In academia, via FGI, it looks like Harvard is embracing standards of open access for academic research in their Arts and Sciences departments.  This is great news, as they seem to be asserting their role as agents in a broad intellectual sphere as more important than their role as agents in the academic publishing world.  There is a difference between the business of publishing research and the process of actually taking advantage of that research.  Access to even college course material is developing online.

Similarly, Carl Malamud, Lawrence Lessig, and Public.Resource.org have staked a claim in the realm of public access to legal research, as they recently announced the release of “substantial part of all federal cases.”  Their work similarly helps to distinguish between the functional world of real people needing access to research materials and the walled off publishing companies that have long held exclusive access to the materials they produce.  Let’s not be naive, however, publishing companies like West have played an essential role in providing information to a broad and paying legal community that couldn’t function without their institutional role as managers of legal information.

So where’s the middle ground?  Where does the clear public good of broad information access begin, and where does the public domain end?  How does one negotiate the terrain of digitizing public information that has some degree of copyright asserted over it?

Mr. Malamud gives us real perspective on his attemps to realize the proper place for public information, as he lets us see into the negotiations surrounding his work, posting his correspondence with Thomson North American Legal along with the court documents his team has digitized.  Among my favorite passages (pdf):

He has also posted the company’s reply, and publicresource’s press release of the collection’s release.

I’m hoping that his work with creating broad public access to legal research materials and historical national documents leads to a better relationship between citizens and legal and legislative information.

Access to a history of Supreme Court decisions puts us one step closer to gaining a comprehensive public view of all of the important aspects of legal research, and being able to see the relevant documentation of public policy from its inception and legislative consideration to its implementation and eventual interpretation in the courts.

The OTA was recently reinstated, although in a different form, when Congress passed (and President Bush signed) the most recent legislative branch appropriations bill. I work for the Sunlight Foundation, and we helped push for this measure to be adopted. (see http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/06/04/ota-endorsement/ or http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/2007/06/07/ota-renewed-gets-25-million/ )

Instead of reinvoking funding for the still-authorized OTA department, the new approps bill adds funding to the GAO’s budget, letting them venture explicitly into the realm of technological assessment. This is probably a good thing, given GAO’s excellent reputation, and that their work is public, as are their evaluative criteria.

Having a congressional support agency with an explicit mandate to provide research on technological issues will go a long way toward giving congressional decisions on technology the background they need to be sound, and re-funding an OTA, whether as a stand-alone agency or as part of the GAO is the right way to go about it.

A separate issue entirely, however, is whether Congress has adequately organized their administrative appendages to address their own technological coordination issues. Having dedicated researchers available will help lead to better policy, but without clear jurisdiction, proper implementation and foresight get passed over, as agencies and departments struggle to prioritize and act within their budgets. Complex incentives surround the question of whether or not to take on a problem that is outside your department’s statutorily authorized responsibilities. A central non-political body coordinating these responsibilities across Congress would streamline the process of implementing and planning new technological transitions, a very complicated task for such a complex institution.

What I didn’t get into, however, is the main thrust of Lessig’s post, that is, should the US have a CTO position?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I’m inclined to suggest that centralizing and institutionalizing technological expertise leads to better policy and decisions. The issue I have with this suggestion, however, is one of jurisdiction. How does the complex of fought-over jurisdictions, executive orders, tradition, and expectations come to cough up a new cabinet level position? The history American choices addressing emergent needs by creating new administrative appendages is probably full of illustrative examples, which might suggest the best way to centralize technological expertise in American executive administration.

Is this best filled by an informal advisory role, a cabinet level position, an Office of Management and Budget office, a separate technological affairs office, a temporary task force? Consciously considering the choices beforehand makes it less likely that we choose whatever is most expedient when the issue is raised in earnest.

Even though that video centers on intellectual property issues, Lessig talks about how his focus came to shift away from hoping Congress would pass rational policy. He remarks that the "economies of influence" that dictate congressional policy are fundamentally corrupt, as a system. That made me reflect that Sunlight’s mission is, in a sense, to cultivate an ecology of popular influence, to build the culture of information and deliberation that is necessary for good governance. I wonder how often it is that people are drawn to process reform by virtue of their frustration in working on other issues? The leap shouldn’t be difficult for Lessig to make, since the cultural shift he describes as changing the nature of creativity (and, therefore, the landscape of intellectual property) — that cultural shift to creativity and digital empowerment is exactly the cultural sphere in which Sunlight is thriving. Instead of mashups of disparate clips of audio and video, we’re working with legislative data, creating an approachable and relevant congressional pallette of civic information.

This video speaks also to that cultural shift, discussing exponential growth of digital culture.

Certainly also worth our attention is this page on his wiki, where he lists resources and research.