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Recrafting Government As an Open Platform

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the wouldn't-it-be-nice dept.

itjoblog writes "How effective are the world's governments at using technology to become more responsive? Technology has revolutionised the way that we do business, but the public sector has traditionally moved more cautiously than the private one. Now, a report from the Centre for Technology Policy Research in the UK has made some recommendations for the use of technology as an enabling mechanism for government." I have one simple requirement: all laws must be written in a wiki with full history.

30 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. Technology is not the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Governments are less responsive because there is no penalty for being unresponsive. When nobody can get fired for incompetence and there is no competitive choice, you get less responsive outcomes.

    1. Re:Technology is not the problem by bunratty · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Elected officials regularly get "fired" and have to be rehired, often every two, four, or six years.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    2. Re:Technology is not the problem by Demonantis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And the unelected ones continue being unresponsive.

    3. Re:Technology is not the problem by rolfwind · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Losing an election does not mean you deserve punishment or are a bad person. Winning an election does not mean you are a good person.

      I would like an appeal of the 17th amendment. Senate was supposed to be the voice of the states. People are already represented by the House.

      I would like ballots to contain only a Name, DOB, and Residency and not political party. I hate parties, can't outlaw them, but at least we can stifle their effectiveness. If you don't know who you are voting for besides party, you don't deserve to vote. If you would like a single checkmark to vote down the line, you should be severely disappointed that you are made to think.

      I would like the apt-tax to replace all national taxes. I would like in times of peace (no declared war, and no war on terror doesn't count) there be a balanced budget amendment.

      I would like the electoral college either strengthen so that the electorate actually can vote something different as representatives... or cast out entirely and have a democratic vote. I would like the president to have lots of powers yanked away in either case.

      The congress too should stop abusing the general welfare and interstate commerce clauses to turn a limited government into an unlimited one.

    4. Re:Technology is not the problem by jackspenn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Elected officials regularly get "fired" and have to be rehired, often every two, four, or six years.

      Not bureaucrats. Not government union employees.

      Why does the post office totally suck compared to either FedEx, UPS, or others when it comes to deliver times, quality of package handling, number of lost, open or damaged items, ability for customers to track packages, customer services, cleanliness of facilities, etc? Because the workers there don't care, they feel entitled and see working for customers as inconvenience. On every level the USPS is last, except one, pension payments and benefits paid to retirees.

      Government sucks, so why people want more of a crappy monopoly I don't understand. Government creates nothing, for anything it "provides to one group, it must have taken or borrowed it form another group".

      Government is a parasite on the people. We should always be working to having the minimum government required and majority of the power should reside as close the the people so that it will be better managed by feedback. States should be stronger in our Republic and the Federal government should be confined back to only the 17 powers it was authorized to do in the Constitution, that would provide a better quality of service to the people.

      --
      Respect the Constitution
    5. Re:Technology is not the problem by Lil'wombat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem I have with Parties is not the designation on the ballot, but the fact that the two parties have written all of the election laws effectively preventing other parties from being on the ballot.

      --

      Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another

    6. Re:Technology is not the problem by sznupi · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If you think your government "sucks" or is a "parasite"...then you must realise that ultimatelly governments are a reflection of the society.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  2. We don't entirely *want* government to be ... by jra · · Score: 3, Insightful

    an open platform, for the same reason we don't want daytraders on Wall Street, or intra-day trading at all, really. It's really nasty positive feedback, and has the bad effects positive feedback always has.

    Whatever you think of Congress, it's a pretty handy damping loop to keep the Peepul from trashing the Constitution, and hence, the country.

    1. Re:We don't entirely *want* government to be ... by Dishevel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Too late congress and the supreme court have already trashed the constitution. You know there is bullshit going on when the right to make 90% of the laws they pass is power they say is given to them by the commerce clause of the constitution.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    2. Re:We don't entirely *want* government to be ... by NervousWreck · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's only when they get challenged and need an excuse. Usually they simply don't care. Side issue: Does it strike anyone else as odd that Congress rarely tries to justify their actions based on the "necessary and proper" clause? Seems to me that means even they admit most of the laws they pass aren't "necessary and proper."

      --
      I do not have a sig. You are hallucinating.
    3. Re:We don't entirely *want* government to be ... by BrentH · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And this is what a lot of people seem to forget: we have all this bureaucracy, all these checks and balances not solely as a job program, but most also because we shouldn't want a government that moves fast. People crying for strong leadership and action forget that we had light governments that could do that in the past, and they were called monarchies and dictatorships. The number of benevolent kings and dictators are extremely small. A society has to have negative feedback loops to prevent any government from moving to fast and to meddle too much. We have a legislative branch to prevent crimes, an army to prevent invasions, and that is about the fastest I want a government to move. I don't want fast action and strong leadership, because the same happens what happened in the bad old days: leaders that go to war, are only interested in their own agendas, start idoitic programs to suppress minorities, are susceptible to corruption and lobbyists etc etc. I advocate good government, and good government should know what to do and what not to do, and moving fast is not one of those things.

