Slashdot Mirror
How Will Governments Keep Up With Technology?
Andy Updegrove writes "Governments are beginning to realize that perhaps the Internet really has changed everything, at least for them, and that they are going to have to deal with new responsibilities in this area. How will they deal with financial and medical data breaches? What can they do to ensure that first responders will be able to communicate the next time that terrorists strike in the Homeland, and how will the refugees of the next Katrina be able to access their electronic medical records? And what must governments do to ensure that public records will be available in fifty years, if they no longer maintain paper archives? Whether government should incline towards leading, following or simply getting out of the way is a matter upon which there are likely to be strongly held differences of opinion. It's also likely, though, that government will not have the luxury of opting for the third choice in some of the areas just mentioned. How well government chooses among those roles, and how well it executes when it chooses to lead, will likely have a profound impact on our lives in the years ahead."
The F-15 has not been retired, but the F-22 will be slowly replacing it over the next decade or two. And you are correct, no F-15 has ever been lost to enemy action in its entire 30+ year service life.
Government can hardly deliver my mail intact (USPS), competently educate my children (public schools), take care of my grandparent's health (Medicare), or ensure my retirement (the ridiculous failure that is Social Security).
Truckin like the Doo-Dah man...
They should just stay the hell out of it. Every time a government gets involved in anything they just end up screwing it up and making it an expensive, bloated mess. Lets face it governments are made up of people who'd probably be completely unemployable anywhere else, so why should anyone listen to their "ideas" about the 'net. The 'net has grown nicely without government meddling; why not leave it that way?
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Hell, why not worry how the CURRENT victims of Katrina will access their medical records. I pretty much have none. Not a problem in my case, but, those that needed meds and all still have a hell of a time...
I think it will be interesting in the next catastrophy, to see what the US's reaction will be...especially if it is in another part of the US. If the next big hurricane hits NYC (which IS overdue for a major storm), or San Fran. gets creamed by an earthquake...will the gov response be any better? Will any of the money pledged actually get to the state? Very little of it has actually made it to LA even yet. And what little has, is held up by the state having to deal with the severe red tape attached to the funds by the Feds.
A recent report on the radio here said that out of about $840M donated by foreign countries to help the victims of Katrina...only about $40M of it was sent to the gulf south region. The rest...was funneled to other govt. programs or lost I guess.
I think it will be interesting to see if the next city that gets f*cked by mother nature, gets the same sub-par treatment from the govt as NOLA did. 2 years past and the neighborhoods that were decimated, not by a hurricane, but, by the US govt.'s levee system's failure due to poor worksmanship, poor engineering and it appears now, downright criminal negligance.....they still look like a bomb went off, and we hear daily the the Corps of Engineers is still cutting corners and fscking up the rebuild of the pumps and levees.
Ok...*sigh* [/soapbox mode]
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Agreed. The whole 'Homeland' thing is really unnerving. From my viewpoint, the last thing this country needs is more nationalistic fervor. We already have too much of it being relabeled as "patriotism" (though that's been going on for a couple of centuries, but still).