CBC's Nora Young interview with Tom Steinberg on Transparency in Government

Nora Young - Image via Wikipedia

Full Interview: Tom Steinberg on Transparency in Government

Posted by Nora Young under Uncategorized

This morning I spoke to Tom Steinberg, director of MySociety, a not-for-profit that creates websites designed to connect citizens in the UK with government, in practical, transparent ways.

Tom Steinberg - Image by matlock via Flickr

The MySociety approach gets citizens interested through personal, practical projects (getting potholes fixed on a neighbouring street, say, or getting a record of comments their MPs have made on a particular issue) and from there, hopes to stimulate interest in democratic participation.

What intrigued me about MySociety is that they’re mostly relying on publicly available information, but they’re making it accessible to people in practical, user-friendly, and accountable ways.

What do you think of the MySociety approach? Does it have applications for Canada? Let me know what you think!

We’re airing a shortened version of this conversation on the next episode of Spark, but you can listen to the entire talk below, or you can download the MP3.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Urgent appeal to preseve the tiny amount of parliamentary transparency won in 2008 (simoncollister.com)
• MySociety puts e-democracy up for sale (theregister.co.uk)
• MySociety 'retreat' places up for auction on eBay (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• Net-based pressure forces UK government to cancel plans to make MPs' expenses secret (boingboing.net)
• Tweetminster.co.uk - Follow MPs & Ministers On Twitter (killerstartups.com)
• Interview: Tom Steinberg of MySociety (guardian.co.uk)

Protests grow over MP expense bid (UK)

Protests grow over MP expense bid
By Julian Joyce
BBC News

Campaigners have called on MPs to "stand up and be counted" against a potential rule change exempting them from Freedom of Information laws.

MPs are due to vote this week on the new rules, which would allow them to keep their expense details secret.

Now opponents have launched an online campaign, urging voters to put pressure on their local MPs to oppose the move.

By Monday afternoon an estimated 1,000 e-mails had been sent and organisers are confident the total will grow.

The e-mails were in response to an appeal earlier in the day from mySociety.org - a website with 75,000 subscribers that campaigns for more openness in politics.

In 2007 the group played a role in defeating a similar move by MPs to exempt themselves from Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

The group says widespread opposition to the plans might convince MPs to vote against them.

MySociety director Tom Steinberg told the BBC: "We are a strictly non-partisan group, but we are using the internet... to spread the word that this exemption is unacceptable."

FULL ARTICLE

Related articles by Zemanta

• Urgent appeal to preseve the tiny amount of parliamentary transparency won in 2008
• Online campaign urges MPs to block secret expenses
• Brits: Act now to stop Parliament from hiding MPs' expense accounts!