3.0.0 621 2023-01-11T13:36:16Z 2023-01-11T13:36:16Z Senate S 2017-03-14 115 ssga00 Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Senate Standing Referred to 2017-03-14T19:39:59Z 2017-03-14 ssga00 Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Senate Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. IntroReferral 2017-03-14 Introduced in Senate IntroReferral 10000 9 Library of Congress T000464 Sen. Tester, Jon [D-MT] Jon Tester D MT N Government Operations and Politics Administrative law and regulatory procedures Advisory bodies Civil actions and liability Freedom of information Government information and archives Internet and video services Internet, web applications, social media Legal fees and court costs Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Government Operations and Politics 00 2017-03-14 Introduced in Senate 2017-03-23T21:46:21Z Public Online Information Act of 2017

This bill establishes a Public Online Information Advisory Committee to: (1) coordinate the government's efforts to make information from all three branches of government available on the Internet, and (2) issue nonbinding guidelines on how the government should make public information available.

The government must make public records available on the Internet at no charge, except as imposed by federal law before this bill's enactment. The bill requires: (1) public records to be permanently available on the Internet; (2) current information technology to be applied to the formats and means through which records are made available; and (3) each agency to publish on the Internet a searchable, machine-processable list of all records it makes publicly available.

The bill delineates the roles of the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Electronic Government, and the chief information officers of independent regulatory agencies. It allows exceptions to the Internet publication requirement, including a process for an agency's request for an exception to be granted if: (1) there is a clear and convincing reason for the record to not be made available on the Internet, and (2) the harm caused by disclosure significantly outweighs the public's interest in having the record available on the Internet.

Inspectors general must periodically review agency compliance. Private individuals or organizations may file a complaint in federal court if an agency denies a request to place public records on the Internet.

The bill expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) judicial and legislative agencies adopt or adapt the advisory committee's recommendations, and (2) the Government Publishing Office make all of its publications permanently available on the Internet in a multiplicity of formats.

]]> Public Online Information Act of 2017 Display Title Public Online Information Act of 2017 Official Title as Introduced A bill to establish an advisory committee to issue nonbinding governmentwide guidelines on making public information available on the Internet, to require publicly available Government information held by the executive branch to be made available on the Internet, to express the sense of Congress that publicly available information held by the legislative and judicial branches should be available on the Internet, and for other purposes. Introduced in Senate IS Short Titles as Introduced Public Online Information Act of 2017 Introduced in Senate 2017-03-14T04:00:00Z https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-115s621is/xml/BILLS-115s621is.xml 2017-03-14 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress This file contains bill summaries and statuses for federal legislation. A bill summary describes the most significant provisions of a piece of legislation and details the effects the legislative text may have on current law and federal programs. Bill summaries are authored by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress. As stated in Public Law 91-510 (2 USC 166 (d)(6)), one of the duties of CRS is "to prepare summaries and digests of bills and resolutions of a public general nature introduced in the Senate or House of Representatives". For more information, refer to the User Guide that accompanies this file.