25th Public Printer of the United States, joined Government Printing Office employees to mark the printing of the FY 2011 budget. The four-volume set weighs approximately 10 pounds. Between 7,000 and 8,000 copies of each volume were printed for a total quantity of 30,968.

According to its website, the GPO is "transforming the largest information processing, printing and distribution facility in the world into a digital factory." One example of this is FDsys (Federal Digital System) GPO's "one-stop site for authentic published government information." FDsys is the successor to GPO Access and has enhanced searching and other capabilities. It was launched in Jan. 2009 after several years of development, and GPO is still in the process of migrating information.

Cabinet Department Blogs

Let's see what the White House and Cabinet Departments are doing with blogs.

In addition to the White House blog, there are eight other Executive Office of the President blogs off whitehouse.gov. More than half the Cabinet departments now have department-wide blogs. During the Bush Administration, in August 2007, HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt became the first Cabinet blogger; according to news reports he actually did his own blogging.

The quality of these blogs varies widely. The most regularly updated and interesting are State's "DipNote" (also the most established, run since Sept. 2007), Defense's "DodLive," Transportation's "Welcome to the Fast Lane," and Homeland Security's "The Blog @ Homeland Security." The ED.gov blog and The Justice Blog are solid but a bit texty. HUD's is also a bit texty and has no archives; USDA's is regularly updated but hampered by a lack of design. Among Cabinet-level agencies, the EPA's "Greenversation" stood out.

No department-wide blogs were found at Treasury, Interior, Commerce, Labor, HHS and Energy. However, note that within departments there may be specialized blogs such as Health IT blogs at HHS or Energy Efficiency blogs at Energy. The focus of this survey is department-wide blogs.

* = first posting in brackets.

White House: The White House Blog. [Jan. 20, 2009]

State (Hillary Clinton): DipNote (U.S. Department of State Official Blog) [Sept. 27, 2007]

Treasury (Timothy Geithner): no blog; closest is Secretary's Corner

Defense (Bill Gates): DoDLive [May 2009]

Justice (Eric Holder): The Justice Blog [Aug. 16, 2009]

Interior (Ken Salazar): no blog; closest is Interior News

Agriculture (Tom Vilsack): USDA Blog [March/June 2009]

Commerce (Gary Locke): no blog; Main Site

Labor (Hilda Solis): no blog; Main Site

HHS (Kathleen Sebelius): no Dep't-wide blog.
There are a couple of Health IT blogs and close to a blog is HHS HealthBeat [July 2005)

HUD (Shaun Donovan): Blog [Sept. 10, 2009]

Transportation (Ray LaHood): Welcome to the Fast Lane (The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation)

Energy (Steven Chu): no Dep't-wide blog.
There are several Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy blogs, the most frequently updated of which is Energy Savers Blog

Education (Arne Duncan): ED.gov Blog [March 2009]

Veterans' Affairs (Eric Shinseki): no blog; Main Site

Homeland Security (Janet Napolitano): http://www.dhs.gov/journal/theblog/ [June 14, 2009]

Cabinet Level
OMB, USTR, EPA ("Greenversation"), U.S. Mission to the UN (none), CEA (none).


Also of interest: "Web Communication and New Media" and particularly "Blogging Standards"

Finally, note that many federal government agencies also have blogs. One noteworthy example is Gov Gab: Your U.S. government blog launched in 2007 by the U.S. General Services Administration's Office of Citizen Services and Communications.

White House photostream on flickr

The White House photostream is on flickr. The White House started uploading official photos onto flickr in late April 2009.







This prompts the question: what are other executive departments and agencies posting in terms of images?

In addition to the White House, six Cabinet Departments have flickr photostreams.
State: http://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos

Defense: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39955793@N07/

USDAgov: http://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov

HUD Public Affairs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/opahud/

Transportation: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raylahood/

Energy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofenergy


flickr labels the White House and Department of State photos as "US Government Work" while USDA says "Some rights reserved."

Below is the "US Government Work" disclaimer (reprinted from http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml):

Copyright Pertaining to US Government Work

A work that is a United States Government work, prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties, is not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no U.S. copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work. Anyone may, without restriction under U.S. copyright laws,

reproduce the work in copies in print or in digital form;
prepare derivative works of the work;
perform the work publicly;
display the work;
distribute copies or digitally transfer the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.

Caveats

Other persons may have rights either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
Not all work that appears on US Government Websites is considered to be a US Government work. Check with the content curator to see whether the work is a US Government Work. Works prepared for the United States Government by independent contractors may be protected by copyright, which may be owned by the independent contractor or by the United States Government. 
The United States Government Work designation is distinct from designations that apply to works of US state and local governments. Works of state and local governments may be protected by copyright. 
Copyright laws differ internationally. While a United States Government work is not protectable under United States copyright laws, the work may be protected under the copyright laws of other jurisdictions when used in other jurisdictions. Outside of the United States, the United States Government may assert copyright in United States Government works. 

References

http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#105

Obama Adminstration's Open Gov Efforts Continue

The Obama administration is continuing its transparency efforts, as this Jan. 22 press release from the White House press secretary shows:

First Open Gov Deadline Brings Online Treasure Trove of Information

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Nearly 300 new sets of data are now online as part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to breaking down barriers between the federal government and the American people.

“These steps underscore my Administration’s commitment to creating an unprecedented level of transparency and public participation in government. Through our open government efforts, we are bringing down the walls between the government and the American people, strengthening our democracy and enhancing the effectiveness and accountability of our government. We are committed to changing how Washington works, and a major part of that is showing the American people what Washington does.”

“The Administration is transforming the way the federal government has long operated, shifting the default setting from closed, secret, and opaque to open, transparent, and participatory,” Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra explained. “We are democratizing data, putting the power of information in the hands of the American people.”

“These datasets empower people by simplifying access to information that, for too long, has been sitting on shelves throughout Washington,” Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said. “The data can spur innovation. Entrepreneurs, corporations, and ordinary Americans can build value on top of this raw material into applications that will improve our quality of life.”

Each of the 24 major government departments and agencies, together with several small and independent agencies, have uploaded information to Data.gov, in accordance with the Administration’s Open Government Directive issued in December 2009. That directive established an unprecedented standard for government agencies, insisting that they achieve key milestones in transparency, collaboration, and participation.

As part of the data published today, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is issuing user-friendly information about the ease of use for child safety seats. While the safety data is already available, consumers now will be able to access the ratings focused on the ease of utilizing instructions, reading labels, installing the seat, and securing the child.

The Department of Health and Human Services is publishing information that previously cost a person $100 to acquire. The data will provide detailed breakdowns on the volume of physician services delivered to Medicare beneficiaries and the payments for those services. Information will be sortable by the type of medical service provided and by state. The data can be used to look at patterns of Medicare spending, the medical challenges facing a state or a population, or the types of services delivered to meet specific conditions.

With the first stage of the Open Government Directive completed, attention turns to step two: each agency is creating a website to serve as the gateway for agency open government activities. In addition, Chopra and Kundra soon will launch an open government dashboard to track agencies’ progress to increase transparency and public participation in their operations. The deadline for those activities is February 6, 2010.

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