When President Obama took office in January, he brought with him the promise of transparency. Translated in the digital age, this means the ability for citizens to gain easy access to federal information online, and to communicate with their nation's leaders in ways unprecedented.
The president and his tech-savvy minions have caught some flak for not quite upholding that promise. But the problems the government faces when trying to effectively use the Web are daunting and go far past simply getting the guy in office who might be interested in leveraging the technology.
Speaking at the recent Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Andrew McLaughlin, head of global public policy and government affairs at Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), detailed some of these problems. McLaughlin spent three months in Washington as a member of the Obama/Biden transition team and described his experience as "the story of a Bay Area nerd who goes to Washington and encounters some rather surprising obstacles."
Terms of Service: Unlike the rest of us, the government actually reads the TOS agreements on the various consumer sites of the Web-o-sphere. In fact, not reading these "line by line" (unlike those spending bills in Congress) could result in some real trouble. For example, McLaughlin pointed out that the feds can't agree to indemnity clauses that most sites have in their terms saying that the user is liable for damages. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) ran into trouble here when trying to use Second Life for rehabilitation purposes, because Linden Lab assigns "unlimited liability" to the end user.
Apart from indemnity clauses, TOSs often publish legal jurisdiction which says that the contract will be governed by a particular state's laws. "The federal government is not subject to state law. It's only subject to federal law," says McLaughlin. "For these reasons even just signing up for free online service is harder than you might think."
Federal Law: That whole United States Code thing can tend to get in the way for our elected officials trying to get hip with the Web 2.0 squares. McLaughlin pointed to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which states that the disabled must have access to and use of federal information comparable to that available to the non-disabled. In that sense, asks McLaughlin, "Can the government sign a contract with a Web service that is not Section 508-compliant?"
Management Statutes: While the idea of making all records electronic seems like an easy solution to various problems, for the federal government it's painstaking. McLaughlin pointed to the Presidential Records Act which requires all documentary records and materials to be kept. "This requires that everything be kept in paper," he says. "No lie -- government Web masters have to sit and print snapshots of their Websites on a regular basis. Do a blog post, gotta print it. It becomes a real headache when you have a Website that takes comments."
Endorsements: There's an understanding that the president is not to endorse any commercial services. Therefore, when the president embeds a YouTube video on his site, is he endorsing YouTube? This seems silly when considering YouTube as a media outlet, like, say The New York Times. But the White House Counsel takes this issue seriously.
Apart from overcoming these obstacles by revising federal laws and regulations -- no mean feat -- in order to achieve any real change, says McLaughlin, it all comes down to culture.
"I thought we could wipe away this stuff on Day 1 with an executive order or two. That's not the case. The way we're going to get a better government is to change the culture, and that's hard to do. It's a laborious process."
It's humorous that you state "While am not saying there is something wrong with being older" and then go on the tell us why being older is bad. So let me tell what is wrong with being younger in relation to understanding technology. I in 51 and have beein in IT since 1983. I was around when TCP/IP was first developed, help build the infrastucture of the internet as a member of the IT world and now you think because you know how to use your mouse to twitter your buddies that you have an appreciation and understanding of the complexities both technical and legal of this issue.
Yes, I realize there are Congressmen that don't understand the implications of Web 2.0 or even 1.0 in regards to government. But this ignorance is not generational.
Many people think that the next digital age will be web3.0 !! But no it won't be :-) , i'll tell you what would be the name of the next digital age !! they said it will be web 3.0 because it's actually web 2.0 that's not how things working on .
I'll reveal it on my digital book to be released very soon .
It's fear, and the fact that the majority of the decision makers for these types of things in Washington are people who barely understand the technology.
If you look at the Senate, 90% of the Senate of the US is over the age of 50, and 50% of those people are past the traditional "age of retirement" in the US at 65.
While am not saying there is something wrong with being older, there are certain traits that are very common in the older members of our society here in the United States. Fear of technology, ignorance of technology, habits engrained in their everyday lives, and an attitude of tradition.
There is a vast difference between saving a hand written letter versus something like a comment on a message board or the content of a website, but the older generations still think like they did even just 30 years ago where they had to have the physical copy in front of them for everything.
I also think they fear technology because they think that documents will be changed or altered instead of keeping a historical record of the "truth".
