Let the Sun Shine In

This evening, I found a link to the Sunlight Foundation while surfing the web.

While this group is focused on transparency in federal government, its principals are just as applicable to local government, and especially relevant as Montgomery County Public Schools and the County Government continue to try to keep their constituents in the dark.

Working off Justice Brandeis's famous quote, "sunlight is the best disinfectant," the Sunlight Foundation works to improve access to existing information, by creating new tools to enable all to work towards greater transparency.

I especially like their eight principles for open data:

The eight Open Government Data Principles should be implemented, making all
government data: complete, primary, timely, accessible, machine processable,
non-discriminatory, non-proprietary, and license-free. (see: http://resource.org/8_principles.html)

Open government? Transparency? If it dates back to Justice Brandeis, it must be outdated dicta in progressive Montgomery County, right Dr. Weast and Mr. Knapp?