A Briefing On Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online
from
The Center For Democracy and Technology
(1) US Weather Agency Embraces Open Internet Standards
(2) Background on Openness of Weather Information
(3) NOAA's Move Follows a Positive Pattern in Release of Government Information
On December 1, 2004, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) adopted a new policy of disseminating government-collected weather information using Internet standards instead of the proprietary standards that traditionally were accessible only by a small for-profit community.
NOAA's decision, designed to allow a broader range of private and public sector entities to easily use weather data, marks a watershed in the dissemination of government-funded scientific and technical information. It will strengthen the partnership among government, academia and the private sector, minimize the inefficiencies of the existing system, and support the development of a wider range of products and services using weather-related information. CDT had supported the change of policy, consistent with our goal of promoting use of the Internet and opne standards to provide broader access to government information. CDT argued that improved data access would benefit all participants in the weather enterprise by maximizing the affordability, availability and usefulness of weather information services and by opening opportunities for new business models. CDT's comments were cited in NOAA's final decision.
This summer, NOAA proposed a new policy that would "make its data and products available in Internet-accessible form ... based on recognized standards, formats, and metadata descriptions to ensure data from different observing platforms, databases, and models can be integrated and used by all interested parties in the weather, water, and climate enterprise." The existing weather reporting industry, including the companies that own the proprietary formats used today, argued against disclosure, asserting that it would put the government into unfair competition against the private sector.
On June 30, 2004, CDT filed comments at NOAA in support of the proposed policy, aarguing that it would strike a balance between (i) protecting the rights of private companies that collect and disseminate data and (ii) ensuring unfettered access to information collected by the government for the benefit of the public. CDT argued that taxpayers actually have been paying twice for weather data since taxpayers fund the collection and then pay again to receive the results in the proprietary format.
Open Internet standards (such as those based on XML - "Extensible Markup Language") offer an opportunity to make information widely available and useful in a variety of applications. In this case, open standards will support innovation, diversity and competition in the creation of specialized weather products, tools, and models in the academic and private sectors.
The weather information debate was the latest in a series of struggles over use of the Internet to disseminate government data that is technically public but often locked up in proprietary formats. In 1993, public interest organizations won a long battle to convince the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make its Electronic Data Gathering and Retrieval System (EDGAR) freely available. The subsequent release of EDGAR on the Internet led to the creation of thousands of new services and sparked dramatic growth in the number of small investors, who for the first time were able to easily look up market news and view SEC filings.
In 1998, a similar battle resulted in the release of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's database. The commercial providers of this information had argued against making it freely available online, while most other business groups and public interest organizations pushed for its wide-scale release. Again, openness won out and the result was more private sector activity, not less. The new system has had little negative impact on businesses that conduct patent and trademark research; it turns out that the basic information is not as important to their profitability as the quality of their analysis. At the same time, openness has brought greater accountability, as reporters and others have used the information for investigations of patent claims.
CDT will continue to advocate for use of the Internet and open formats to disseminate public information so it can be used in innovative ways.
Detailed information about online civil liberties issues may be found at http://www.cdt.org/.
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Policy Post 10.21 Copyright 2004 Center for Democracy and Technology
