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[DPLA West, 4/27/2012]
[Carl Malamud, Public.Resource.Org]

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Thank you very much Paul.
Mark, congratulations for doing that GPO work.

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That is actually ... there's been ... I would
not say opposition from the Government Printing

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Office, but certainly stonewalling.
And so the fact that CIC has gone forward

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with that is I think a real testimony to what
they're doing.

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There has arisen a bright line between government
and the rest of our country. A line, or maybe

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a ditch, a moat, even an ocean, it is a feeling
that government is only relevant to those

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inside the beltway.
The feeling is that government is only relevant

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to lobbyists from large entrenched interests
with offices on K Street, only relevant to

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a government bureaucracy that is somehow not
a part of our country or in touch with the

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rest of us.
That rhetoric is wrong.

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There is also a bright line that has arisen
between the capabilities of our government

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and those of the private sector, a bright
line that has led to a reliance on private

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contractors to do the real work of government,
to an outsourcing of democracy, to some spectacularly

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bad deals.
Take the Government Accountability Office,

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which maintains the legislative history of
every law. They packed those 50 million pages

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of paper up and sent them, at government expense,
to the Thomson Corporation, which digitized

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them and turned them into a product. Thomson
sent those valuable papers back to the government.

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And, what did the government get in return?
A couple logins for a couple of staffers,

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but even members of Congress must now pay
to access this Thomson product.

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This is based on a perception that government
can only spend money, and it must rely on

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profiteers to do the real work of government.
That rhetoric is also wrong.

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The question before us today is whether government
is relevant to a Digital Public Library of

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America, whether the works of government are
relevant to Americans, whether we can jump

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that wall, whether we should jump the wall.
Take the regulations promulgated by our executive

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branch, the edicts of government. The Code
of Federal Regulations is 170,000 pages of

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dense text. The regulations of our 50 states
are another million pages.

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These are rules relevant to every person.
These are the OSHA safety regulations that

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every business owner and factory worker must
obey. These are the hazmat transport and storage

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regulations, the product safety regulations
for hearing aids and baby strollers and propane

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tanks and elevators.
Are these edicts of government available to

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citizens to inform themselves? Are they available
for publishers that wish to make them more

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readable? Are they available for businesses
that must obey them? Are they available to

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students that wish to learn?
At the state level, Stanford University and

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the American Association of Law Libraries
did a National Inventory of Legal Materials.

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They found that the regulations of the 50
states are a paragon of unusability, an abomination

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of bad HTML and atrocious graphics. They found
that 26 states assert copyright and prohibit

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reuse of their regulations.
At the federal level, the Federal Register,

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the official newspaper of government, is only
available going back a few years (although

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kudos are due to Mr. Ferriero for the amazing
transformation he has made in that publication

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since he took office).
The Code of Federal Regulations, the codification

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of our rules, is only available in very bad
unformatted text or even worse SGML, a technology

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that became old in the 1970s.
There is an XML version of the CFR that was

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created by Cornell with considerable cooperation
from the Government Printing Office, but those

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parties agreed that the XML would not be made
available so that Cornell could “monetize

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their investment,” making money on this
valuable part of the public domain. The theory

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is government has no choice, because why would
anybody want to make government better unless

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they can make a profit?
This rhetoric is also wrong! It hurts democracy.

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Government should not condone this. The American
people should not stand for it.

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There is one more consideration. The CFR is
170,000 pages, but that is only the visible

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part. There are many tens of thousands of
pages that are incorporated by reference,

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made part of the official law of the land
but only available by paying money to private

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parties.
We are not talking trivial amounts of money.

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A mandatory safety standard from Underwriters
Laboratories costs $850. A 4-page document

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about how one must test for lead paint costs
$64. The IEEE dictionary of electronic terms

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costs $500, and that vocabulary forms the
basis for many procurement actions.

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Much of the CFR is hidden behind a cash register,
a poll tax on access to justice.

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You can’t read our Fuel and Gas Code, the
Life Safety Fire Code, the Fireworks Safety

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Standards, or the Water Hygiene Guidelines
without an American Express card.

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I brought some examples. Here is the mandated
standard for Disinfecting Water Mains, for

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$72.
The Safety Requirements for Window Cleaning,

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for $60. The Safety Requirements for Wheeled
Child Conveyances at $217. The American National

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Standard for Power Operated Pedestrian Doors
costs $40. The Performance Requirements for

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Hot Water Dispensers is $45 as are the Performance
Requirements for Pressurized Flushing Devices,

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known as Flushometers. The critical hazmat
standard for the Welding of Pipelines and

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Related Facilities 

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is $125, and 
the standard for the Disinfection of Wells
is $72. The Standard for Construction and

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Approval for Transportation of Fireworks,
Novelties, and Theatrical Pyrotechnics is

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$60 if you want a safe Independence Day.
These regulations are one small part of the

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information in our government storehouses.
Geneology, the law, the economy, science,

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the arts, all this information is relevant
to people in their day-to-day lives. This

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is useful information. This is information
vital to education. Just imagine if law students

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could see video of Laurence Tribe arguing
before the Supreme Court? If engineering students

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could read the technical safety standards
and make them better?

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Government information is useful to people,
but the reverse is true. People, and institutions

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like a Digital Public Library of America,
can help government make information available,

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to avoid bad partnerships, to find problems
like privacy violations in documents. People

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can make government better because we are
the government, and an informed citizenry

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is not just a desirable attribute of a democracy,
but a prerequisite.

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John Adams made that point so eloquently when
he said that if we believe that “truth,

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liberty, justice, and benevolence are the
everlasting basis of law and government,”

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then we must arm our citizens with knowledge.
This right to bear knowledge is far more important

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than the Second Amendment, government information
shouldn’t be a conceal-carry privilege for

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the rich, the knowledge lobby should be far
more powerful than the gun lobby.

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John Adams said we must “let the public
disputations become researches into the grounds

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and nature and ends of government,” we must
“spread far and wide the ideas and the sensations

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of freedom.” He said that “we must let
every sluice of knowledge be opened and set

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a-flowing.”
That is our job as citizens, that is our government’s

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job, that is our society’s responsibility
as a democracy. That is the opportunity we

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must face as we build a Digital Public Library
of America.