This is an improvement, but ultimately we will not have an open government until the following conditions are met:

1. Openness must be the default, assumed state. When our founding fathers addressed the problem of unfair imprisonment, they didn't do so by giving people tools to prove their innocence. Instead, they started from the assumption of innocence, putting the burden of proving guilt on the prosecution. An open government will not be achieved by giving people tools to open the government. Instead we should start from the assumption of openness, publishing everything by default, and place the burden of proving a need for secrecy on members of our government. One example of why this is necessary is that we don't even know what to request; FOIA powers are only useful for opening up known unknowns.

2. Openness must be checked and balanced. Who watches the watchmen? Right now, no one. The honor system doesn't work here: members of government often have strong incentives to hide information from the public, and these are often the instances where openness is most important. Yet members of government can deny FOIA requests for all sorts of reasons, and requesters have little recourse. Without an impartial third party to assess whether secrecy is needed, members of government can simply claim anything needs secrecy, and there is no one to investigate whether this is actually true. One example of why this is necessary is the content of the Snowden leaks: the NSA, operating in secrecy with no oversight, has denied requests for information which we now know only because Snowden blew the whistle.

3. Openness must be a technical requirement. In order for openness to be the default, we need to change the way the government stores and distributes information. Software projects recognize this need for their projects, which is why systems like Git store every action. The technical requirements as I see them are: a) Accessibility Often members of government obstruct FOIA requests by distributing large amounts of data in unusable formats such as PDF. Distribution in a format which can be searched and analyzed is a necessity. b) Reliability There have been a few high-profile cases recently where data has been "lost" in hard drive crashes, accidental deletions, etc. We have no way of knowing whether these data losses were the result of actual technical problems or foul play. Data should be stored and backed up sufficiently that technical failure can't be used as plausible deniability for foul play. c) Distribution A recent FOIA request for Clinton Foundation emails has recently been delayed by 27 months. Whether this is stonewalling or technological failure is unknown but the effect is the same. If we started from the assumption of openness, the emails should easy to retrieve, and in fact should be published to an RSS feed or similar on a tight deadline. These technologies already exist; we should be applying them to government.

4. Openness must be incentivized. Currently, all the incentives are for members of government to obstruct openness. Wrongdoers obviously have incentives to hide their wrongdoing, but the problem goes deeper. Whistleblowers are ostracized when they aren't outright jailed. And there are no incentives that counteract these. Members of government delay requests, deny requests without justification, provide data in unusable formats, cover up wrongdoing, or even in some cases outright counterattack the person asking for information, and these members of government are never punished with more than slap on the wrist. In fact, they are often rewarded. We need to provide strong incentives for openness. Whistleblowers should have strong protections. Data should be released on a tight deadline and in a usable format with fines and firings for failure--even if there are technical reasons, because people unable to meet the openness requirements of their jobs should not hold those jobs. People who cover up wrongdoing in government should be prosecuted along with the wrongdoers (by an impartial third party, since checks and balances are needed). Any set of laws intended to promote openness will be ineffective if it doesn't have teeth.