Data.gov - 10 Hot Sites for Government Transparency

There are no longer any reasons to complain about the lack of access to government data. The new government site, Data.gov, will give you every dataset you have ever dreamed about. Information is searchable by category, agency, keyword, or data format. All of it is online.

Data.gov was developed by the Federal CIO Council as an interagency federal initiative and is hosted by the General Services Administration. It's updated frequently, and it is another example of the transparent government that President Obama promised to bring to the nation.

The datasets and site enhancements are still being built, but it has already launched with 47 datasets, a tiny fraction of what's available from the government's information banks.

The purpose of this site is to give the public greater access to data generated by the executive branch of the federal government. It's a citizen-friendly platform. So much so that it's asking the public for their suggestions about what datasets they would like to see.