Mostly Theater? Taking Aim At White House 'We the People' Petitions

theodp writes: "Since we launched We the People in 2011," wrote the White House last month, "millions of Americans have engaged with their government on the issues that matter to them. This groundbreaking online platform has made petitioning the government, a First Amendment right, more accessible than ever. Over the past few years, the Obama administration has taken a stance on a number of causes that citizens really care about and used the We the People petition platform to voice their concerns." Sounds good, but even if the White House is listening to We the People petitions, as it assured skeptics, one wonders what — and who — exactly they are listening to. Petitions suffer from being aye-only, lack identity and location verification, and appear to have other data quality issues. One attempting to explore the petition data for the 67,022-and-counting signers of a new petition urging a quick response to a court decision that could cut the time international STEM students can work in the U.S. on student visas after graduation, for example, would be stymied by thousands of missing and non-U.S. postal codes. Plotting what location info is available does show that the petitioners are clustered around tech and university hubs, hardly a surprise, but it sheds no context on whether these represent corporate, university, and/or international student interests.

Comments

Remember the "change" he promised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the "Change!" he promised us ...
 
Just like the "Universal Insurance" he promised us ...
 
Just like so many other lies that he has told us ...
 
How can anyone treat that "petition' thing seriously?

Re: Remember the "change" he promised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah.

Jeb was saying that he'll get 4 percent growth; which is beyond the power of Presidents. So are pretty much all economic issues.

Democrats love to point at the 90s and say that Clinton (Bill) did that. Nope. That Greenspan's idiotic Fed policy that we ended up paying for twice - the dot com bubble that created a few billionaires (like Musk) and the real estate bubble - both redistributed money from the poor and middle class into the pockets of the billionaires and the well connected.

Most Americans do not understand which branch has the control over what. And candidates will promise things that there is no way they can deliver on.

Re:Remember the "change" he promised?

[NotDrWho]

A politician lying to get elected?!?!?? HOLY SHIT! Has someone alerted the press to this???

Re:Remember the "change" he promised?

[Chas]

This is where the message of "Yes. We can!" became "No. We can't!"

Translation: of COURSE it's merely political theater.

Online petitions have ALWAYS been worthless. As they're infinitely easy to merely ignore or just say "No" to.

Re:Remember the "change" he promised?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't worry. They're in on it burying stories that make their favorites look bad.

Re: Remember the "change" he promised?

[davester666]

Technically, corporations are not a "branch" of the government. They simply control it.

Yer Kidding, Right?

[sycodon]

Did anyone ever think it was anything other than Theater?

Really? You thought that???

Facepalm!

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[Anonymous Coward]

anything other than Thatcher

FTFY. Since 1979, all the same religion.

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[Crashmarik]

Errrr

  HOPE AND CHANGE

Yeah!! ,Dats da ticket

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[NotDrWho]

Exactly. The only voices that really get "heard" in Washington are those that come with the gift of big campaign contributions or with the threat of a lot of bad PR. It's been that way pretty much since the beginning, though it's gotten a LOT worse more recently (with the rise of huge megacorporations, rising campaign costs, and the effective removal of all restrictions on campaign contributions).

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[will_die]

Better watch out your going to be called a racist for repeating the same thinking that commentator on FoxNews had when the site first came out.

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[byornski]

Similar with the UK e-petitions scheme. The top two are (with 200k+ signatures each and 'awaiting a debate in parliament) are for general hate of one guy from the cabinet and to legalize cannabis. I think everybody has realized that anything they do not actually want to acknowledge will just go into limbo or will get a response that just avoids the issues.

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[hey!]

Well, as a software designer I learned two lessons about clients that are probably relevant to how politicians deal with constituents:

(1) Clients seldom know what they want precisely enough to do anything about, and when they do have precise ideas they're usually bad.

(2) It's really critical to listen to what clients think they want.

Call it "theater" if you will, but it's really naive to think the petition thing is supposed to be some kind of exercise in direct democracy. It's not. It's an exercise in constituent relations.

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[digsbo]

It's an exercise in constituent relations.

Given that almost everybody is now calling it theater, would you say it had a positive impact on constituent relations?

