Recrafting Government As an Open Platform

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.

Comments

Not who wrote, but who paid for.

[TaoPhoenix]

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."

Re:Not who wrote, but who paid for.

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:Not who wrote, but who paid for.

[scamper_22]

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.

Re:Technology is not the problem

[bunratty]

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

Re:We don't entirely *want* government to be ...

[BrentH]

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.

One requirement

[Hijacked Public]

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.

Re:One requirement

[JustinOpinion]

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.

Simple Requirement

[rlp]

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.

Re:Technology is not the problem

[rolfwind]

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.

Legislative Development with CVS, SVN, Hg, or Git?

[SgtChaireBourne]

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.