This spring the US Congress proposed devastating cuts to the e-Government Fund, an essential source of support for data.gov, usaspending.gov and a variety of other vital resources in the US Gov 2.0/Open Data space. Sunlight was at the front lines of the ght to stop those cuts. In the process we learned important lessons about how the crisis arose, how it could be stopped, and what it means for the future of our movement. This presentation will attempt to prepare open data activists to face these challenges in other governmental contexts.
About the Author Tom Lee is the Director of Sunlight Labs at the Sunlight Foundation. Prior to assuming leadership of the labs, he managed Sunlight's Subsidyscope project, an e ort to explore the level of federal involvement in various sectors of the economy, which ultimately uncovered federal spending data quality problems serious enough to attract congressional attention. Outside of his work at Sunlight, his particular interests include transit data, ambient displays and technical policy.