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US House Adopts New Third-Party Web Site Rules
GovIT Geek writes to tell us that third-party websites will no longer be off limits for members of the US House, provided that they use it for "official purposes" and not personal, commercial, or campaign purposes. "The rules are seen by House Administration Chairman Robert Brady as a compromise between several proposals under consideration in recent months and are closely aligned with those circulated by the Senate Rules Committee last week. [...] 'These new guidelines are a step in the right direction for a Congress that has been behind the technological curve for too long,' Boehner said. 'By encouraging the use of emerging and established new media tools, Congress is sending the message that we want to speak to citizens, and receive feedback, in the most open and accessible manner possible.'"
The US House would rather relax the rules than spend the money for a server and feed that can take getting blasted by the angry constituents of, what, 437 Congresspersons?
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Even for personal purposes? What constitutes "personal"?
If someone has, for example, a linkedIn account, do they have to close it if they get elected?
And in one of their conferences...
"We decided to not spend this on the budget, because VeNoM0619 says it sounds stupid, and is full of cooties."
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
I couldn't be happier that members of Congress are finally allowed to check third parties out. We have all kinds of fresh ideas they could appropriate.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
They took them away from staffers, not Congresscritters. Had you read the link you provided you'd know that. Lots of junior staffers love to leak because it makes them feel important, and Her Majesty Pelosi didn't want any premature details of the negotiations coming out before they had a deal to screw us out of yet more money.
Congress is sending the message that we want to speak to citizens, and receive feedback, in the most open and accessible manner possible.
I think I just ruined another keyboard spitting out my coffee when I read that!
--
Oh well, Bad Karma and all . . .
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Watch what you call her. Under the new rules, she can flame you and link to her post.
This could lead to us being able to get YouTube videos from Barack Obama if he's elected (adding to the 1400+ he and his campaign already have). Of course, John McCain just posts his campaign ads...
Or maybe thinking open, ongoing communication from representatives is too idealistic.
(Yes, I realize this applies to the House and not the Executive branch.)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Crackberries in the hands of actual congresscritters is like a five year old having it. You get nothing but fantasy and gibberish with the occasional regurgitation of things they heard the grown ups say.
You mean like when any suit gets ahold of a blackberry?
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Congressmen like to use government funds to push their next campaigns, and the campaigns of allies. Franking regulation is needed to stop such abuses.
No, that's not the point. They cannot do personal things in the guise of their office. For instance, President Bush, as a person, can be racist (an example I believe untrue, but sprang to mind quickly). As President, however, he has to have a non-racist approach to running the executive.
The Rep. can maintained the linked in account, but without the offical presence of his office.
This rule doesn't affect whether Rep. X can put up YouTube videos of "My crazy weekend". He always could. But now he can put up videos saying "The US House of Representatives did X" with him speaking as part of his job.
But he must not use his those official communiques for personal, commerical or campaigning reasons.
Similar to how my work might allow youtube to host our official videos (currently, our site does it), but I still couldn't connect me to my company for political or personal reasons (or other commercial ventures.)
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Oh for the days before McCain/Feingold.
Do you wonder why so many politicians appear in ads saying "I approved this message"? They are legally required to do that. The 1st amendment protects freedom of speech. Requiring someone to say something is as abridging of freedom as preventing them.
Do you know that there are prohibitions on political speech (ads) within a certain number of days before an election?
Do you know that you cannot give more than a certain amount to a candidate every year? Money is a form of speech, isn't it? You can't use that money to buy airtime for him, either, which is a more direct representation of money being speech.
Read the Wikipedia entry on campaign finance reform for a good summary. In short, politicians get limited in what they can do to try to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Doesn't work, but they try.
I haven't been able to find a copy of the actual rules, just a bunch of blogger rhetoric, but from what I understand this is more about the boundary between tax-payer funded media and privately funded media.
The senate and house both have official websites with pages that each of the congresscritters can use for official business. Naturally, we don't want them using taxpayer money on their campaign since it gives an advantage to the incumbents, so campaigning is forbidden on this website. The argument was about whether linking to content from personal or campaigning sites from their official site should be allowed.
There was also some concern about embedding third party content (like youtube videos) and whether it caused any technical/political/security concerns. The initial reaction was to ban embedding of third-party content (mostly because it because it wasn't understood). They are now lifting that ban with the clarification that anything on the official site must be official business even if it is hosted elsewhere.
AFAIK they never prohibited congresscritters from having their own sites, or using any third-party sites - they just had to be separate from the official site, and not funded with tax money.
No. No it isn't.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Allowing representatives to use third-party services for official purposes, rather than government-run official IT infrastructure, enables them to hide their operations in plain sight. This is much like gov.palin@hotmail.com and Bush using RNC services while in office.
With these new rules in place, official goverment records that should be open to scrutiny will be spread across thousands of privately-controlled servers. Oversight will be impossible.
I can see ways around this. Say you are a senator a want to sell an old typerwriter on Ebay...that's offical business I suppose.
: Experience Type: Democrat : America Reproduction: Only in a good way
Item Specifics
Material
Manufacturer
Great vintage President Deluxe Vote Obama typewriter. The keys are in great shape but WE NEED CHANGE, needs ink cartridge,......
you get the idea....
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.