Technology and the OK Supreme Court
A recent ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court illustrates a common complaint of government agencies and bureaucracies, namely that they haven’t kept up with the expansion of technology.
The court ruled earlier this month that any requests for bulk electronic court case data–basically large downloads or exports of court record information–was now off limits. (Read my story here; the Tulsa World’s story is here. For more on the idea of bulk data downloads from government, check out Web guru Tim O’Reilly’s blog.)
Over the last few decades, Oklahoma county district court clerks have moved their case management systems from paper files to electronic formats. But there are two separate systems, the state-run Oklahoma State Courts Network and the privately run On Demand Court Records. They’ve each evolved over time in response to the needs of district court clerks across the state. There are 13 district courts–including the state’s two largest counties–covered by OSCN; 64 district courts have signed up with ODCR, which is operated by KellPro Inc. of Duncan.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling followed an open records request earlier this year by an Edmond-based firm, INAD Data Services LLC. The company requested electronic copies of all court case information for state district courts and the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Court.
The request appeared to have caught Supreme Court administrators off guard. They responded to INAD’s attorney with a letter in late July. The letter said some court information was confidential under state and federal law. It also said the Supreme Court would be asking the Attorney General’s office for advice. The Supreme Court Administrative Office’s general counsel, Debra Charles, said:
If I am satisfied that all or a portion of the records on OSCN.net can be released in bulk, you should anticipate paying a reasonable fee to search and reproduce all of the public records that can be appropriately segregated for public view. Please understand that, if the electronic records can be reasonably segregated, the cost of a system-wide search of this nature will likely be significant.
We’re still trying to figure out what happened in between that letter and the Supreme Court’s ruling Oct. 8 to forbid release of bulk records. But Oklahoma Chief Justice James Edmondson (the brother of Attorney General Drew Edmondson), sent a letter to INAD’s attorney and state Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, dated Oct. 5. The letter, which was effectively a denial of the open records request, stated:
… Copies of all information, documents and electronic court records would encompass cases dating back to 1984 in Oklahoma and Tulsa counties. During the intervening 25 years, the other 75 counties have moved to digital record keeping. This literally amounts to millions of pages.
In summary, everything you have requested can be readily accessed through oscn.net or is available on a case-by-case basis at any court clerk’s office in each of the courthouses in Oklahoma. We direct you to oscn.net for full and complete open access to court information.
Later that week, justices issued their ruling.
Justice Edmondson said Tuesday that the ruling was intended to cover only commercial requesters of bulk court data. Other requests, such as those made by noncommercial entities or the media, would be decided on a case-by-case basis, he said. But that’s not explicitly stated in the ruling.
Furthermore, Edmondson said the court signed a contract with KellPro to convert ODCR court case data in preparation for a single, unified Web site of district court information. The contract authorizes the court to spend up to $1.15 million this fiscal year for the data conversion.
Tim Keller, the founder of KellPro, said the contract covers only the data conversion. He expects the Supreme Court will put the work of the unified system out to a competitive bid once the data conversion is finished. In the meantime, KellPro is selling expanded access to court information to members of the Oklahoma Bar Association.
Since hearing about the Supreme Court’s ruling late Monday, I’ve had several conversations with attorney Doug Wilson of Stillwater, who specializes in electronic government information and data. Wilson said the ruling could raise constitutional issues, including one that forbids the state from granting a preference to one company over another.
To play devil’s advocate, I can see why KellPro would like to protect its system of court information. After all, the company’s employees spent time, energy and money pursuing case management system contracts with district court clerks across the state. For a company to come after the fact and request bulk information from their systems doesn’t seem fair.
However, the information isn’t KellPro’s in the first place. They developed the system and software, but the “ownership” stake of the records themselves lies with the people of Oklahoma, whose tax dollars fund the state’s legal system.
It’s interesting to note that this isn’t the first time the Supreme Court has gotten involved in Web access to court documents. In response to privacy concerns, the court issued a ruling last year that would have stopped online access to court filings across the state. They rescinded that ruling after complaints from the public, the media and open-records advocates.
–Paul
Finding state and local budget details
The recession and lower tax revenues are crimping state and local budgets, so it’s good to see several policy groups are making it easier for Oklahomans to find information about their government spending and taxation.
The Oklahoma Policy Institute has just released its Online Budget Guide, a detailed look at state and local budgets in Oklahoma.
I’ve spent a little time checking out the site, and it’s certainly comprehensive. There’s a wealth of information, and the Oklahoma Policy Institute folks say they are committed to keeping the facts and figures timely and relevant. They plan to later add information about federal stimulus spending in Oklahoma and possibly details of state and local bond debt.