  3. Not who wrote, but who paid for. by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We know well enough "CongressCritter X voted for Bill Y".

    What seems to be tough to fix is the lobbying lockdown. "If you don't support us in the War Against Z, we'll sink any other bill you ever submit for a vote."

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
    1. Re:Not who wrote, but who paid for. by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What seems to be tough to fix is the lobbying lockdown. "If you don't support us in the War Against Z, we'll sink any other bill you ever submit for a vote."

      If Americans wanted representatives who would vote their principles, they would vote for representatives with principles. They don't; they want pork.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Not who wrote, but who paid for. by ShadowRangerRIT · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Unfortunately, people with principles have a much harder time raising funds. The politicians without principles can easily make up for it by running five times as many ads claiming they have strong principles and their opponent is a fickle traitor. With the recent Supreme Court ruling that uncapped corporate political spending, the least principled have even more advantages. The average payday for the top 25 hedge fund managers last year was over a billion dollars, which is roughly the cost to run a modern presidential campaign. Congressional seats are much cheaper; you could buy and sell half of Congress with that kind of money.

      PR is far more important than principles, and a lack of principles can buy a hell of a lot of PR.

      --
      $_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
    3. Re:Not who wrote, but who paid for. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Mr. Sheep,
      I find it ironic that you blam Fox News, when it's CNN and NBC pushing for more shiny trinkets, and Fox shilling for the deficit reduction.

    4. Re:Not who wrote, but who paid for. by scamper_22 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unfortunately, you are correct, but the answer is regulation of government.

      You talk to people... and they recognize the need to regulate industry. Just look at the BP oil spill. Oil companies need to be regulated to make sure their oil rigs are safe.

      The banking sector needs to be regulated to make sure transaction are fair and externalities do not spread to bring down the entire system.

      Industries that use chemicals need to be regulated to make sure they don't cause undue harm to people.

      Monopolies need to be regulated to make sure they don't abuse their power. Heck the EU goes nuts over Microsoft bundling a media player with their OS.

      Yet, how about the most power monopoly in any country... the government... doesn't it need regulations in how it operates?
      Bundling unrelated laws in bills to gain support... don't we need regulations to ban this?
      Proving state benefits (pensions, healthcare...) to some citizens, but not others... don't we need regulations to ban this?

      I could go on with other examples, but then I'd show my various political biases :P
      So I'll leave it at this relatively straight uncontroversial example of regulations of government.
      Of course this is what a constitution is for... but when you have a living constitution... that's like having living regulations created by industry itself. Yet, the constitutions are still useful. People still have the rights... especially the ones they exercise on a daily basis. Americans still own guns no matter what governments have done to curtail it. We still largely have freedom of speech. We still largely have freedom of religion... We still have separation of powers and a court system... We just need to fix all the loop holes...

      Unfortunately, the ability to write government regulations in a sane manner is rare... normally just when a country is formed. So we don't often get this chance. And you can't really write it while the 'game of life' is in play. There are too many special interests that would fight it. If we were to say

      "Proving state benefits (pensions, healthcare...) to some citizens, but not others... don't we need regulations to ban this?"

      Public sector unions would go nuts, because they know they benefit immensely from the money of government.

      And no... the courts don't offer us the regulation of government. They should... but they don't. The courts in any country are a political body with political views... often appointed by political parties.

      Ultimately, it is up to good citizens and the public at large to insist government obey its regulations.
      But yeah... I'm pessimistic about any real change until society collapses and we can rewrite the regulations on government.

    5. Re:Not who wrote, but who paid for. by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But you can't play in the mudpit without getting dirty, and that's one reason why no matter how they start out, by the time they have progressed far enough in party politics to be on a ballot, pretty much everyone has become either a corrupted dipshit or a disillusioned cynic.

      But why is that? It's because voters are easily led sheep, who vote for shiny trinkets. It's never going to change unless people get interested in their government, instead of what they're told by Faux News &c.

      Bread and circuses - some things don't change even after 2000 years. People will vote for the politicians they think will give them what *they* personally want. What's good for the town/county/state/country doesn't enter into it.

    6. Re:Not who wrote, but who paid for. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Mr. Sheep,
      I find it ironic that you blam Fox News, when it's CNN and NBC pushing for more shiny trinkets, and Fox shilling for the deficit reduction.

      It's pretty amazing how they (both Fox News and Republicans in general) are only for deficit reduction when the Democrats are in power.

  4. agreed by atisss · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Also history and diff mechanism with comments (as in reviewboard).

