A few weeks ago, I praised Data.gov, the website that was supposed to be a clearinghouse for making federal data public. Now, according to Nathan Yau,
Last week, there were rumblings over the end of the Statistical Abstract, and I suggested that it was just a sign of changing technologies. I thought that Data.gov and similar sites were the natural progression. Here's the probably with that argument. Congress is planning on shutting down Data.gov and other transparency sites in the next few months.
So not only was I wrong, but now we're taking steps backward. The budget for these technologies will be cut from $37m to $2m. According to Federal News Radio, USASpending.gov and Apps.gov/now will remain online until July 30 and then go black soon after.
I have no idea whether this is a demand of the Tea Party, or a decision by the Obama administration. Perhaps the sites were badly run. I suppose that if they are willing to cut $1 billion from the National Institutes of Health, there is little reason to expect them to scruple tabout ending an initiative for data transparency.
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