I received quite a gift today when I opened up this morning’s New York Times to see my son Eric Gundersen featured on the front page of the Business section!  While we had heard the story was coming, one is always unsure whether or not a feature story makes it into print, and if it does, is it a news piece that hits the right tone.

Without even notifying friends, colleagues, relatives, and computer techies we know, we have been receiving emails and phone calls about the New York Times story since it first hit online last night.  While the New York Times piece is specifically targeted to open government work Eric has done for the city of Washington, DC, the story is larger in its overall connection to the work his firm is doing nationally and internationally in open government, data mining, and geo-mapping.

And, while the photo features Eric and makes a mother proud, New York Times reporter Claire Cain Miller has done an excellent job capturing the issues confronting governments throughout the US.  Some cities and states are willingly letting information out, others do not want anyone to touch public records except the holders, and how to design software that gives access is where firms like Eric’s come into play.  See the complete story here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12…

Development Seed, the firm Eric founded almost five years ago has grown from a two person web design firm in his basement apartment to a 16 member firm with offices in Washington, DC.

According to Development Seed’s website, Eric is

“President and co-founder of Development Seed. Over the past six years, Eric has developed communications strategies and tools for some of the largest international development organizations operating around the world, in addition to working with national public health and education focused NGOs. Eric is especially interested in improving information flows and efficiency within large organizations, alongside their on the ground operations.”

The New York Times article said,  

The push to publicize government data goes as far back as the 1960s, but technology has made it possible for people to use the data in ways that would not have been possible even a year ago, said Eric Gundersen, president of Development Seed, the Washington company that created Stumble Safely. The company builds data and map applications for international development programs.

   “The timing now with the open data movement is really critical because there are a lot of open-source tools that really make that data usable,” Mr. Gundersen said. These include the mapping tool he used to build Stumble Safely and also a site for the United States Agency for International Development that maps public health clinics.

Green Mountain Daily has been a big advocate of Open Government.  I have written about and been an advocate for open government for decades.  Arnie and I testified in Washington, DC during the 1990s regarding the necessity of supporting whistleblowers who were opening government to public scrutiny and letting sunlight stream into dark places.  Last year, I attended almost every Burlington open government meeting and spoke many times.  And, most of my daily paralegal work for Fairewinds Associates, Inc revolves around making sure that energy companies and utilities who own nuclear power plants are honest with the public and ratepayers about the public health and safety risks as well as the true economic costs of nuclear power.

While the NY Times story about Eric features his local government work regarding StumbleSafely.com, one of the websites Development Seed built last year for the Apps for Democracy contest, they also do amazing work in geo-mapping on the international level.  See here: http://developmentseed.org/blo… for a column by Development Seed Cartographer AJ Ashton, who has done incredible geo-mapping in Afghanistan.  

Eric has traveled to Afghanistan twice this year.  Most recently, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government and chaired by former Ambassador Madeleine Albright, asked Eric to come to Afghanistan to talk about geo-mapping, data management, and communications.  As Development Seed states:  “We focus our work in a few key sectors so we can get the details right. Our core competencies are centered around large data projects and communications software for geographically disperse teams. These projects require rich visualizations available in any language, accessible via any device, and scalable for global use. Niching in these sectors has allowed us to attract a team of experts with unique skill sets who focus full time on solving these problems.”

As an strong advocate of open government, I think that work like this is critical to protecting the public’s right to know, democracy, and free speech.

But, there is another side to the coin, and one I have not yet figured out:  privacy.

My recent cataract surgery has slowed down my reading list, but as soon as my second surgery is over in 2 weeks, and I am back to my normal reading load, American Privacy by Burlington attorney, author, and legal scholar Frederick S. Lane is at the top of my list.  

According to Howard Zinn,

“Is there anything more fundamental to human freedom that the right to privacy, to be able to live your life as you wish without the scrutiny or the interference of bullying authority?  Frederick Lane’s book confronts us with this largely invisible threat, magnified by modern technology, and challenges us to defend our most basic rights.

So here’s my question to GMD readers: Where do we draw the line between open government initiatives like stumble safely, geo-mapping in DC and Afghanistan and cities and countries throughout the world and data mining for the public right to know versus privacy concerns?  When I read Lane’s American Privacy, I’ll let you know what I think about privacy as an open government advocate in the midst of all this new technology.  Are privacy and open government at odds or on the same path?  What’s your take?