National

Department of Justice Launches New Digital Services


Washington, DC—(ENEWSPF)—December 9, 2014. Today the U.S. Department of Justice is announcing the launch of two new digital services for the American people: the DOJ News API and the DOJ Law Jobs API.  These web APIs (application programming interfaces) provide web developers the ability to build mobile apps and other software applications that can search, sort, and filter thousands of press releases, speeches, blog posts, and law job vacancy announcements published by the Department.  Consistent with the President’s technology vision described in the Digital Government Strategy and Open Data Policy, this launch transforms collections of website documents into a transparent, interactive dataset.

Today’s API launch is made possible by an effort led by the Office of the Chief Information Officer to replace the aging technology infrastructure of Justice.gov with a cloud-based, open source website management platform that will be used by hundreds of Department of Justice component offices across the country.  This website upgrade adds search, sort, and filter capabilities to thousands of Supreme Court briefs, legal opinions, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) court decisions, Congressional testimony, and more.  To get started using the APIs or to learn more about developer resources from the Department, see www.justice.gov/developer

“The APIs are part of an effort to replace aging technology with a cloud-based, open source platform,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Information Resources Management/Chief Information Officer Joseph F. Klimavicz.  “Website content that has been migrated to the new platform automatically adjusts to fit any device, including mobile devices and tablets, as well as desktops, making the Department’s information assets more accessible than ever before.  The open source platform also enables the Department to refresh content rapidly, providing better access to information to the American public.

In developing the website management platform and APIs, the Department followed guidance from the U.S. Digital Service and collaborated with the 18F program at the General Service Administration.

“It’s wonderful to see the Justice Department building out their suite of APIs,” said GSA Senior API Strategist Gray Brooks.  “There’s fantastic potential in government APIs, for the public as well as for agency operations.  Simply put, this is the future of digital government and the efforts that go into justice.gov/developer will result in a more efficient and productive operation.”

Additional details about digital strategy and open government at the U.S. Department of Justice are available at www.justice.gov/digitalstrategy and www.justice.gov/open

Source: justice.gov


ARCHIVES