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[Anonymous Coward]

They were stupid enough to buy the "Hope and Change" bullshit and then re-elect the narcissist-in-chief, so why not this?

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[Anonymous Coward]

What did or should anyone have expected? The country got a website to petition the White House to respond about some topic. Not do something about it. Not even seriously reconsider their stance on it.

They still go about business as usual, but now they either have a new way of showing that people like what they are doing or an outlet for pushing their point to the detractors. I would argue it was never about really giving the people another voice. It was about creation of another tool to let people feel like they are being heard and cherry pick propaganda pieces to help defend the actions they are taking for other reason.

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[hey!]

Given that almost everybody is now calling it theater, would you say it had a positive impact on constituent relations?

I'd be shocked if "almost everybody" had even heard of it, much less absorbed the impression you suggest.

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[Qzukk]

No, but now that the government has established the proper channel for petitioning the government for a redress of grievances, you can stop suing the government in court over infringed rights. Just post your petition online and sit back while it's soundly ignored.

Re:Yer Kidding, Right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, as a software designer I learned two lessons about clients that are probably relevant to how politicians deal with constituents:

(1) Clients seldom know what they want precisely enough to do anything about, and when they do have precise ideas they're usually bad.

(2) It's really critical to listen to what clients think they want.

Call it "theater" if you will, but it's really naive to think the petition thing is supposed to be some kind of exercise in direct democracy. It's not. It's an exercise in constituent relations.

So basically what you're saying is: Pretend you're actually listening but because "the people" are too stupid to know what's good for then, just do what you want anyway?

That'll work out well.

Same story, different book.

[rickb928]

"lack identity and location verification, and appear to have other data quality issues. One attempting to explore the petition data for the 67,022-and-counting signers of a new petition urging a quick response to a court decision that could cut the time international STEM students can work in the U.S. on student visas after graduation, for example, would be stymied by thousands of missing and non-U.S. postal codes."

Gee, sounds like Obama's campaign finance reports.

Before you mod this down, do sooner of your own reading on this. If you dare.

Re:Same story, different book.

[drainbramage]

I think you described the voting system in my state.

Re:Same story, different book.

[crow_t_robot]

Good effort at injecting unrelated partisan blather into the comment section. Let it go; Obama is finishing out his 8 years and even if reptilian, Marxist overlords from Neptune financed his campaign it is over and done with.

Re: Same story, different book.

[rickb928]

Off-topic? Our President uses these meaningless petitions as propaganda. Look.

This is Important to Discuss

[ohnocitizen]

Ignore all the comments going "this was expected" or "did you expect anything else"? Those add nothing to the discussion and are worthless. This isn't about whether you support Obama across all of his actions and positions. It is about this specific tool, its problems in its current incarnation, and its promise. I'm disappointed the White House has ignored so many petitions, and the lack of data/flexibility in response is something worth exploring. Imagine a more robust and secure version of this tool, and one that the White House responded more vigorously to. Or one that Congress responded to. I'd love to see it. I'd love to see us move closer to Democracy by putting more power in the hands of regular citizens. Let's talk about how to make that happen.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to see us move closer to Democracy by putting more power in the hands of regular citizens. Let's talk about how to make that happen.

Knowledge is power, and until 'regular citizens' get smarter and vote smarter, we'll be stuck with politicians like Obama that steer the too high percentage of ignorant masses down the road we are on. All the freaking polls in the world make no difference. A media that understands the issues themselves, educates the public, presents both sides of issues without bias would be a good start.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[rmdingler]

Well, it's great news that a suggestion box exists at all, frankly, which (at the very least) means the overseers believe our views are still freely given and received.

It's our job as holders of the ballot to right the ship; to make certain the nation's leadership is representative enough to actually read the focking suggestions.

6 years is all the time it takes to clean out the lot of executive and legislative branches.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[Anonymous Coward]

And that illusion is why the petition system was added. By giving people with your mindset the illusion that someone actually cared what you petitioned.

No one in the leadership read anything on that site. Low paid interns read them, low rung staffers wrote replies, not-quite-so-low rung staffers proofread them, and still-fairly-low rung staffers oversaw the whole thing.

But the site worked, a generation of simple-minded idealists didn't realize they were being played the same way their cynical predecessors were back when those generations were simple-minded idealists.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[Sarten-X]

Precisely.