As Matt Guillory, executive director of the institute, puts it:
“We’ve designed the Guide to be a resource for anyone interested or affected by government finance in Oklahoma. Those just getting interested will find it to be a clear and simple overview, but it will also serve as a great reference tool for legislators, advocates, members of the media, teachers and others with greater experience in budget issues.”
The nice thing about the guide is that it also includes information on all types of money flowing into state and local coffers, not just sales, income or property taxes. For example, it has information on federal pass-through money, user charges, utilities and trust revenues.
On the expenditure side, the guide has a look at where the money goes and how effective that spending is.
“This is a look at not only what we’re spending, but what we’re getting in return,” said Paul Shinn, the institute’s consultant and the primary author of the guide.
The Policy Challenges section gets into the institute’s bread-and-butter advocacy for tax fairness in Oklahoma, as well as some long-term fiscal challenges that lawmakers will have to deal with in the future.
“We don’t pretend to have solutions, but we offer options,” Shinn said.
If you want the Cliff’s Notes version of the budget guide, you can download the highlights here.
For more on state spending, check out the state’s Open Books site. The link is also on our Right to Know page.
–Paul
What does the Internet know about you?
We volunteer more and more information to the Internet, but have you stopped to think about what can be gleaned about you, your lifestyle and family from blog posts, social media sites and friends’ pages?
I came across this site, Personas, earlier this week. It’s an online art “installation” from an exhibit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You plug in your name, and it performs some complex, behind-the-scenes calculations using algorithms and data mining techniques to see what it can find out about you on the Internet. Think of it as a vanity Google search on speed.
Here’s what it said it found out about me from the Internet, split into broad categories:
Of course, as the installation notes, it’s meant as a critique of information gathering and data mining.
Personas attempts to demonstrate this process. It does not reveal where its data comes from, nor does it allow you to weight the inputs. The model designer chose how to build the pre-determined categories and underlying statistical techniques to reflect her world view and a priori knowledge. Uncanny insights and inaccuracies are a part of the intended experience, inviting you to reflect on the larger social consequences of an empirically-driven world.
Still, I was curious where it got so much of my information about movies. I’m a big movie fan, but I haven’t written much online about movies. Then I remembered my dormant MySpace page, which I hadn’t logged into in more than two years. That profile had some information on my favorite movies.
With Google bots and spiders and all manner of information trawling, nothing is ever truly gone from the Web. But I decided to close my MySpace account anyway.
–Paul
OK ranks low in stimulus Web site survey
I’ve already pointed out a few issues with the federal recovery.gov site and our state’s stimulus tracking site in an earlier post, but now a national group has come out with a report ranking every state’s stimulus Web site.
The results are not encouraging. Oklahoma’s main stimulus site manages a score of just 20 out of 100 possible points, according to the rankings by Good Jobs First. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s stimulus site fares a little better, at 33 out of 100.
“Given the Recovery Act’s high profile, we expected better results, but most state ARRA [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] sites simply do not measure up,” said Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First and principal author of the report. “The challenge is not insurmountable. States such as Maryland, Colorado and Washington are doing a very good job in conveying vital information about stimulus spending and are leading the way in establishing best practices for state ARRA disclosure.”
Good Jobs First does say Oklahoma’s site includes good information on the broad allocation of stimulus funds. But it faulted Oklahoma for not including information about jobs saved and/or created and for failing to provide stimulus funds by geography.
If there is a silver lining in the report, it’s that most other states scored close to Oklahoma. The average score in the Good Jobs First report was 28. Just six states scored 50 or better for their main stimulus site: Maryland, Colorado, Washington, West Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania.
Good Jobs First had several recommendations for state stimulus Web sites:
1. Put a summary of key information about ARRA spending at the top of the home page of the site. A clear bar graph, pie chart or table showing the main spending flows goes a long way in helping the user begin to see what the Recovery Act is all about. There should be clear links to pages with more details about the various programs.
2. Provide a map or a table showing how overall ARRA spending and the amounts in key categories are being distributed geographically around the state.
3. Along with information on spending streams, report on individual projects being funded by those programs. Where possible, display the location of the projects on maps. Interactive displays that allow one to drill down for more details are better than static PDF maps. [emphasis mine]
4. For projects carried out by private contractors, be open about the contract award process and the identity of the companies that win bidding competitions. Post the bids and the details, including the full text of the contract awarded to the winner.
5. While the federal government’s Council of Economic Advisers is responsible for estimating the overall employment impacts of ARRA and the Recovery.gov website will report jobs data on some (but not all) individual projects, state ARRA sites should also make an effort to include employment data in their project reporting.
6. ARRA sites should provide readily accessible information about the ways that individuals, organizations and businesses can apply for stimulus grants and contracts.
I’m sympathetic to a point about some of the Oklahoma Web site’s shortcomings. After all, the stimulus money continues to trickle out of Washington to the states. And we’re all new at finding the quickest and most effective ways of keeping track of it.
