But I do know that this government employee was out of line. By law, the government is not allowed to copyright information. Although the official was wrong to berate me, I am sure that he had good intentions. His hard work had gone into creating the agency home page, and he did not want to see it mirrored. Although we used the information to illustrate a policy issue, that need not be the case.
Individuals can even legally take government information offline and sell it.
This message must especially be impressed on agency contractors who may not share the average government employee s sense of public service. The goal of e-government is to enhance democracy through citizen involvement in government based on widespread dissemination of information. The Web has enabled agencies to make an unprecedented amount of data available for free. It is ever more important to take pride in the fact that information on a government Web site belongs to the public. The FCW.COM privacy policy , our link disclaimer and information about linking to us and online permissions .