The First Amendment guarantees the right to petition the government, but it does not guarantee that you'll get your way or even that your concerns will be considered important.

Frankly, that's a good thing. There have been a number of petitions asking the executive branch to effectively suspend rule of law and interfere with court cases. There have been a lot of petitions seeking to jeopardize foreign relations, and a good number simply asking for the impossible.

To expect petitions to require a change opens the country up to tyranny of the majority. Sure, the population will get the near-sighted quick fixes it wants, but the longer-term costs will typically not be considered until long after the right time to fix them.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[Anonymous Coward]

Because a Direct Democracy us just what we've been needing, eh?

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[argStyopa]

"Those add nothing to the discussion and are worthless."
No, because opportunity costs are a thing.
Having a fanciful belief that something works leads to a lot of wasted effort and energy that could be more usefully guided toward something that is accomplishable.

Oh, re your point about "move closer to Democracy"? You realize that as recently as 2011, "democracy" would have cheerfully banned gay marriage?
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/0...
Understand that "democracy" isn't a bunch of enlightened hipsters with progressive views deciding policy around their non-dairy lattes. Democracy can be ugly, reactionary, and easily manipulated.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's talk about how to make that happen.

People saying "this was expected" are adding something to the discussion: that if you want to make Democracy happen, you can't do it by expecting the inherently corrupt system of politicians to play along willingly. Those who expected that the "We The People" petitions would cause any real change aren't helping the discussion because they're engaging in slacktivism, leaving it to the politicians to police themselves. We do need to recognize that lip service was totally the expected result, and that if we truly want something different, then we'll have to make changes ourselves rather than relying on the government to do so. The expected result is that government, no matter what political party/cult is in power, will be an obstacle to change at every step. It is up to us to not give them any choice in the matter.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[KermodeBear]

It only has impact if the politicians decide that it should have impact. Since they don't care, it is a waste of time. There is zero consequence for them when they ignore high profile petitions. This is great for them, because they can simply ignore anything inconvenient or uncomfortable, and then pounce on something that will give them some easy PR points.

The only tool that we have that politicians respond to is the election process. That, aside from the rare criminal investigation, is the only way we can provide politicians with a consequence for their decisions. We can write our representatives, we can call them, we can protest them, we can decide to donate, or not donate, to their campaigns, but none of that actually matters. Only the voting booth matters.

Of course, it doesn't help that the people using the site submit and upvote ridiculous petitions like building the Death Star. If YOU can't take the system seriously, why would THEY take it seriously?

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[Anonymous Coward]

you're an idiot! we live in a republic not a democracy.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[IronChef]

> I'm disappointed the White House has ignored so many petitions ...

There hasn't been action or even acknowledgement of many petitions. But how do we know that they are being ignored? Put your name on the wrong petition, you might put yourself on a list.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[digsbo]

Understand that "democracy" isn't a bunch of enlightened hipsters with progressive views deciding policy

There are enlightened hipsters?

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[Anonymous Coward]

But to be sure, if more than 100,000 people sign their names to a petition the government should at least be required to reply with a thorough, well reasoned response. Most of their replies are boiler plate bullshit, often not even directly about the topic of the petition.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[KermodeBear]

This is a serious concern as well.

The government is, by its very nature, a political animal and has recent events have shown, the People In Power will use the government to target dissenters. The IRS is a perfect example of this (and the use of the IRS as a weapon goes far beyond the targeting of conservative groups from a few years ago). Combined with the extensive data mining and collection the Alphabet Soup is allowed to do (or does anyway, even if it isn't technically allowed to do so), the government is in an amazing position to attack its own citizens.

I know that people say, "Oh, it will never happen," but it already has. Woodrow Wilson signed the Sedition Act of 1918, which forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government. Let us also not forget the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II, executed by FDR.

Complete violations of the First and Fourth amendments - but they happened anyway.

The next time these things happen the result will be far worse because of the collection capabilities.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[fche]

" by putting more power in the hands of regular citizens"

You do that by freeing the regular citizens from others' power: that is by weakening the powers of the state.

Re: This is Important to Discuss

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair the executive branch has interfering with court cases as one of its powers under the constitution. It is called a veto.

