Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) has introduced a bill that aims to put all government documents online—or at least the public ones, anyway. As part of the "Public Online Information Act," the documents would be submitted to a free, searchable database, and an advisory committee would be established in order to oversee the process.

The text of the bill acknowledges that the federal government has made past efforts to make documents available to the public, but that government information remains "too often hard to find, difficult to understand, expensive to obtain in useful formats, and available in only a few locations." What it boils down to is this: finding government documents is often a huge pain in the butt.

Sen. Tester wants all nonclassified documents to be posted within three years of the bill's passage, including government contracts and information on suppliers.

Much of the bill's focus is on the advisory committee, which would coordinate efforts to post documents between all three branches of government. The committee would consist of 19 members and would issue nonbinding guidelines on how to carry out the project. Members would review various agencies' participation every four years and adjust their recommendations as needed.

As noted by NextGov, not everyone is on board with Tester's lofty goals. An organization that represents government contractors, the Professional Services Council, believes the bill's language involving contracts is overly broad, and says that it "could well lead to the public exposure of a wide range of proprietary, company sensitive, employee and/or security sensitive information."

Another group called OMB Watch added that it's unclear whether the provision would require the posting of all contractor documents, and if not, where the line would be drawn. "Is budget information about the contractor a federal record? What if the contractor is 100 percent funded by federal funds? How about if only 10 percent? And does the contractor get to appeal—with clear and convincing evidence—for an exemption?"

Tester's bill is a companion to similar legislation introduced in the House by Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) earlier this year. Also called the Public Online Information Act (H.R. 4858), that bill does not require the government to post information on contracts—a key difference. It looks like the contract issue will remain a sticking point for the time being, but Tester believes that whatever information contractors have, it should be posted online.

"Montanans sent me to the Senate partly to help clean up Washington, and I’m doing just that," the Montana senator said in a statement. "Now it’s time to raise the bar and set new standards for public access, and make sure transparency is keeping up with online technology."

Listing image by Flickr user jepoirrier