Proposed Legislation: The Smart Nation Act
Institutionalizing Open Source Information Exploitation
and Multinational Information Sharing Beneficial to All
+ Within the Department of State, expands the capabilities of the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy by providing the incumbent with oversight authority of the Open Source Agency (OSA) and the Office of Information Sharing Treaties and Agreements.
+ Supports the roles of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA) as executive level partners of the Open Source Agency, with priority on decision-support and F/OSS from the OSA in support of all federal needs of common concern.
+ Expands and enhances the role of the Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the Small Business Administration, and other elements of the federal, state, and local governments developing initiatives for Open Government.
+ Expands and enhances the role of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the General Accountability Office (GAO) with direct access to all available information, advanced analytic processing tools, and sufficient personnel to provide each jurisdiction of Congress with unclassified decision-support that can be shared with constituents and the media.
+ Creates an Open Source Agency (OSA), redirecting the necessary funds on a non-reimbursable basis from Program 50 to Program 150, as a sister-agency to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), with the same arms-length independence that Congress wisely mandated to assure journalist independence, but in this case, to assure the integrity of public intelligence in the public interest across Whole of Government and in all exchanges with foreign and non-governmental entities. The small Headquarters will be constructed on the South-Central Campus, adjacent to both the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), which could serve as a partner in global information peacekeeping, and to George Washington University as well as the John F. Kennedy Center conference and parking facilities.
+ All information obtained by open means will be a public good and a copy also provided as acquired to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who shall make no claim on the disposition of original open sources and methods. The OSA will be the national proponent for Open Source Information (OSIF), Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS), Open Data Access (ODA), and such other “opens” as are deemed helpful to creating a Smart Nation with an emphasis on Whole of Government decision-support.
+ Creates an Office of Information Sharing Treaties and Agreements, to negotiate no-cost information sharing treaties with Nations, and no-cost information sharing agreements with non-governmental and private sector organizations including universities world-wide, while also adopting F/OSS and ODA and related standards facilitating both sharing and semantic web sense-making across all languages (33 initially, 183 at full operating capability). The OSA and all related elements shall be integrated into a new global information-sharing and sense-making treaty as the sustainable contribution of the United States of America (USA) to the community of nations and to modern hybrid governance.
+ Authorizes the creation of a Multinational Decision-Support Centre (MDSC) and related global information-sharing and sense-making network, using non-reimbursable DoD funds transferred to the oversight of the OSA. The MDSC may be managed with Civil Affairs participation, focused on Stabilization & Reconstruction as well as Public Diplomacy and Humanitarian Assistance needs.
+ Broadens the mandate of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) with non-reimbursable funding from the OSA to create an Internet dissemination capability that offers free universal access to all unclassified information acquired by the OSA, with a robust man-machine translation capability that offers free online education in at least 33 major languages as an important new foundation for public diplomacy and information peacekeeping—educating the three billion poorest one cell call at a time (OpenBTS) with OSA and multinational distributed call centers, is recognized as the means for creating global stabilizing wealth and a world at peace.