    So I can know that Senator A commented exactly that point with such note upon discussion. Actually they could use reviewboard as tool for creating laws.

  5. One requirement by Hijacked+Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have one simple requirement: all laws must be written in a Wiki with full history.

    I have another:

    All laws must have a measureable objective, defined in advance of their passage, that they must meet or otherwise be repealed.

    --
    "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
    1. Re:One requirement by JustinOpinion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I like the concept. As hard as it is to get a law onto the books, it's almost impossible to get a law off the books. This leads to bloated and overly complex legal systems, innumerable special rules and exceptions, and so on. I also think that most laws should have time limits on them in the first place. Basically something that requires them to re-vote on the issue after X years, perhaps with a sliding scale if the law is always well-supported. (Something like 4 years, then possible 8-year extension, then 20-year extension, etc.)

      I also like the idea of discouraging adding unrelated things into a bill. You don't want your pet project to be canceled just because the larger bill it was included in didn't meet a target!

      There are of course potential problems:
      1. Some legal changes that involve massive changes in infrastructure. Having these kinds of things be erected/deconstructed (perhaps repeatedly, as political climates for some issues can oscillate) might be even less efficient that the current situation.
      2. Corporations could temporarily break a new law (or collude, etc.) in order to force it to miss a target, thereby getting legislation repealed. (But then again, this is just another variant of the already-well-entrenched "powerful companies can cause problems" issue.)
      3. Issues not considered in the original objective target could arise. (E.g. an anti-pollution bill that misses its target because of a sudden environmental disaster in some other country that spreads...) Obviously the "targets" listed in laws would have to be crafted very carefully.
      4. Related to #3, it is tempting to have a target in a law that is tied to the action of the law itself... but society is far too complex for this to generally be true. Laws may try to address issues of the environment, economic stability, employment, or whatever; but all of these things can be drastically affected by other things going on in society, unrelated to the law. So a very successful and well-supported law could be automatically repealed just because of a recession or other event.

      As I said, I like the idea. But a blanket "measurable objective or repealed" rule might not work. At a minimum, I see no reason why laws shouldn't have an explicit statement of what the law is trying to accomplish, so that voters can more specifically assess whether the law is doing what it aims to. And we really do need better mechanisms for repealing laws.

  6. Re:Two Words...TERM LIMITS by maxume · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Term limits probably eliminate at least as many good representatives as they do bad.

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  7. Simple Requirement by rlp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have one simple requirement: all laws must be written in a Wiki with full history

    I have a simpler one - legislators must read the laws before voting on them.

    --
    [Insert pithy quote here]
  8. Re:WIKI Laws by st_adamin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The solution I was thinking of a few years back seems even better. Not a law history type of law wiki, but a bill wiki.

    Picture It: Any number of proposed bills, weighted by community voting, then split directly in half for dissent. The dissent would take the form of comments... lolcats and flamers would be suspended, but not forever. Comments would also be weighted by community voting. We would need some impartial moderators to summarize. That would be very hard to get, but I think people would be willing, if it meant a more effective, efficient, transparent means of legislation.

    So the important bills are discussed, split, combined, perhaps dumped all together, discussed again, *condensed* and finally approved (by some vote margin), all by the community. Then forwarded on to Washington (or your capital of choice) with the digital signature of all the participants. They can't necessarily ignore us (the people) forever, not if we have a forum that reaches a wide enough audience. I don't, obviously, suggest this as the sole method of legislation, but as a supplement to a laboriously slow and innefficient system that we have in place. Plus by the end, it would not be lawyer speak, but human speak. I'm a smart dude, but I cannot slog through most of it, heck neither can politicians. They pay advisers to summarize. We shouldn't have to, not if we are a government of the people.

    This would also help us scream "absolutely not" loud enough for someone to hear. Not sure about other places, but Washington seems to laugh off absolutely nots (the system was designed to prevent this, but the people have short memories). Additionally, this could be done for all levels of government, from city through national (or international maybe?)

    Several weaknesses that I see: People tend to polarize 50-50. I don't know why that is, maybe its worthy of a psych experiment, but it would be tough to get anything done.

    An online legal discussion proposition forum would, by definition, exclude vast segments of the population. Perhaps newspaper posting in the final stages might help, but vote counting there would take a massive infrastructure. Additionally, it would be a certain demographic (tech/geeks) that had a disproportionate weight for this forum. What is rule by the 'smart?' Oligarchy? Or something... I don't recall, but I'm against it.

    Websites that can rally vast numbers of people could offset disporportionatly on single issues (like the Colbert toilet). I can't see any way to get around it. Maybe we shouldn't even try, I guess.

    Non Participation. Just like voting, people would biznitch about what was done, but not take the few minutes to participate on the bills they care about. Emailing Washington does not work, but no one writes letters. A five hundred page letter (mit abstract), with 60,000 signatures, though should garner some attention.

