[Talk-us] State Open Data (Brian May)

[Tom Lee]

> If a billionaire is reading this list and wants to put their money
> towards doing a lot of public good and good for the economy in general
> (data is the new oil), they could make the sky rain lawyers!

I share your enthusiasm for billionaires with idiosyncratic obsessions (who
doesn't like Batman?) and think this would be a great project.

But let me also add that there's a lot of work we non-billionaires (and
even non-lawyers) can do to make this scenario more likely. Going through
the tedious process of FOIAing, appealing the denial, then FOIAing for the
emails about the process, then publishing everything in a blog post --
these steps set the stage for a larger action (if appropriate) and
typically have to be done first. Actual practitioners are the ones in the
best position to know what data is needed and where the rationale for
keeping it locked up is most absurd. Not every one of these efforts will
end in success, but it's a necessary start.

I'll add that folks who do undertake such an effort might want to check out
MuckRock, which is a great resource for submitting and sharing FOIAs. And
of course Carl Malamud's work at public.resource.org is an inspiration on
this front, though I suspect he's so much on his plate that it might be
hard to get him interested in geodata.

Tom
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