.gov API

Barack Obama Directs All Federal Agencies to Have an API @ API Evangelist:

That is "Web API", "REST" based.

The thinking may be: if Amazon.com can move to web services by a decree of the CEO,
why not the whole government?

The direction is good in general, but "devil is in the details", as usual.
For one Amazon that is successful, there are many businesses that are not as much.