"If you can't touch it, it's not real"
Tapes, CDs, floppies, HDD, flash or any other number of storage device technologies are the papyrus of today's society.
Hi Nicole...you are right, one more step forward for 508 compliance. As you would expect, we are getting more traction now that a software solution actually exists. For those interested we are doing a 508 seminar April 21st at 2. All details on our website....www.feedroom.com/page/events
It's pretty obvious at this point that virtually every records retention mandate out there needs to be brought up to speed with today's society and technology...
The Paper Industry lobbyists won't be happy, but isn't it time that all of this information both electronic and otherwise be stored in a electronic medium??
I think the "culture" of the public at large was ready for this shift for some time, but it's the "political culture" with it's "CYA Mentality" that wants to harbor this insanity...
Whether or not the new Admin can overcome this obstacle remains to be seen.
"US bureaucracy is holding us back" may be an understatement. Sometimes I think it would be easier to return a half-eaten hotdog than to cut through bureaucratic red tape.
At least this info can shed some light on the situation to the people constantly crying "where's the transparency?"
I am reminded of a story about people deciding to cut out the bureaucratic middleman. Unfortunately, such measures won't quite work in this situation.
Well I think it's the need for both. Like McLaughlin said, it becomes a pain when you're dealing with something like message board comments. They also have to keep records of things on third-party Websites. Think about having to make a printout of every Facebook status update or Tweet for the sake of shipping off to a presidential library. The hope is that eventually they'll get to a point where they're enabling electronic storage of electronic records.
I was just reading on our sister site Contentinople that online video management firm The FeedRoom is providing the Obama admin with a video player that will make his video 508-compliant. Small steps, but it's nice to see some progress being made.
According to the World Economic Forum, the U.S. is third in the world in terms of overall technology "network readiness." It has great R&D, great technology, and -- comparatively speaking -- an economy that supports technology. Where the U.S. falls down is in the amount of red tape that exists at the government level, and between the government and business.
This post makes it clear that government agencies in the U.S. are snarled in their own paperwork to a sometimes alarming extent.
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As enterprises leap into the Web 2.0 world of blogging, commenting, and social networking, just 'being there' won't deliver ROI. You may want a 'Web Evangelist' to systematically harvest the feedback in order to polish your product or service.
More companies are trolling social networks to find and vet potential job candidates. Beware the pitfalls of blurring the line between personal and professional lives.
Data mining of social networks means people might face unforeseen consequences as a result of their seemingly innocuous personal choices and associations.
Saunders is wrong on Hulu, Fritz thinks. By most measures it's been
a success, and there's no reason this model won't become even bigger in the next three years. Oh, and he hates Steve's hat.
Evidence shows that you can tweet too much. Sites and services like Twitter and Facebook are a good place to reach your audience, but think quality over quantity.
What can users today do to protect their online privacy? The simplest and most obvious option is to not use the Internet – at all. However, once all digital information is consolidated over the Internet, trying to protect digital identity by simply unplugging from the Internet becomes impossible – a fact that has manifest implications for civil liberties, Saunders says.
By 2011 the number of Internet-connected sensors will exceed 1 trillion, making your chances of doing anything or going anywhere unnoticed pretty much zero. Saunders talks about how the 'sensortization' of the Internet is eliminating the traditional divide between online and offline populations.
The 20th Century Internet was characterized by the ability to interact with other people and information on the Internet largely without anyone knowing who you were. The Internet of this century, conversely, will be defined by identity. Saunders explains how Internet users are unwittingly contributing to the demise of the anonymous Internet.
It is 20 years since the invention of the World Wide Web, and the Internet has changed beyond recognition since then. Steve Saunders peers into the future to predict what the Web will look like in another 20 years time – and he doesn’t like what he sees.
Research shows that the youth of today like Facebook – but not blogging or Twitter. Does that mean Facebook has won, or just that it's not yet out of favor? Will all the services we see today fade into Ovaltine-or-Wheaties status in just a few years?
What kinds of companies are doing the most innovation in the data center? Turns out it's midtier enterprises that are taking the "Just Right" approach.
Ray Kurzweil's Blio and Apple's iPad tablet will make it easier than ever to have books "read" to us, says Dr. Kim, who believes that talking tablets will become interwoven into our consciousness as we "merge" with the increasingly elegant machines we hold in our hands.
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