The folks at OK.gov, who administer the state’s stimulus site on behalf of the ARRA Coordinating Council, put me in touch with the Webmaster for the stimulus site. I’ve also got a call into the governor’s office. I’ll update when I hear back from them.
UPDATE: Behind the scenes, budget officials, agency coordinators and Web programmers are working to get additional information on the state’s stimulus site by the federal deadline in October. Among the possibilities are map mashups and raw data feeds and downloads.
Meanwhile, Paul Sund, Gov. Brad Henry’s spokesman, said the state ARRA Coordinating Council will meet again, but no definitive date has been set. The council last met in March.
–Paul
Are we obsessed with Web tracking?
How much is too much when it comes to tracking our lives on the Web? Has the deluge of information online made us think differently about we see our world?
USA Today has a fascinating story today on those questions, and more.
I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say that I can get a wee bit obsessive about tracking government information on the Web. After all, that’s part of my job description. But I hadn’t realized how much this story hit home until I thought about the time I’ve spent tracking purchases from Amazon or Apple. For example, when I bought my Apple laptop in 2005, I could track its movement from the factory in China to my doorstep in Oklahoma City. And I did. Obsessively.
Of course, I don’t think I’m quite to point where I track every instance of my life on the Web. That’s the subject of this story from Wired magazine. You can also check out The Quantified Self site here. And if you’re on Twitter, you can track your life using it with this project from data visualization site Flowing Data.
The prize for the most visually interesting personal metrics project has to go to graphic designer Nicholas Felton, who has been producing “annual reports” of his life since 2005. Here’s the latest cover from 2008:
Felton’s side project is called Daytum. The Wall Street Journal interviewed him for this story back in December. The Journal also helpfully put the phenomenon in historical context:
Today’s info-chroniclers are just the latest in a long history of diarists and scientists who kept notes by hand. Nineteenth-century English inventor and statistician Francis Galton, who introduced statistical concepts such as regression to the mean, was an obsessive counter who created the first weather map and carried a homemade object called a “registrator” to, among other things, measure people’s yawns and fidgets during his talks. (Mr. Galton’s preoccupation with data, specifically with human hereditary traits, also yielded an unsavory by-product — eugenics.)
In 1937, a social research organization called Mass Observation in London used about 2,000 volunteers to develop an “anthropology of ourselves.” For more than a decade, participants recorded such things as their neighbor’s bathroom habits and what end of their cigarettes they tapped before lighting up. Personal tracking also showed up in “Cheaper by the Dozen,” a 1948 book about efficiency experts Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth and their attempts to track and optimize the daily routines of their 12 children (including when they brushed their teeth and made their beds).
Finally, the award for too much information has to go to the squirm-inducing Bedpost!
–Paul
More on the Highway Patrol video cameras
Following on from today’s story about the costs and practices surrounding the Oklahoma Highway Patrol’s video cameras, I’ve got some more background as to how the in-dash footage became closed to the public.
Before the Legislature exempted the patrol’s audio and video from the Oklahoma Open Records Act in 2005, anyone could buy a copy of a video for $25. Here’s the part of the legislation that was removed:
E. The Commissioner and any other officers of the Department as the Commissioner may designate are hereby authorized to prepare copies of videotape recordings which are not exempt law enforcement records, as prescribed in Section 24A.8 of Title 51 of the Oklahoma Statutes, when held as records of the Department, and deliver upon request to any person a copy of a videotape recording, for a fee of Twenty-five Dollars ($25.00) for each copy. Any monies collected by the Department pursuant to this subsection shall be deposited to the credit of the Department of Public Safety Revolving Fund.
According to Mark Thomas of the Oklahoma Press Association, one of the reasons DPS asked the legislature to remove that part of the law followed a request from a reality TV production company for every video of every trooper on every shift. The agency couldn’t fulfill that request and asked for the change in law.
Of course, the agency also had recently lost a court case on the subject. Here’s the story from our archives:
Highway patrol ordered to stop withholding tapes
By Nolan Clay
Staff Writer
Thursday, March 3, 2005
Edition: City, Section: NEWS, Page 6A
A judge has barred the Oklahoma Highway Patrol from keeping videotapes of traffic arrests secret.The ruling Friday came after an Oklahoma City attorney complained about a new restriction on the release of such videotapes.
“They don’t want these videos out. … They use any excuse that they can, even bad ones,” said attorney Stephen G. Fabian Jr., who specializes in drunken-driving cases.
Fabian has used the state Open Records Act to gather hundreds of videotapes from police departments and the patrol.
“We continue to find that many officers make up evidence and exaggerate their testimony about the events. These tapes are extremely important to a citizen who is wrongly accused,” he said.
The attorney sued the state Department of Public Safety in January after officials refused to release a videotape of a drunken-driving arrest. Officials said the attorney had to get the driver’s written consent first.
