US policy requires that research funded by federal agencies be made freely available to the public, and the requirement has been extended and tightened over successive administrations. The reasoning is stated plainly: the public paid for it, so the public may read it.
government
The service path
The service path. The German term for the prescribed sequence through which a matter travels upward. Going around it — am Dienstweg vorbei — is itself a breach, separate from whatever the underlying complaint was.
The household stockpile
Vorratshaltung. The German Federal Office of Civil Protection publishes a recommendation that households keep supplies of food and water for a period of days, with a checklist of what and how much. The state issues a stockpiling guide to ordinary citizens as standing advice, not in response to any particular threat.
PACER
Filings in US federal courts are accessible to the public through an online system. Complaints, motions, exhibits, orders. Litigation between two private parties produces a public record by default, and sealing any part of it requires an application and a judge’s agreement.
The pilot program
American organizations run a small version first, in one region, one store, one department — and write the procedure afterwards from what happened. The rollout follows the pilot. The rule follows the rollout.
Energy Star
The American efficiency label, launched by the EPA in 1992, is voluntary and works by identifying the best performers rather than by setting a floor. The approach is to reward the efficient product rather than to prohibit the inefficient one.
Collective bargaining by sequence
Tarifverhandlungen. German collective bargaining runs through a defined sequence — rounds, a declared failure, then Schlichtung, arbitration by an agreed neutral, before any industrial action. The procedure is designed to keep a dispute that is genuinely felt inside a form that is not.
The right to disconnect
Several European countries and some American states and cities have debated legislation limiting after-hours contact. In the United States the measures have been introduced in a handful of jurisdictions and have mostly not passed. The idea is live in American discussion and largely absent from American law.
C-SPAN
The proceedings of both chambers of Congress are televised gavel to gavel, unedited, without commentary, and have been since 1979 in the House and 1986 in the Senate. Committee hearings, floor debate, procedural votes. The legislature is broadcast as it happens, including the parts nobody would choose to show.
The works council
Der Betriebsrat. A German works council must be heard before any dismissal, and the employer must give it the reasons. A dismissal issued without that consultation is void. Not contestable — void.