#government-transparency

#government-transparency

Santa Clara County residents should vote "no" on Measure A, the 5/8ths-of-a-cent sales tax for a variety of reasons. First, this tax was conceived behind closed doors with no public discussion about whether it's needed. The tax was rolled out two days before the Board of Supervisors voted to put it on the ballot, which isn't enough time to let the public digest the pros and cons of the measure.

Several government oversight websites went down - and with them, access to watchdog reports and required hotline and whistleblower links - as of Wednesday morning as the White House Office of Management and Budget has moved to withhold funds from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, or CIGIE. "Due to a lack of apportionment of funds, this website is currently unavailable," the CIGIE website states.

Government agencies operate under public scrutiny, with every communication and decision potentially subject to review. Transparency is essential for maintaining trust between citizens and institutions, but achieving it in the digital age presents new challenges. With most interactions now taking place online-through websites, social media platforms, and digital collaboration tools-agencies need reliable ways to capture, store, and retrieve these records. Archiving software has emerged as a practical solution, giving agencies the ability to document their digital footprint accurately and respond quickly to information requests.

A federal website that informs the public about what information agencies are collecting and allows for public comment went down last weekend, and it has only been partially restored. The outage has raised concerns among advocates who already were troubled by the disappearance of data sets from government websites after President Donald Trump began his second term. As of Thursday, the website's landing page said, it was "currently undergoing revisions."

The Antioch City Council unanimously voted on Aug. 12 to appoint a replacement instead of holding a special election, which officials said would be a more cost-effective solution. Rhodes, who was elected in November 2024, resigned as city clerk on July 30. In her resignation letter, the former city clerk did not state why she left office. According to a staff report, the city clerk position must be filled by the end of September.

Hannah Recht is tracking data through the U.S. Census Bureau APIs:

"We talk about authoritarian regimes in DC. What about here on Beacon Hill? There is an authoritarian regime in the legislature on Beacon Hill right now," she said.

Ukrainian authorities have detained several officials over a large-scale corruption scheme in the defence sector, resulting in the arrests of a sitting lawmaker and two local officials.

Campaigners have called for government "transparency" amid reports the United States Air Force has moved nuclear weapons to a Suffolk airbase, with specific concerns about the deployment. The flight data of a specialist C-17A Globemaster indicates it traveled from New Mexico to RAF Lakenheath last week, raising alarms over nuclear readiness. The situation marks a potential return of nuclear weapons to Lakenheath, the first since 2008, with platform preparations for the B61-12 bomb being evident based on recent documentation and expert analysis.

Bill Aleshire, a Texas-based attorney specializing in public records law, was appalled that the governor is claiming that months of emails between his office and one of the world's richest people are all private. "Right now, it appears they've charged you $244 for records they have no intention of giving you," Aleshire said. "That is shocking."

Meeta Anand, senior director of census and data equity, reported a flood of inquiries about vanishing datasets, indicating widespread concern over lost governmental data.

Legally mandated US national climate assessments appear to be missing from federal websites, making crucial information about climate change less accessible to state and local governments.

"The Greenbelt-related appeals offer a clear example and cautionary tale about the consequences of inadequate recordkeeping. When key government decisions are not properly documented, transparency suffers, and with it, public trust."

"You've signed a contract with a company to reconfigure the aircraft. What is the price of that contract?" - Sen. Jack Reed interrogating Hegseth in Senate hearing.

I'm a fierce opponent of government secrets of all kinds. The scale is tipped so far the other way that I'm willing to stick my neck out and say there should be none.

The alignment of the aircraft gave the appearance to observers on the ground of them hovering in formation while they were actually moving directly at the observers.