

Obama's data.gov CIO quits White House  - cwan
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/16/vivek_kundra_quits_cio_job/

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cjoh
Don't want to publish information without unattributable sources, but -- the
deal is in Washington that Obama gave his appointees until August 30th to
decide whether or not they wanted to stay on through the remainder of his
present term. Basically, while they're on their honor, the administration
doesn't want appointees to drop out during election season. This is customary
for administrations seeking reelection to do.

Vivek likely won't be the first.

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baconner
Vivek wasn't the CIO of data.gov as the headline implies. He was the CIO of
the united states. IMO Its a real shame to see him go. Data.gov and other
important projects like the federal it dashboard and his efforts to reduce
wasteful spending on data centers seem destined for termination without him.

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jinushaun
Not looking good for the future of data.gov. I know funding was cut recently,
but didn't realise until this article that funding was cut from $35m to $8m!

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ChrisArchitect
like some other things with Obama's Presidency, data/gov projects haven't gone
the way we all 'Hoped' they would when the ideals presented themselves at its
start. <Sigh>

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brown9-2
From the article: _As The Register has previously reported, Data.gov has been
the subject of serious funding cuts in recent months. Its budget was
dramatically reduced from $35m in 2010 to just $8m this year._

From
[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/datagov_et_al_budget_sl...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/datagov_et_al_budget_slashed_by_75.php)
: _Federal government transparency programs, including data resource directory
Data.gov, face across-the-board budget cuts by 75% in the latest version of
the federal budget to emerge from Congressional negotiations._

Congress slashed the budget, not the President.

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eli
True enough, but it was slashed in a Congressional budget that the Whitehouse
agreed to.

Sunlight Foundation has extensive coverage & ways you can help:
<http://sunlightfoundation.com/savethedata/>

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rpledge
Prediction: Eric Schmidt replaces him

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hugh3
Why the hell would Eric Schmidt want a job like that?

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rpledge
It was allegedly offered to him before:
<http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10769458?nclick_check=1>

Of course, he was CEO of Google then. Now, not so much. I can see him
wondering if a career in politics would work. I'm sure he's got enough cash
not to care about the finical hit.

~~~
brown9-2
more recent speculation has Schmidt being named Commerce Secretary.

~~~
hugh3
If I were Eric Schmidt, my plans would involve enjoying my many billions of
dollars and private 767 and occasionally dropping into a Google board meeting
to say "Good job Larry, keep it up".

They would _so_ not involve moving to dreary old Washington DC to take up a
thankless bureaucratic job in an administration that is as likely as not to be
over in eighteen months.

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known
A Senator should take the CIO job.

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nextparadigms
Weren't they closing down data.gov anyway, to "save money" or something?

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buckwild
Does anyone else not trust the data on data.gov? I don't have any evidence to
prove otherwise, but I have a feeling that the raw data is tampered with
before release...

Perhaps its just the fact that the US government really goes out of its way to
protect its data (remember how much the US government hates Wikileaks and how
long it takes to de-classify documents). Why would they up and release data
all of a sudden?

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davidhollander
> _I don't have any evidence to prove otherwise, but I have a feeling that the
> raw data is tampered with before release..._

Evidence is the currency by which one fulfills burden of proof.

> _Why would they up and release data all of a sudden?_

You just read an article listing several reasons. All government data is by
default public unless related to national security and explicitly upgraded to
a higher secrecy level. You could already request to view any of the
information being released, but it's cheaper to start moving all public
information to one location than to have every agency inconsistently implement
its own information handling processes.

It's extremely unlikely the government is coordinating all of its workers to
tamper with public disability claims, military recruitment trends,
environmental reports, geological surveys, public housing inventories, etc.
before posting it on the site.

