Archive: Category: TechPresident

Over on O'Reilly Radar, Rep. Mike Honda of California has a guest post up that asks a very important question: "How can Congress take advantage of web 2.0 technologies to transform the relationship between citizens and government? Instead of viewing the public as a customer for services, I believe that we should empower citizens to become our partners in shaping the future of our nation." My hats off to Rep. Honda (and his internet staff guru Rob Pierson) for taking the leap. We all know the water of social media is fine, but most Congressmen are just preening at the edge of the pool with their one-way tweets and staff-written blogs. Rep. Honda is jumping in with both feet. He...

Everyblock's Daniel X. O'Neill argues that NY Attorney Generals in opaque homes shouldn't throw transparency around as a slogan Obama socnet wunderkind Chris Hughes adds to his portfolio, joining VC firm General Catalyst Jury system collides with 21st century. Is the netroots turning on Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick? FluTweet, meet SickCity. Just cover your mouth when you cough, ok? Oh, and the kids at Sunlight will be able to get new sneakers. Yay!"...

Start a meme watch: Is President Obama too dependent on his teleprompter? The Rightosphere has been trying to pump air into this question for a while now. For example, see this "Fox News report" from controversial conservative academic John Lott Jr. (who reportedly sock-puppeted reviews of one of his books on Amazon). AOL blogger Tommy Christopher debunks Lott's story handily. Still, the meme appears to have legs, no doubt because the technology itself is glitchy. For example, RedState catches him and the Irish PM in a minor teleprompter-flub yesterday. Here's how references to Obama and teleprompter appear to be tracking in the blogosphere:...

Today's must-reading: Neil Munro's detailed look at Google's growing presence in Washington. He writes: Executives at online-advertising giant Google are helping President Obama and Capitol Hill legislators get their messages out to the public, but they're facing nascent opposition from privacy advocates and small competitors who say Google is inappropriately using its presence on government Web sites to track users' political activities online. These critics say that Google, aided by the White House, is using "cookie" software and the popular goal of government transparency to boost its own revenues and to build a vast database of citizens' political attitudes. I think Munro paints Google's activities in a more malevolent light than the company deserves, raising the spectre of potential privacy violations from...

Will Turnage, a freelance developer working on RepresentedBy, a really cool Facebook application that he is planning to submit to the Sunlight Labs "Apps for America" contest, has uncovered a seemingly suggestive correlation between how "digitally transparent" a Member of Congress is and how much money they are seeking in earmarks in the 2009 economic stimulus package. He writes, "as digital engagement increases, there becomes fewer and fewer legislators who are sponsoring extremely large earmarks." Here's a table summarizing his findings: Turnage applied the following method to rank legislators by degrees of transparency: Digitally transparent can mean a lot of things to different people, so in an attempt to quantify that, I’ve developed what I’m calling the DTI, or Digital Transparency Index....

Organizing for America brings out the big gun: the President, who is featured in this morning's email blast to his campaign list and via YouTube video. "Passing this budget won't be easy," he says, as the video closes with a big ask. "That's where you come in. That's why I'm asking you to head outside this Saturday to knock on some doors. Talk to some neighbors and let people know how important this budget is to our future. And that's why I'm asking you to stay involved in the days ahead. By writing letters and making phone calls and summoning the spirit that first gave us this chance for change. Now is our moment to seize that chance." Plus, Jeremy Bird,...

Vivek Kundra, the federal government's new Chief Information Officer, has been spotted at his desk, doing his job. We're hearing that Kundra's temporary leave of absence, in the wake of last week's arrest of two individuals running a kickback ring from inside the Washington, DC CTO's office, has been lifted and that he's been reinstated. Obviously, this is very good news for the transparency movement. Stay tuned for more details. UPDATE: The White House is confirming our report. In addition, here's Kit Seelye's post on the New York Times blog, also with White House confirmation. From Nicholas Shapiro, WH assistant press secretary: “Mr. Kundra has been informed that he is neither a subject nor a target of the investigation, and has been reinstated.”...

Politico asks "Are Politicians Spamming YouTube?" Um, Is the Pope Catholic? Federal Computer Week is on Vivek Kundra watch duty. So is InformationWeek, but befitting their name, their information is weak...

The political world is abuzz, wondering whether the first big ask from Organizing for America to its multi-million email list is going to produce a shift in the battle over President Obama's budget proposal. It will take awhile to tell, of course, and the real measure will be in how Members of Congress respond to phone calls from their constituents, and indeed whether OFA can generate a big wave of grassroots pressure. One sign that things may not be gelling quite as nicely as OFA's leaders might hope comes in this look at daily YouTube viewership of OFA director Mitch Stewart's video calling on folks to join the group's "Pledge Project." As you can see, these numbers are pretty low. Could enthusiasm...

Check out this neat experiment in crowdsourcing from congressional watchdog Jerry Brito, the creator of StimulusWatch.org: I have been asked to testify at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Thursday, March 19, 2009. It is entitled "Preventing Stimulus Waste and Fraud: Who Are the Watchdogs?" and it will focus on accountability for stimulus spending. I will talk about how third parties can build interesting tools to help citizens find and sort spending, jobs, and performance information if only government provides the data in a complete, timely, and standardized manner. Below is a draft of my written testimony. As a way to illustrate the concept of crowdsourcing to the Committee (and to make myself seem smarter than...