Re:This is Important to Discuss

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that as recently as 2011, "democracy" would have cheerfully banned gay marriage?

The US of A is like Apple. Comes late to the party, declares itself first, and ignores everyone that's done it already.

Re: This is Important to Discuss

[HornWumpus]

What? Veto affects legislation. The executive branch can't veto court decisions.

Suffer from identity verification?

[Anonymous Coward]

Petitions suffer from being aye-only, lack identity and location verification, and appear to have other data quality issues.

I don't think they suffer from lacking identity and location verification. The last thing I want is to have my name and address attached to a "bad opinion."

Re: Suffer from identity verification?

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to lack understanding of the basic concept of a petition. Or standing by your beliefs at all...

Re: Suffer from identity verification?

[Anonymous Coward]

The main purpose of a petition is to show that there are X number of people who support (or oppose) Y, with the assumption that all those signatures will have some sort of effect on policy. Traditionally, a list of names are what's used to measure the 'impact' of the petition. With the Internet, we don't strictly need identifying information like that anymore.

A side-effect of a petition (with identifying information), is that you can look up who supports...say "deportation of illegal immigrants." I could very easily get fired just for having my name next to that "bad opinion" on the Internet. How much will my name on that list change policy? Not at all, most likely. How much will my name on that list affect my personal life? Maybe very dramatically. Not worth it.

Not everybody needs to be a die-hard activist for everything. Sometimes I think the world would be a nicer place if we stood by our beliefs a little less. But, maybe that's just me. People are free to disagree.

"We the People" is just talk

[GuB-42]

The petitions only require the government to provide an answer to the question. Nowere it is stated that they must change their plans in any way.
In other words "fuck you" is a totally valid answer.

Re:"We the People" is just talk

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, that's how representative democracy works as a whole.

1) Aspiring politician promises random shit to people;
2) Aspiring politician collects campaign bribes;
3) People vote;
4) IF newly elected, politician collects salary and enacts legislation corresponding to bribes, then GOTO 1;
5) IF elected at least once, go through revolving door.

There is no reason why representative democracy would provide any democratic input to the legislative process at all. Even one term in office is most profitable by following the above algorithm. In practice, a principled/ideological politician occasionally appears, but sometimes they're even worse...

Re:"We the People" is just talk

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very similar to praying for something :D

It is a petiotion

[houghi]

Petion : a formal written request, typically one signed by many people, appealing to authority in respect of a particular cause.

It is a petition. That means they do not mean change or even investigation. It just measures interest.

In a company they can hold a petition and people all (100%) want to have more pay.Some (20%) want to have a dedicated smoking area.
They do not respond to the first one; and do repond to the second one and even do it.

To me petitions are ALWAYS flawed as they do not mean anything. With the smokers: only 20% wanted a dedicated smoking area. What did the 80% want?

Where do you sign if you are not in favour of the petition? Not that I am in favour or against, but if I am not even given the ability to do that, whatr does it mean? It means that petitions are not votes.

They are just a measurement tool of interest and that is all. They do not mean anything else beyond that and if you do not understand what a petition is, why are you writing your name on it?

Petitions are an extension of voting...

[QuietLagoon]

If I sign a petition, I don't expect to have to give my demographic information, or whom I work for, etc.

.
The petition is not law. The petition merely draws more appropriate attention to a matter. Whether anything is done about that matter is up to the governing processes.

Something does not have to be done just because there is a petition in favor of it. Just as something does not have to be done just because you write a letter to your representative in Congress.

Who is talking about 'jeb'?

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA is about that 'petition' thing and that 'jeb' guy has nothing to do with that 'petition' thing

You got a reading problem??

Re:Who is talking about 'jeb'?

[bondsbw]

You got a reading problem??

It appears that the only one here who does is you.

The first comment on this thread clearly spoke about unfulfilled promises of presidential candidates, and the reply presented dialogue about a current presidential candidate making a promise that he is very unlikely to be able to keep (at least, without significant help from other elected officials).

If you have a problem with how on-topic this discussion is, you should be criticizing the first comment... not the response to it.

