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Governmental Transparency?
CosmicDreams asks: "With our concern about transparency in business transactions these days, should we focus on what is arguably the largest business of all, government? Today, it is possible to build a system in which the official interactions (social, fiscal, and oral) of our elected officials can be presented to world in an uncensored, unspinned, and quick-to-market medium. Unlike talk radio, newspapers, and late night stand-up routines, only the internet can possibly supply the public which a near instantaneous collection of news in sheer bulk form. What would the effects of such a system be on America and the world? I would be interested in hearing opinions on this matter."
Fuck if I know!
Today, it is possible to build a system in which the official interactions (social, fiscal, and oral) of our elected officials can be presented to world in an uncensored, unspinned, and quick-to-market medium.
... and we never heard from him again.
Why do you want this information? What are you -- some kind of terrorist?
"Please step aside, sir. We would like to ask you a few questions."
Software Wars
... but it will only ever happen if We The People (for those outside the US, insert patriotic identifier for yourself and your fellow citizens here) stand up and demand it. And the way to do that is by voting for politicians who have an understanding of the value of implementing such a technology. In 2000, we did vote for such a candidate -- to forestall any stupid "invented the internet" jokes, I'm going to say that yes, damn it, Al Gore did have as much as any politican possibly could to bring the internet into existence, at a time when George W. Bush probably barely had any idea what a computer was -- but legal machinations prevented him from taking the office to which he was rightfully elected.
Good luck changing things now. Once-free overnments all over the world are moving in the direction of less openness, not more. In the US, the Freedom of Information Act is just about dead as a consequence of the "War On (Drugs/Terror/Iraq/villain of the month)". The irony is, of course, that at least some repressive governments are opening up, just a bit; at this point, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we see electronically open government in China before we see it in the US, or Great Britain, or France, or Germany, or Japan. (Depressed, but not surprised.)
Once upon a time, the US government was taking steps in this direction. FOIA requests, even by e-mail, were answered more often than not. Sites like FedStats still remain as monuments to a genuine initiative, during the last decade, to making the government's vast store of information a resoucre of the people, by the people, and for the people. Enjoy it while you can, folks, because right now the trend is toward taking this stuff away, not expanding it.
And for God's sake, keep voting. The fraud machinery that stole the 2000 election is powerful, but it's not unbeatable. Yet.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
This is basic information theory. A particular peice of information only has value when it is significantly different from other information. Since nobody has yet been able to develop technology that distinguishes "Dog Bites Man" from "Man Bites Dog" at the semantic level, you need people to sift through it for you. This is why you hire a lawyer, watch the nightly news, or read slashdot...because getting information in bulk form in bulk is way too time consuming.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm all for transparent government, but if nobody has the time or energy to sift through the mountians of info, it isn't going to do you a damn bit of good.
See opensecrets.org for a very nicely organized info on your elected officials. Very informative read. And it is not just to bulk data, but also the data summaries and presentment that really counts.
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
...only the internet can possibly supply the public [with] a near instantaneous collection of news in sheer bulk form. What would the effects of such a system be on America and the world?
"Also in the news, the Earth's first global YAWN preceded the fall of the worldwide vallium market today..."
Operator, give me the number for 911!
This much information is almost already available online, but there is way too much to absorb. The average idiot would just be confused by it all, and fall back on talk radio and the idiot box to spoonfeed beliefs and views. Money would still talk, bullshit would still walk. More freely flowing information would be no threat to American oligarchy.
How ya like dat?
You'd have too much information.
Want to know what a senator said? Well, you can read the journal that is printed everyday. Though, it'll take a long time to get anything from it.
Want to read a law in full? Probably not, they're really hard to read and full of jargon.
Want to know the text of messages sent between government offices? Many times they're too boring, or comminication is done between personal relationships that would suffer if all was to be non-personal for the public to see.
The government has a great deal of information online already. And they're probably going to make more public with time. What is needed is not more information (so much as) someone to cut through it all and give a non-biased assesment, with links to the full report for further study.
When you can find this mythical non-biased person, we can talk about giving it the job.
Have you read my journal today?
In a democracy, allowing the electorate access
to raw information about the operations of government
is very counter-productive, because they will tend
to vote in an uncontrolled manner.
For example, could the Gulf War have been conducted
if it's pretextual deceits were not prominently
featured by the 5 major global media corporations?
Could it have been continued to a successful
conclusion if the massive extermination of the
Iraqis in the neutral zone and southern Iraq had
been covered in widely available press? Squeamish
elements would have militated vociferously against
the mass-live-burial in the neutral zone, and
the mass-incineration of the retreating, defeated
soldiers and thousands of civillians on the "road
of death".
