Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

Tag
Transparency in Government Code

31 Mar 2023, 12:30 p.m.

Improve An Open Data Bill To Prevent Heart Attack Deaths in NYC

New Yorkers don't know where our nearest defibrillators are, so when people have heart attacks, we lose people we could save. A new NY City Council bill aims to open that data. We need your help to improve it and get it passed. Submit written testimony by 10am ET on Sunday, April 2nd.

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01 Jul 2021, 12:58 p.m.

Software Bill of Materials & the US Federal Government

In February, the United States's President Biden signed an executive order on the US's supply chains; he followed this up with an EO in May specifically concentrating on improving cybersecurity. To quote Tidelift's summary, "in …

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06 Feb 2020, 9:27 a.m.

My First Exascale Computing Project Annual Meeting

Some interesting things about attending the Exascale Computing Project Annual Meeting for the first time, and stuff I have learned here so far! [Edited 1:10pm CT to add: By the way, here is a contextual …

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17 Feb 2019, 10:53 a.m.

My Open Data Quest, Part ... 11?

On Tuesday night, I attended a committee meeting of the NYC council's Committee on Technology at City Hall (another view) and gave a bit of public comment (video -- my testimony is 02:05:03 till 2:09:11, …

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07 Feb 2019, 4:49 a.m.

My Recent-ish Government Transparency Efforts

I've put together a page of my past few years of Freedom of Information Law requests and the responses they've garnered. In particular, folks might be interested in the NYC Department of Health and Mental …

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19 Nov 2018, 19:23 p.m.

The Fascination Of Municipal Taxation Software

On January 30, 2018, I attended my local city councilmember's "State of the District" speech. If one of your local officials offers such a speech, I recommend going; it's a structured way to find out …

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16 Oct 2018, 11:22 a.m.

NYC Comptroller Town Hall, And Reflections on Constraint

Last night I suited up and went to a local town hall held by the office of New York City's Comptroller, Scott Stringer. (I am in the fuzzy foreground of the second photo.) After very …

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17 Dec 2017, 10:02 a.m.

Bill 1696 and Learning Old Systems

A very amended version of Councilmember Vacca's algorithmic transparency bill has now passed the City Council and is headed for the Mayor's desk to sign.* This follows the October 16th hearing (which was moved to …

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18 Sep 2017, 13:35 p.m.

Supporting Int 1696-2017 for Source Code Transparency in New York City

The principle at stake in California v. Johnson: due process requires that we be able to examine the evidence used to convict someone. Kern County got a $200,000+ grant and started using closed-source software to …

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13 Jun 2017, 10:41 a.m.

Transparency And Accountability In Government Forensic Science

In February, I learned that the New York State Assembly was planning a public hearing on government oversight of forensic science laboratories, and then was invited to offer ten minutes of testimony and then answer …

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