Code Revision Commission et al v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc.

Filing 29

MOTION for Summary Judgment with Brief In Support by Public.Resource.Org, Inc., Public.Resource.Org, Inc., Public.Resource.Org, Inc.. (Attachments: #1 Statement of Material Facts, #2 Brief Memorandum of Law In Support, #3 Exhibit Ex. A, #4 Exhibit Ex. B, #5 Exhibit Ex. C, #6 Exhibit Ex. D, #7 Exhibit Ex. E, #8 Exhibit Ex. F, #9 Exhibit Ex. G, #10 Exhibit Ex. H, #11 Exhibit Ex. I, #12 Exhibit Ex. J, #13 Exhibit Ex. K, #14 Exhibit Ex. L, #15 Exhibit Ex. M, #16 Exhibit Ex. N, #17 Exhibit Ex. O)(Parker, Sarah) --Please refer to http://www.gand.uscourts.gov to obtain the Notice to Respond to Summary Judgment Motion form contained on the Court's website.--

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EXHIBIT K

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
ATLANTA DIVISION

CODE REVISION COMMISSION
on Behalf of and For the Benefit of the
GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA,
and the STATE OF GEORGIA,
Plaintiff,
v.
PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC.,
Defendant.

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CIVIL ACTION
NO. 1:15-cv-2594-MHC

DECLARATION OF CLAY JOHNSON IN SUPPORT OF
PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746, I, Clay Johnson, hereby declare and state as
follows:
1.

My name is Clay Johnson. I have personal knowledge of the facts

stated in this declaration and know them to be true and correct. I could
competently testify to them if called as a witness.
2.

Since 2013, I have been the founder and CEO of the Department of

Better Technology, a small business based in Georgia which builds products

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to help government acquire technology faster and cheaper. Our customers
include government organizations throughout the country, such as the City
of Oakland, California, the Colorado Secretary of State, and the U.S. Agency
for International Development.
3.

In 2014, I was appointed a Senior Fellow at the Center for American

Progress, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution in Washington, D.C.,
where I work on Federal IT procurement policy reform.
4.

In 2012, I was appointed as a Presidential Innovation Fellow by the

White House. I was assigned to the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy and the Small Administration where I was the team
leader for the RFP-EZ program, which helps small technology companies
get easier access to the Federal Government's nearly $77 billion information
technology supply chain. Our program made it easier for small businesses to
bid on opportunities, and the resulting bids were shown to be 30% lower
than those through the traditional FedBizOps procurement process. Our
program allowed 270 small businesses that had never before participated in
federal contracting to take part.
5.

From 2008 to 2010, I was the founding Director of Sunlight Labs at

the Sunlight Foundation. Our team pioneered numerous open source

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solutions that are used throughout the country to analyze and interact with
government information sources. For my efforts, Google and O’Reilly
Media named me “Open Source Organizer of the Year” at the Open Source
Convention, the largest annual gathering of this type of developer.
6.

From 2003 to 2004, I was the Senior Web Programmer for the Dean

for America Campaign and from 2004 to 2008 I was the co-founder of Blue
State Digital, a firm that provided the technology that powered many
political campaigns, including the 2008 Obama for America effort.
7.

In 2014, I was appointed by the National Archives and Records

Administration to serve on the Freedom of Information Act Advisory
Committee.
8.

In my work, I have become very familiar with the creation and

operation of government Information Technology projects. I am an
experienced computer programmer and am familiar with the full range of
modern Internet and World Wide Web technologies.
9.

In this declaration, I wish to focus exclusively on a technical

evaluation of the web site that the Georgia General Assembly provides links
to. The Georgia General Assembly web site is at http://www.legis.ga.gov/enUS/default.aspx

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10.

By clicking on the link entitled “Georgia Code,” I am directed to a

web site operated by LexisNexis, where I must first agree to terms and
conditions. As a citizen of Georgia, I find the terms distasteful, particularly
the provision in which I agreed to jurisdiction in a New York court and the
provisions prohibiting my use of any of the data, including “public and nonprofit users.” The web site address is at: http://www.legis.ga.gov/en-US/
default.aspx
11.

