There's been a lot of (justified) mocking comparisons between Obama's call for greater government transparency during the campaign and his actions as president (continuing to use 'state secrets' and 'national security' to avoid releasing evidence in court cases, refusing to release the torture photos, keeping the White House visitor log a secret), but this looks like it could be a big deal.

Jay Ackroyd at Atrios says:

I spent the last two days at the Personal Democracy Forum. By far, the most important presentation came from the Obama administration's IT folks. They have created an engine for providing data feeds from Federal departments. It includes GAO and departmental data that drills down to the purchase order level. Adherence to budgets and schedules are part of the base system, as are both contractors AND the contact information for the official responsible for the project.

It's live, it's beta, it's "iterative." They say they launched with 47 data feeds. Now it is over 100,000.

Exciting! And hard to undo by a future administration.

And here's a summary. This could wind up being almost as important as the Freedom of Information Act.