155 14.2 Public-Sector Institutions’ Data
Public sector institutional sources gather, generate and use data for a wide number of purposes. Government agencies collect data about the economic health of the nation or the community; the production of goods and services; the health of the food supply. As we learned from recent news reports, one particular U.S. federal government agency has been (mostly illegally) collecting data on billions of phone calls, texts and email messages coming in and going out of the country.
Government agencies at all levels collect data about individuals, organizations, and activities in order to allocate funds, administer justice and legislate/regulate. One of the key “information functions” of the U.S. federal government is to collect and produce statistics about the population (the decennial Census of Population), business, labor, trade, agriculture, education, crime, defense and myriad other topics.
State governments generate data about the same sorts of topics as they relate to a particular state’s interests. For instance, a state that depends on growing corn for much of its economic prosperity will collect and generate different types of data than one that depends on mining iron ore or coal. These data will be collected and generated for economic purposes, for the purpose of regulation/legislation, and for a variety of other purposes that meet the state’s need for information. These data are also generally accessible to the public, including communicators, because they are generated at public expense.
Local governments at the city and county level also collect and generate data. Again, much of this material is necessary for the smooth functioning of the government agencies themselves, but the data are also available to the public.
Let’s look at some of the specific types of data you can find.
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Local and municipal governments
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may subject institutions to inspections by the county food-service inspection agency or related public safety watchdogs
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issue contracts for service from for-profit vendors; if the company you are profiling does business with the local government, the terms of that work are available
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rent city facilities to for-profit or non-profit institutions; is the institution you are profiling paying its bills in a timely way?
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issue warrants for arrest and keep track of calls for service; if the institution or individual you are profiling has had run-ins with the law, you can request those records
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This is just a sampling of the types of records you might want to search at the local or municipal level. In almost all instances, these government entities now have websites where individuals (not just communicators) can request public records and conduct searches.
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State governments
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require for-profit and non-profit institutions to file articles of incorporation which provide extensive background about the finances and top managers of the organization. Such records are searchable through the Secret