It's crucially important that the organs of the
media which direct the attention of the masses
should be responsible to the authorities, or
the ability of the U.S. to subjugate the swarthy
people with oil is threatened, and if that is
threatened, the entire stock market is threatened.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
People would block out the information overload.
The majority of voters vote in herds, they have their own problems day-to-day, and instead of reading up on the issues, they follow the opinions of their friends, family, and church. Failing that they go based on the pictures of what people look like, or where a candidate is located on the card.
People who have an issue will go in to vote for that issue. But what happens when there are 50 unrelated issues on the ballot you haven't heard of?
The best solution might be electronic voting booths, where you can research the topics and look up words while voting (In a reasonable amount of time).
Anybody else hear this? I'm not making it up, either
---
A man has been jailed for six months after a trainload of commuters saw him having sex with a goat.
Stephen Hall, 23, of Kensington Road, Hull, pleaded guilty to one charge of buggery with an animal after the assault on the female goat in August last year.
Sentencing HIV-positive Hall, Judge Michael Mettyear, at Hull Crown Court, described the incident as "bizarre and disgusting". Hall had a previous conviction for indecent assault against a six-year-old girl.
The judge expressed frustration at being unable to order that Hall be banned from working with children in the future, adding: "You have pleaded guilty to buggery with an animal, a goat. It was committed in open air with people about, with people who could see.
"You were acting in an indecent manner, indeed, there was an seven-year-old boy in a position to see, although he was protected by his grandfather."
The court was earlier told how Hall had been returning from his sister's home on August 14 when the assault took place at the Argyle Street allotments.
A seven-year-old boy out walking with his grandfather had witnessed the attack together with a train-load of commuters on board a Hull to Bridlington service that had stopped at nearby signals.
Hall was seen holding on to a belt that had been put around the nanny goat's neck with one hand, while masturbating with the other. He was then seen with his trousers around his ankles having "penetrative sexual intercourse" with the animal.
Forensic tests matched semen taken from Hall's clothing to that found at the scene and samples of the goat's hairs were also found in his underwear.
Reading from the pre-sentence report, Mr Mettyear said Hall had shown evidence of being "preoccupied with sex", having "emotional instability" and problems maintaining relationships. It added that he targets "vulnerable" victims - "a child in the first instance and now an animal".
Story filed: 11:43 Friday 15th March 2002
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
In a time when everyone is reviewing all-new-never-been-heard-of Microsoft Windows XP for Tablet Computing, having completely forgotten about the fiasco that was Microsoft Windows for Pen Computing (circa 1992, with as big a launch as MWXPFTC), I can forsee this discussion going on and on and never once mentioning that what Cosmic Dreams proposes is what Newt Gingrich promised the US electorate during his contract-with-America days. Yes, everything would be put online, every transaction instantly available, never-before-seen transparency, blah, blah, blah. A lot of techno-geeks voted for him because he UNDERSTOOD! He saw the LIGHT! But of course, as soon as they got into power, all of that open government stuff was sent off to a committee to die. Remember, these are the guys who swore term-limits were for them, who gave their oath not to serve more than 6 years, who wanted to give back government to the peepuls, who... broke their promises with hardly a stutter six years later. Let's face it. Geeks have no memory. If we demanded more than pretty promises, Linux would be user friendly today... What, me cynical?
In Australia, a Linux promoter published the
correspondence & eMails that lead to Toshiba
refunding $ for a bundled copy of Windows 9x
In Sweden, one may (as a party to a legal
proceeding) legally make an audio recording
of the proceeding. I suppose parts of that
recording might be published online.
I feel that one should have the right to
make an audio recording of any proceeding
or telephone conversation in which s/he is
a party...
Police stopping them on the street, in
his/her car, coming to their door, et al.
Interviews, court proceedings (civil &/or
criminal), conversations with government
department representatives, et al.
As the world heads towards a time at which
individuals (techies, authors, & others)
tend to live &/or work -alone- I think
it's important that any violations of
individual rights be captured in media
other than notes made on paper.
I see no reason why one should not have
access to multimedia "notes" eg to remind
one of past events, eg when taking issue
with ways in which a decision was made,
of how one was dealt with by officers of
the department, court &/or police.
I think this idea should be expanded to
include other negotiations, to which one
is a party.
If we knew that we might be recorded,
we all might just watch our P's & Q's
more than we do (at least those who
have a duty of care, or other profes-
sional code, to adhere to might be a
bit more careful in negotiations).
Ethical behavior just might become a habit.
It's at least worth the effort
to do the experiment.
Unfortunately, Red Tape is like Spaghetti Code. It's very good at securing jobs for those who aren't confident in their competence.
This includes both career politicians of both major parties who survive by spin and civil service employees who surrender their political souls to the unions. It's not in the interest of these people for the legal voting population to understand what really goes on in the halls of government.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
> What would the effects of such a system be on
> America and the world?
