President Obama’s Executive Order–Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information

On May 9, President Obama issued an executive order designed to make “open and machine readable” the default state of government information. A crucial raw material of democracy, i.e. government information, will be free and open to anyone.  Entrepreneurs will organize it in novel and useful ways and resell it with added value.  Non-profits and activists will look for ways to use it to help empower and liberate ordinary citizens. Law librarians ought to be in the vanguard of these efforts. The Executive Order is available here.