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Line Slaying: The Final Frontier
Technology almost always works in unpredictable ways. Sometimes the fanciest and most revolutionary stuff leaves the oddest legacies affecting people in small but meaningful ways. People know about online sex, crackers and e-trading, but few credit the Net with one of its potentially greatest benefits: the Net is a natural born Lineslayer.
And the biggest remaining lines on Earth form around government.
One of the last great frontiers awaiting transformation by the Net, government is surely the most reactionary and least innovative sector of the economy or public life. Bovine as it is, it is one of the most lucrative computing markets in the world. Online business analysts have been drooling for years over government e-business, the vast majority of it still up for grabs. Forrester Research estimates that local governments alone collect $450 billion annually in fines alone, mostly in person or by mail.
Convenience isn't the only benefit to citizens: think of the bureaucratic, paper and postal savings that would come from issuing permits and certificates and collecting fines on the Net. E-government can also begin to set up the infrastructure to give governments and voters the confidence and experience to begin online voting, polling and town meetings. As companies like Ford, Delta and Intel begin giving employees free computers and Net access as a fringe benefit of employment, universal access to the Net -- thus to digital democracy -- is no longer a fantasy.
In fact, it's astonishing that so few state or national politicians have yet figured out what a great political issue it is that governments aren't serving citizens by wiring up as rapidly as possible.
Neo-Luddites are forever lamenting the lack of human contact the Internet has wrought (remember-when-you-got-to-say-hi-to-the-bank-teller?). Anybody lost in tech support or telephone hell can sympathize. But some forms of human contact can be blessedly dispensed with -- like lines.
Online banking is killing off the lines at tellers windows. Electronic toll devices are shortening lines at highway toll booths. E-ticketing makes it possible to stroll into movie megaplexes, stick your credit card in an ATM-like machine and whisk past all the suckers waiting at the box office. E-ticketing at airports can save hours at check-in lines, dragging along heavy baggage. Some lucky college students can skip once-dreaded queues by registering online. Shoppers who don't love circling crowded malls for hours now have the option of online shopping. People who value human contact in these contexts can still have it, and are welcome to it. But few people in the 21st Century will be lamenting the death of waiting in lines.
But the Net hasn't yet busted the lines in the worst, most bureaucratic places. Businesses are usually under pressure to be responsive to their consumers; they embrace transactional software because it lowers their costs and provides convenient service while eliminating lines. Government, which ought to be especially responsive to its constituents, isn't.
Some Net start-ups who want to drag government into the 21st Century are already in operation -- like New York-based http://www.govWorks.com and Atlanta's http://www.ezgov.com. But by and large, government has been slow to digitize, suspicious of security issues, lagging in leadership or innovation, lacking enough staffers with strong computing sensibilities.
But this state of affairs can't last. One day soon, politicians will figure out that they can score with voters by recognizing that digital technologies can sometimes improve life, especially by eliminating those nightmarish motor vehicle and permit lines. This could impress the public even more than bullying librarians to install blocking programs to keep Johnny off the Playboy Web site.
According to the Wall Street Journal, some cities -- like Stamford, Conn. and Springfield, Mass. -- have begun allowing electronic payments of taxes, permits, and utility bills.
But most local and state governments don't do much business online, or allow their residents to, a particularly relevant reality in cities where grueling lines are facts of life for busy taxpayers.
For once, an enormous windfall for software and computer makers may actually prove likewise a boon to citizens, assuming sluggish and self-interested bureaucrats can be prodded along. Doing civic business on the Net may also shock government into entering the 21st century. Lineslaying probably wasn't a benefit the founders of the Net had in mind, but it might turn out to be one of its most appreciated and unforeseen contributions.
The city in which I live (Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories) has a website where you can pay all your (city) bills online.
Here's the part where you can pay your bills.
In fact I think we just got a 5 million dollar grant in order to improve and expand this program.
Recently I had to get a new (german) passport, since my old one expired. Remembering my last experience with german bureaucrycy (:-) I really dreaded my visit to the office, fearing to spend the larger part of the morning on some benches or waiting in a line. The fact that I had to draw a number and that this number was several tens larger than what was currently on display added to my fears.
Imagine my surprise when the office ringed the bells and advanced the numbers in steps approximately 20 seconds apart. Waiting no longer than ten minutes (on comfy leather chairs, not in a line) my number showed up and I entered the actual office. The processing of my application for a new passport took only a few seconds, and I was even able to pay with my card. Next to my desk, one of the public servants had problems with her computer.
Even more impressive was what I observed on the desk next to mine, where a public servant had problems with her computer. Not only was she able to summon a technician who helped her to fix the problem almost immediately, but obviously there were procedures to handle this case, as the other desks where taking over her duties during her downtime.
All this had no longer a feel of bureaucracy to it. In fact service was faster and felt more professional than many privately owned companies I have seen from the inside, except perhaps McDonalds. It was frighteningly efficient.
© Copyright 2000 Kristian Köhntopp
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I've heard many countries are already doing away with conventional weapons, and are carrying out border disputes via massive games of Unreal Tournament and Quake III.
It really has eliminated much of the waiting and inconvenience we get with today's warfare, though it's not completey fair because the countries with broadband connections are winning almost every conflict.
Also, I've heard that Iraq is getting a reputation for just hiding out in one shadowy corner and blasting people as they go by.
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Yeah, Jon, that is a great sounding idea. The only issue is, how do we propose to remedy the digital divide that will separate the predominantly suburban, middle and upper class families with home computers from the poor inner city ones that don't generally have them?
It seems to me that the people who most need access to gov't services won't be any better served by this remedy. I mean, yes, it would be nice to renew your license online, but food stamps, welfare checks, etc.? Do we want to make it any more complicated or difficult or challenging for people to get to these services?
Let's face it: the digital revolution embraces those with the wealth and education to utilize it. Making these services electronic threatens to further cut off those at an economic and educational disadvantage.
Now, this shouldn't mean that we don't eventually do it. But let's make sure that people have universal access and training before we start making life more difficult for those who have enough problems already.
I think Chuck D. sums it up best : "There are gonna be a lot of people picking electronic cotton and digging digital ditches."
One of things that keeps government from being a total pain in the butt is that it's currently a lot of work to come and physically touch you.
That is, in order for someone in the gov't. to interact with you, they have to get physical somewhere along the line. Because of this, you have some slack. Slack is basically the ability to exist in a world of your own choosing, to some extent. You can go about your business relatively untouched.
This isn't a license to pirate warez, or to cause other people grief, but being able to treat interaction with your government as a minor concern. Because of this, the government and the citizen have a relationship, but the average citizen can choose to be at arm's length or locked in a bear hug.
When we eliminate the distance by choosing to interface with the government in electronic form, we give up that buffer. In other words, there is no longer any obstacle to directly debiting your bank account for whatever amount the government (state, city, federal) decides you owe them.
I can hardly wait. And it gets better - currently, many states revoke the drivers licenses of certain individuals for somewhat serious offences - failure to pay child support, DUI, etc.
This is essentially a way to selectively invoke police harassment, which isn't nesc. evil - but what about a future where your license is suspended because you didn't pay some tax or someone keyed in a SSN that matched yours when her finger slipped?
Maintaining inefficiencies is not always a bad idea - especially when you're not interested in becoming a well oiled cog. Separation between state and government agencies will soon start to evaporate, and it will become very easy to mess with people simply because some department head decides that power is a cool toy.