    Any thought/suggestions/criticisms would be most welcome... that's what this whole comment was about.

  9. Re:WIKI Laws by necro81 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    all laws must be written in a Wiki with full history

    Sounds a like a do-able community project. How many laws within a particular scope change every day? Don't think all laws at first, start smaller.

    Most laws go by for years without change.

    If your government is not willing to do this, and it is still not happening then its just the laziness of everyone at large ; so stop complaining if you would like to see this happen.

    You can get plenty of up-to-date books or online databases that contain, for instance, the complete US Legal Code. You can also get information here and there about the history and intent of a law, and what it may actually mean in plain English. For some of the really arcane and abstruse stuff (and some of it really defies simplification) hire a lawyer.

    But what I think the comment in the summary was getting at was all the changes that go on while a bill is being written. Lawmakers, especially when they are going for a soundbite, carp on about last-minute changes that were made in the dead of night and buried in the text of a 1,000-page bill, giving us a billion dollar boondogle pork project in someone's district. They are right to do so - that kind of behavior is inexcusable. Lawmakers get away with it because it is so buried and unaccountable.

    Wikifying the bill-writing process would allow you to know that the text of a bill has been changed, and when, and by whom. Permit only elected members and the Congressional support staff (ya know, the people actually writing things) editing powers. As far as I know, Congress has absolutely no way to track changes to a bill as it makes its dirty, sausage-making way from concept through committee, debate and amendation, to conference, and finally ratification. For all I know it's just a Word file that gets spit out into a pile of paper. This kind of change-management system is common practice in many businesses where versioning and history are important - software vaults, part databases, etc.

    I can think of no place where this is more needed than Congress.

  10. Tyranny by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The problem with Democracy and most other forms of governance is tyranny.

    We try to keep tyranny of the majority from affecting the rights of the minorities, and then we end up with tyranny of the minority, which infringes upon the rights of the majority.

    LIBERTY, is the ONLY governance that works. It says each is responsible for his own actions, to the end that he doesn't infringe upon the liberty of others.

    The problem with Liberty, is that all the do-gooders who want to tell others how to live, because they think they know better, and those that want to rescue everyone from themselves.

    That is why we have things like "war on drugs" and "war on poverty" (porn, terror, big oil, pharma etc) and all the "do it for the children" and whatnot being the driving forces of laws that infringe upon everyone's rights and liberties.

    So, the fight is always against tyranny, which is the natural course for man.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  11. Re: Elected officials get "fired" by sznupi · · Score: 1, Insightful

    And the layer below that. And one more below. And another.

    All originating from the society - with the system of governance reflecting...the society.

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  12. Legislative Development with CVS, SVN, Hg, or Git? by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Likely the best websites from the US Government...are the Library of Congress site and the Supreme Court site. Both of them are extremely informative, and have a massive wealth of information that is readily available.

    Development of legislation is quite byzantine and revision (mis)management during the drafting can make for some very serious readability problems. Currently it is nearly impossible to have time, even for a full-time politician with staff, to have time for their team to individually work through all changes and revisions of a draft of a bill.

    Using a version control system (CVS, Subversion, Mercurial, Git) makes it very easy to track individual changes and who made them. It also makes it trivially easy to integrate all the changes and show a snapshot of the current draft or one from any arbitrarily earlier version.

    Code bases for large software projects are unwieldy, constantly changing and have many authors yet need full transparency and accountability to succeed. So are drafts of legislation. Using a versioning system in our legislative process is long overdue.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  13. Re:Legislative Development with CVS, SVN, Hg, or G by atisss · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Everything sounds great until "older versions" :)

    Well, you could keep them in different country(state) but single country is usually the machine laws are running on.. On the other hand, something like UN could actually be the central repository developing, etc..

  14. Re:Two Words...TERM LIMITS by DragonWriter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    With Term limits they would have to go get real jobs after say 12 years total.

    I can't see why in any job with significant responsibility, you'd want to cap the experience that someone can have in the job.

    What term limits due is shift power from elected representatives to non-elected staff, interest group lobbyists, and others, who don't have term limits capping their experience.

    The main problem term limits seek to address is the lack of meaningful choice in elections, which is a product of an electoral structure which assures that there will be at most two viable choices, one of which is usually the incumbent.

    Fixing the underlying electoral system to not use plurality or majority/runoff elections in single member districts would do far more to promote real choice than term limits do, and would avoid the undesirable effects of term limits.

    With, say, 5 member districts with legislators elected by STV, you'd have far more real choice than with the U.S.'s current electoral systems (even with term limits added), and probably more change in individual representatives year-to-year, though it would still be possible for candidates that really did a good job in the eyes of the voters to keep doing the job as long as they retained the support of the electorate.