When I first examined the site, on October 4-5, 2015, the site used the

secure HTTP protocol (HTTPS), which is the same mechanism used by
banks and major web sites as a way of assuring the user that they are
communicating with their intended destination and that their conversations
are secure. However, because the site had “mixed content,” which means
that some of the elements used on the page did not use the HTTPS , and this
generated a security error. Because of the security error, users of the Firefox
and Chrome browsers saw a blank screen and a security alert. While it is
possible for an advanced user to manually put in an exception to then view
the site, this is not something most users would know how to do. In addition,
users in a corporate or institutional setting (such as a government agency)
would not have sufficient privileges to do this.

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12.

When I examined the site again on October 14, it had dispensed with

the HTTPS protocol. This meant the site worked in the Firefox and Chrome
browsers, but a significant cost to integrity, security and user confidence.
When I went back again, the site had once again reverted to the HTTPS
protocol and was not usable for ordinary users. This lack of stability makes
it very hard for ordinary users to learn how to use the site. It also does not
inspire confidence.
13.

Once in the site, a user is able to search the table of contents of the

code or manually navigate through volumes. Both of these procedures are
very cumbersome. The site uses custom navigation elements that do not
adhere to standard, intuitive controls for navigating large documents.
14.

As an example, I tried to find the state code provisions naming the

brown thrasher as the official Georgia state bird. This provision is in OCGA
50-3-50. When I searched for “brown thrasher,” I received a message that no
documents were found. I went back and removed the default search of
“Table of Contents (TOC) only” and was able to find the section I needed.


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15.

Once a user is looking at the relevant section of the code, in this case

OCGA 50-3-50, there is no ability to bookmark the section and come
directly back to it. The site does offer a “Copy w/ Cite” function which
displays a pop-up window with the citation OCGA 50-3-50 and any text that
was highlighted. However, the hyperlink under that text directs the user to
the Lexis proprietary Total Research System which requires a fee and
subscription.
16.

Lack of proper navigation and permanent links are only two of the

technical issues I have found on the system. When I used an HTML
validator on the displayed text, I found a large number of HTML and CSS
errors on the site. This means that the site will not necessarily display
reliably on different kinds of computers and browsers. For example, the site
uses a character encoding called windows-1252, which is obsolete.
17.

The site makes extensive use of the Javascript scripting language,

which obfuscates the site, making it difficult to use from an accessibility
standpoint, such as people who are visually impaired. In addition, the code
they use has a large number of errors. For example, when I accessed the
OCGA 20-2-520 provision (“Acquiring and disposing of school sites”) in the
Chrome browser, 2 security errors and 29 JavaScript errors were generated.
Chrome is the most popular browser in the United States.

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18.

It is unclear to me what the vendor operating the site is doing with my

search terms and navigation history. The terms of use state that I have agreed
to allow the vendor to "invite me to participate in surveys, sweepstakes,
competitions, and similar promotions” and I have no idea if the vendor is
engaged in web tracking or markets my usage data to firms such as
advertising bureaus or credit agencies. While I have come to expect such
mechanisms from commercial sites, as a citizen of Georgia consulting my
laws, I am not comfortable with this arrangement.
19.

As an individual who was worked with government’s adoption of

information technology for much of my career, I am familiar with the costs
and obstacles in building effective Information Technology using typical
models of implementation. But, because communicating with citizens
effectively is hard is precisely why government needs to make core
information available in bulk so that others can help us out. Discouraging
citizens from building web sites that build on the Official Code of Georgia
Annotated is counter-productive and makes the job of government harder. In
addition, creating a website that allows for open, unrestricted access to the
law is not costly. It has been done in an effective way in many local, state,
and national governments.

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I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States that
the foregoing is true and correct.
19
Executed on February ____, 2016 in Chattahoochee Hills, GA,

/s/

CLAY JOHNSON