Petitions suffer from being aye-only, etc

[tompaulco]

"Petitions suffer from being aye-only, lack identity and location verification, and appear to have other data quality issues.". Sounds like we could have avoided wasting taxpayers money and just posted these on facebook. Facebook suffers from the same things.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

It took those morons four years to realize that it was theater from inception and they're still not sure of it? Google "pandering". It's not about Chinese bears.

LOL

Cease and Desist

[Errol backfiring]

Dear Sir,

You are violating Betteridge's law of headlines. Please stop doing that.

Regards,

Errol

Re:Cease and Desist

[sconeu]

No, he's not. He's asking "Mostly Theater?"

The correct answer is, in fact, No. It is COMPLETELY theater.

Entirely theater

[Karmashock]

Why? No compulsion. what we need are national referendums... not petitions.

The difference is that a referendum would carry the weight of law. It would force the government to comply... ideally every law must include an "or else" clause. All good laws have them. Its where punishments are specified for violation.

For a referendum system to work, you'd need a national ID system though. Otherwise script kiddies in Russia are going to make Tuesday Silly Hat day in the US.

Bull. Shit.

[jcr]

I remember the teleprompter-in-chief chortling when some press lackey asked him about the leading petition on that site, which called for legalizing medical marijuana. Motherfucker just laughed it off, never mind what he'd said about it during his campaign.

-jcr

The linked maps are mostly meaningless

[natbrooks]

https://xkcd.com/1138/

Because petitioners tend to be people, and people (oddly enough) cluster around regions of high population density.

Re:The linked maps are mostly meaningless

[theodp]

Like Kingsville, TX (534 signers)?
More detail here, which (you're right) should have been linked to in the submission instead of just the static image. My bad.

Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

One attempting to explore the petition data for the 67,022-and-counting signers of a new petition urging a quick response to a court decision that could cut the time international STEM students can work in the U.S. on student visas after graduation, for example, would be stymied by thousands of missing and non-U.S. postal codes

Wow, that makes no sense. Why would non-U.S. postal codes (e.g. international) be attempting to reduce employment opportunities for international students?

Of course it's theater

[Chris Mattern]

It couldn't be anything other than theater. I can demonstrate why it has to be theater with one example of where this concept is actually implemented: Twitch Plays Pokemon.

"After Careful consideration, we are unable to ..

[Archangel Michael]

consider this very popular call to action because it doesn't suit our political goals. Meanwhile we'll take this less popular goal, and tout how great it is to have this great tool to help promote our favorite causes"

"We the People" is useless, unless it is binding to some degree. And it isn't. It is just a means for Obama (and future presidents) to legitimize pet causes, while ignoring others with equal or greater participation.

In short, it is a great propaganda tool. Nothing more, nothing less.

Internet Petitions

[tkrotchko]

Internet Petitions aren't worth the paper they're written on.

Yeah, but No.

[Gliscameria]

I remember how excited people were when this came out. Then those first couple of petitions went through and the response from the government was reliably more or less "Oh, we understand that you want that, and it sure does sounds neat, but we're not going to do that. Really though, super appreciate the input! TTFN!"

Objection!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not mostly theatre. It is *totally* theatre.

With a heapin' helpin' of allowing an unquestionable response of the position of the administration. The perfect propaganda tool for the government to make its' position known. (The people... nope.)

Ha Ha Ha

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's NOT "about this specific tool, its problems in its current incarnation, and its promise", the problem is that there are still, after 7 years of evidence to the contrary, useful idiots like yourself who actually BELIEVE this was something REAL!!!! You Obamabots are EXACTLY like cult members. If the DNC sends out memos to drink koolaid or eat pudding and then sleep under a purple cloth, you guys will mindlessly do it because: Obama.

This is a problem for society because it means so many complete fools VOTE, offsetting the votes of those of us with fully-functional brains. THERE WAS NEVER any law or enforceable regulation that made these "petitions" in any way operable.

If you loons did a petition for something the Obama admin wanted to do anyway: they did it and then tricked you into thinking you had an impact on policy (which you NEVER DID).

If, on the other hand, you did a petition for something they did not want: they had weeks to say and do nothing (hoping it would go away, they even changed the vote threshold) or they simply told you the evil Republicans were blocking your wonderful idea (turning this into a base-motivating anger-generator).

The Obama admin ignores you and wins either way, while you're too stupid to notice!