The Open Government Act

This may be the first time in seven years that I've been more or less happy with the direction of American democracy two whole days in a row: Congress has passed a major revision of the Freedom of Information Act, including:

Easier recovery of attorney’s fees when requesters are forced to file suit to get records;

The creation of a national FOIA ombudsman to mediate disputes between information requesters and government agencies;

A tracking system for individual information requests, and;

Penalties for agencies that fail to follow FOIA deadlines.

Also via MeFi. Like yesterday's energy bill, this isn't nearly perfect, but how refreshing to actually take the occasional step in the right direction...