Lessig Bets On the Net To Clean Up Government

christian.einfeldt writes "Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig really 'gets it' when it comes to the efficacy of distributed open source code production. Now he is attempting to use distributed production methods to expose corruption in the US Congress with the launch of another 'CC' organization — this time it's called 'Change Congress'. CC (as opposed to cc for Creative Commons) would invite users to track whether US legislators are willing to commit to Change Congress' four pledges. CC will rely on users to record and map the positions of candidates who are running for open seats in the US House and Senate. Change Congress will use a Google mash-up to create a map depicting which legislators have taken the CC pledge, which have declined, and which have signaled support for planks in the Change-Congress platform. The four pledges (which are not numbered 0 through 3) call for greater transparency in government, and less influence of private money in shaping legislation."

Comments

Hopeful

[SpuriousLogic]

This all depends not so much on what congressmen sign up as it does exposure to the general public. If you can get enough constituents to be aware of this, then you can force the members of congress into it. But unless this is somehow tied to American Idol, I seriously doubt the general American public will care. As long as they have their fast food and idiotic TV shows, they could care less about what happens in government.

Re:Hopeful

[TheRaven64]

I had a simpler idea. Before the election, each candidate should fill in a 20-question multiple-choice exam about their policies. At the polling station, the voter has to fill in the same test. If the voter's opinions do not correlate with those of the candidate to a certain percentage, their vote should be ignored. An astonishing number of people vote for candidates who believe the opposite of what they do because their parents voted for that party, or they believed in that party's ideals a few decades ago when it still had some.

There would be nothing stopping a candidate from publishing their answers on flyers that voters could take into the polling station and copy, but at least it would encourage them to actually know what the candidate believes in. And then you'd have a legal, public record that could be compared against their track record at the next election.

Re:Naive

[zappepcs]

Well, anyone who has been reading my posts knows that I'm all for it. Knowledge is a very powerful thing. When the voters KNOW what the people they are voting for are really doing and saying after elected, they WILL wield their votes more powerfully. With knowledge, people become rather more opinionated. I'm all for letting the constituents tell their legislators loud and clear how they want them to vote on any given issue, in real time... put more of the of, by, and for the people in it.

Voter outrage is a bit more powerful than you seem to understand. When the politicians can control what news the people hear, they can control how those people vote. That should by now be common knowledge. When the people get to hear the truth, the will make their voting decisions based on it. yes, there will be those that will vote the party ticket always, but that will be a small percentage compared to those that will make informed voting decisions. People want to be informed, information wants to be free. The current system prevents both with regard to political information and voting.

4 pledges

[esocid]

Since the summary doesn't list what they all are. Here they are:

1. No money from lobbyists or PACs
2. Vote to end earmarks
3. Support publicly-financed campaigns
4. Support reform to increase Congressional transparency

Re:Is he serious?

[Cantus]

But concerted human action *can* bring about change. And the Internet allows that.

It's not the "Internets" changing anything, it's the people using it making that change possible.

Re:Is he serious?

[esocid]

I have to disagree with you there. The purpose is to start some sort of grassroots campaign or a watchdog group that will monitor what your senators are doing and try to force a level of transparency with them. This isn't really going to change human behavior, I'll agree with you there, but RTFA next time. It is trying to change the way politics are done. Your citation of apathy seems to be pretty accurate since all you are doing is sitting back complacent about the sad state of politics but don't care enough to try and change that.

Re:Is he serious?

[thanatos_x]

Repeat after me - "In terms of fundamental human behavior, the printing press has not and will not change anything."

Should all technological innovations should be ignored as they don't change human nature, nor could they influence something that does, such as education? I'll agree that humanity has changed very little in the past 2,000 years, and the fundamental nature of politics hasn't changed much - there's still deception, ambition, alliances, etc., however it has changed the effectiveness of certain aspects. Voters (a largely foreign concept 500 years ago) are now more educated, the butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the world causes hurricanes where it was ignored before, ideas can spread to the masses very quickly, etc.

So while maybe the fundamental nature hasn't changed, but how things are gone about certainly does. Your position is akin to saying that because the objectives of war are the same (erode your enemy's will to fight), machine guns, airplanes and the drastically increasing importance of public opinion are unimportant in war, when in fact they've fundamentally changed how it is fought, even though the fundamental goal is the same.