What is transparency?

When something is transparent, according to m-w.com, it is "free from pretense or deceit ...
easily detected or seen through ... readily understood ... [or] characterized by visibility or
accessibility of information especially concerning business practices."

Applied to government, this means citizens should be able to see how their tax money is used by
elected representatives and bureaucrats are doing with the tax money they take from citizens. In
the past few years there has been a change in what citizens find acceptable in the way of
government transparency. In the age of the Internet and digital technology, citizens are
demanding their state, local and national governments provide access to the basic information
they must have in order to make decisions as responsible citizens.

Some states and localities nationwide have embraced the transparency movement and have taken
advantage of communication technologies unavailable 10 or 20 years ago. Others, though,
including many in North Carolina, have been slow to adapt to these new citizen demands.

NCTransparency.com promotes transparency in North

Carolina government
NCTransparency.com, a Web site produced by the John Locke Foundation, is an effort to
promote transparency in North Carolina. It connects citizens to important information available
online. You can search for a specific government entity or browse through listings organized by
county, school system, municipality, or individual state agency.

Each entity's page shows you:

Links to resources an entity has online

A list of resources we think are important that the entity does not make available

An overall grade based on how many resources they make available

How can my entity's grade be improved?

City, county, state and school officials can improve the grades of their governmental entities by
adding the resources that are currently shown as unavailable online. Likewise, any citizen who
notices that we have left out resources that are available online is invited to contact us as well.
We will add the new resource to our database and scores will update automatically.

Just send the link and a brief description to us via our contact page.

You can also read a more detailed explanation of how our grading works.

Apa transparansi?
Ketika sesuatu yang transparan, menurut mw.com, itu adalah "bebas dari kepura-
puraan atau kebohongan ... mudah dideteksi atau dilihat melalui ... mudah
dimengerti ... [atau] ditandai dengan visibilitas atau aksesibilitas informasi
khususnya mengenai praktek bisnis. "

Diterapkan pada pemerintah, ini berarti warga harus dapat melihat bagaimana
uang pajak mereka digunakan oleh wakil terpilih dan birokrat lakukan dengan uang
pajak yang mereka ambil dari warga. Dalam beberapa tahun terakhir telah terjadi
perubahan dalam apa warga menemukan diterima di jalan transparansi pemerintah.
Dalam usia internet dan teknologi digital, warga menuntut negara mereka,
pemerintah lokal dan nasional menyediakan akses ke informasi dasar yang mereka
harus miliki untuk membuat keputusan sebagai warga negara yang bertanggung
jawab.

Beberapa negara dan daerah di seluruh Indonesia telah memeluk gerakan

transparansi dan telah mengambil keuntungan dari teknologi komunikasi tersedia
10 atau 20 tahun yang lalu. Lainnya, meskipun, termasuk banyak di North Carolina,
telah lambat untuk beradaptasi dengan tuntutan warga baru.