Oklahoma County District Judge Noma Gurich struck down that requirement as unlawful.
The Department of Public Safety said it was trying to prevent identity theft. An attorney for the agency told the judge the videotape had “personal information” that must be kept private under a federal law.
The department’s attorney said the videotape revealed the vehicle’s tag number and the driver’s image, address, full name and license number.
The attorney also said the driver in the videotape admits to “dipping Skoal” smokeless tobacco. The attorney said that “could be interpreted as ‘medical information’ that is considered protected ‘highly restricted personal information.’”
Meanwhile, if this issue comes up during the next session of the legislature, advocates for changing the law might have an ally in a former state commissioner of public safety. Bob Ricks, now the chief of police in Edmond, said he understands why DPS needs to keep the video footage out of the public realm — at least for a short time.
“Once a situation is over, I don’t have any hesitancy releasing those types of materials,” Ricks told me last week. “But initially you need to protect the information until an administrative or internal inquiry is over. Our policy in Edmond is we are prompt to release those things that don’t appear to be concerned with an administrative inquiry. You’ve got protect the rights of all involved, but I also believe in the First Amendment and getting information to the public as quickly as possible.”
For more on highway patrol video policies in other states, check out the Tulsa World story here.
–Paul
Big open records victory from AG opinion
I’ll have more on this later, but Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson recently ruled that e-mail and texts regarding public business using the private phones or computers of officials are open records in Oklahoma.
Here’s the question asked in the ruling:
Are e-mails, text messages, and other electronic communications made in connection with the transaction of public business, the expenditure of public funds or the administration of public property, subject to the Oklahoma Open Records Act and the Records Management Act when they are created, received, transmitted, or maintained by public officials on privately owned equipment and communication devices?
Here’s the brief answer, before four more pages of background:
The answer is yes, unless some provision of law makes the information confidential. Electronic communications that qualify as “records” are subject to the Open Records Act and Records Management Act. Moreover, to conclude otherwise would allow public officials and employees to circumvent the open records laws simply by using privately owned personal electronic communication devices to conduct public business. (boldface mine)
Earlier this year, while his office was formulating the opinion, Edmondson made a good analogy about the question under review. He likened those texts and e-mails to documents in a briefcase. Essentially, if those paper documents in a privately owned briefcase were open records, then e-mails and texts about government business on privately owned computers and cell phones should be open records, too.
–Paul
State unveils new Web portal
Following on from a previous post, the state’s e-government contractor, NIC Inc., this week unveiled its new design for the state’s Web site, OK.gov.
Here’s a screenshot:
Personally, I think it’s a big improvement over the old design, which was starting to show its age.
From Gov. Henry’s press release announcing the makeover:
The site now features translation available in 8 languages and the ability to “Share” with eleven different social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. Another new feature is a dashboard on the right column of the homepage providing quick access to real-time content such as State Surplus Auction items in the “Shop OK.gov” panel and the status of state bills in the “Bill Tracker” panel.
Oklahomans are invited to visit OK.gov and provide feedback utilizing the online “Feedback” form located in the “Support” menu. The portal also offers Live Chat Help during normal Oklahoma government business hours, available through the Help Center located in the right content area.
As an open-government advocate, I especially like the e-Services page. It has links to some of the useful tracking databases used by various state agencies, as well as a kind of “one-stop shop” for professional licenses and permits.
I’m still making my way through all the changes, but let me know if you see something you like or don’t like about the new design and navigation.
–Paul
Obama inauguration speech word cloud
President Obama’s inauguration speech, as seen through the data visualization tool Many Eyes:
–Paul
Human errors account for most data breaches, report finds
For all the stock we put in computers these days, it’s user error that often gets us in the most trouble.
That’s the conclusion from the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center. It’s wrap-up of 2008 data breaches found that human errors — losing a laptop with sensitive data, sending a CD of data to the wrong address — accounted for most of the data breaches last year.
From its latest report:
Sadly, these trends continue to plague companies and government alike, despite education on safer information handling, new laws and regulations. Mal-attacks, hacking and insider theft, account for 29.6% of those breaches that reported the causal factor. Insider theft, now at 15.7%, has more than doubled between 2007 and 2008. On the other hand, data on the move and accidental exposure, both human error categories, showed noteworthy improvement, but still account for 35.2% of those breaches that indicate cause.
Here in Oklahoma, there are two laws on the books governing data breaches. The first, to do with government agencies, went into effect in 2006. The second, dealing with private businesses, was passed in the last Legislature and went into effect in November.
You can read the ITRC’s entire report here in PDF format. The list shows nine Oklahoma-related data breaches last year, including several businesses and government agencies.
Finally, a tip of the hat to the Washington Post, which has a story on the ITRC report here.
–Paul
