Stimulus watchdog site cuts red tape for data

The board overseeing economic stimulus spending received a waiver from the 1995 Paperwork Reduction Act that allows it to collect recipient information online without giving the public notice. OMB officials on Wednesday said that the board obtained an emergency clearance to collect information for the next six months because of the quick time frame involved in oversite. Afterward, the board must follow up with a formal request to collect information that includes a 60-day public comment period.

The article on the exemption, reported by nextgov.com, outlined the unusual step the board is taking in turning to the Internet for help in jump-starting the economy and collecting information that will eventually be made public.

In an interview, Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, Devaney said the information being collected now eventually will be available on the public Recovery.gov site. That information will include the amount of money recipients received and spent, as well as the number of jobs created.

Public policy organizations had no objections to the move, but said the public should have been told it was happening more quickly.

"I think it's appropriate for the government to explore the use of new technologies to facilitate data collection," Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told nextgov.com. "At the same time, the transparency and public notice requirements of federal law need to be respected."

For more on this data waiver:
- check out this nextgov.com article