To reply to the question in the post, I would say that, in the U.S., a number of states have similar portals.
In my home state of Virginia, for example, we can access a number of state services online, including almost all DMV services. This has been around for several years. And, like in France, a lot more will be in place by 2005.
If you are really interested in seeing the government online, the Legislative Information System in Virginia will let you track movement of bills between chambers of the General Assembly and in and out of committees and subcommittees, view sponsors and amendments, let you know the outcome of votes after each stage, and tell you whether the Governor approved or vetoed the measure. The data go back to 1994.
Certainly history teaches that privatised railroads, electricity and water utilities are a bad idea.
Here in the U.S., we have privately-owned railroads (except the passenger railroads), privately-owned electric utilities (in most areas), and privately-owned water utilities (in many areas).
California's recent electricity problems (the result of botched deregulation, not of privatization) aside, private ownership of these critical infrastructure components has not been an overall bad thing.
Imagine if, in 1998, the government had said it would spend $4.5 billion to bring 56K modems to every village by 2001! If this project finishes in 2004, will the rest of us be long past this technology?
Slashdot Mirror
In my home state of Virginia, for example, we can access a number of state services online, including almost all DMV services. This has been around for several years. And, like in France, a lot more will be in place by 2005.
If you are really interested in seeing the government online, the Legislative Information System in Virginia will let you track movement of bills between chambers of the General Assembly and in and out of committees and subcommittees, view sponsors and amendments, let you know the outcome of votes after each stage, and tell you whether the Governor approved or vetoed the measure. The data go back to 1994.
California's recent electricity problems (the result of botched deregulation, not of privatization) aside, private ownership of these critical infrastructure components has not been an overall bad thing.
Imagine if, in 1998, the government had said it would spend $4.5 billion to bring 56K modems to every village by 2001! If this project finishes in 2004, will the rest of us be long past this technology?