Such an improbable fantasy would result in the collapse of government (not that this would be a bad thing).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
covered a good deal of this in his book, The Transparent Society. Definitely worth a read as a thought experiment investigating a world without privacy, and as an examination of what privacy really is.
The catch is (if you ignore the current burst allowing broad phone and e-mail tapping, in the name of anti-terrorism war), nobody can record anyone else without their prior consent, in most countries. The only exception is the police, where they have to obtain a warrant
Even then, depending on the jusrisdiction, they may postpone informing the subject of tapping operations, anywhere between 6 months after the end of the operation, to never at all; some countries impose an obligation to the police to eventually inform someone that his communications were being tapped, other countries don't and even allow the police to build whole cases on someone, Stasi-style, without anyone ever being told... until it is too late and they are in court.
In a nutshell, the police can videotape your arrest and do as they please with that, but you are not allowed to videotape their search of your house or to record a conversation with any public employee, in most countries.
That old statement about those prefering safety over freedom not being worthy of either comes to mind. I prefer freedom to fight police or politicians with equal tools, than the false security that George DoubleSnort Bush and his boys might be doing the right thing - which, btw, they are not: forget Bin Laden and Sadam! Kill Dubya and save the whole world from the blatant takover of the planet by idiots like Fiorina, Gates and Walton and their lobbying drones in Washignton!
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
I think we're getting the kind of accountability you describe, most critically through secondary sources with the expertise to put the facts in context; they're no longer as limited by funding in accessing and citing primary materials. There is also a quick-and-easy paper trail available that can be used to confront political flip-flops in nanoseconds.
.5% sales tax hike to fund transportation improvements. A combination of anti-tax conservatives and anti-sprawl activists successfully opposed it while spending about 1/7 as much as the real estate developers who favored passage, critically using web sites and email viral campaigning.
I think the market (desire) for information will provide what you want. A nice example here in Northern Virginia was the defeat of a
One element that will be harder to predict is the reaction of the public. Perhaps informatgion availability will encourage a desire to be informed. I sure appreciate having candidate white papers and such at my fingertips.
Finally, and I should have written this first, the gov't does need to lift all roadblacks to the information getting out. A glaring problem cited repeatedly in recent years is access to the proceedings of Congressional committees, as well as other documents (example). Another I care about is the declassification and digitization of secret documents. I don't know how much progress has been made on these fronts.
whatever you're on, i want some!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
What is its product? Laws. Do we have a choice as to whether to "buy" them or not? No.
You might argue that we "choose" the type of government we have, but we never get to choose to not have government, do we?
Government is a coercive monopoly on social order, instituted by the fear of the people and backed up by guns and prisons. Anarchy is a wet dream -- perfect in the middle of the night, all alone -- and unlikely to come to pass.
Most people just don't care. I've been reading a number of 'alternative' news sources for a while now, and trying to pass information on to other people. They are either uninterested, or find the subject fascinating but are still unwilling to make any changes to their lives. I've even been very careful to present 'information' rather than 'opinion', and encourage people to find out more for themselves and make up their own minds. Most just smile and nod and hope I will shut up soon.
Another part of the problem, more relevant to your question, is that the majority of people actually DO believe what they read in the papers, or see on television. Those media tell them what to do, how to think, and "we must be right because we have a guy in a white coat!". People WANT that. Anyone presenting a different opinion is a crackpot, troublemaker, or 'has a history of alcohol abuse' (a good way to totally destroy someone's credibility without any proof). And if you DO present a good argument, it upsets most peoples' balance and makes them uncomfortable. Thus, they would rather pretend you are not there.
Anyway, the 'pure facts' don't really help. We actually need the spin. It tells us the repercussions and consequences of whatever decision or report or committe finding means. The problem is - we only get one spin - the other spin usually unheard, classified, or debunked. Leading Edge is one, Nexus is another. There are others. These sources already give alternative descriptions for many events, but they are usually ignored, or belittled. Read them, with an open mind, then make your own decision.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
Tsk, tsk.
I would be interested in hearing opinions on this matter.Alas, even you want opinions!
Many of the facts are out there already. It's up to you to find them and come to your own conclusions about what they mean.
Are you any better than most of the population when you ask for opinions to help you distill down the vast mass of facts into a bite-sized nugget?
I'm sympathetic to the immense task of digesting the information, culling the facts from the chaff of lies and spin that flow freely in the marketplace of ideas. It's no picnic, but it's what each person must do for themselves. If you don't, someone will do it for you and will thereby control what you think.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I have Governmental Transparencies for sale, $2.50 per sheet.
I also have non-Governmental transparencies for sale, $0.21 each.
Things do not work as they should exactly fo this kind of mindset amongst many other reasons.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.