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Exposing a closed Congress to Open Source: Change Congress
arstechnica.com — The goal of Change Congress, Lessig explained, is to fight the influence of money in politics by exacting pledges from candidates and lawmakers to personally eschew lobbyist and PAC money, as well as supporting a series of legislative reforms, and then use the distributed eyes of the Internet to ensure that they stick to their promises.
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- iAlex, on 03/24/2008, -5/+8They should do the same thing with the senate so people can see senate votes.
- swrostmore, on 03/24/2008, -2/+3What?
- iAlex, on 03/24/2008, -5/+1Maybe you could apply this to the senate aswell, that's what I meant.
- insllvn, on 03/24/2008, -2/+7The senate is part of congress.
- capiCrimm, on 03/24/2008, -3/+4while true, a layperson normally refers to the house of representatives as congress. Possibly because we use the terms congressman and senator and not representative and senator. He's wrong, but it is an understandable mistake.
- insllvn, on 03/24/2008, -2/+7The senate is part of congress.
- iAlex, on 03/24/2008, -5/+1Maybe you could apply this to the senate aswell, that's what I meant.
- kazamx, on 03/24/2008, -2/+2Its not going to happen. The US were pretty much the only big country to say that OOXML from Microsoft was fine on the first draft. The only other countries saying yes were ones bought out by Microsoft. Even someone who knows nothing about the format knew that it (at the very least) needed more work before it was ready.
The US needs Microsoft, they fetch in billions and billion every year in exports, there is no way that they won't do everything they can to help them. Why do you think the US has never taken real action against their monopoly, while the EU has.
The US wont help OpenSource if it will harm exports to the rest of the world.
- swrostmore, on 03/24/2008, -2/+3What?
- cdemi, on 03/24/2008, -4/+7that thumbnail spoiled the whole article
- RuffRidr, on 03/24/2008, -0/+5Great idea! It'd also be nice to remove earmarks (ie. pork) from all bills. I'm talking to you Harry Reid.
- Omega697, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Um, that is one of the four parts of the Change Congress pledge. To ban earmarks.
- bgrah449, on 03/24/2008, -1/+20If there was some way I could spend 10 minutes in the morning, while I'm sipping coffee, to check the source of contributions for a few congressmen, and flag anything I thought was suspicious for further review by a board, I'd sign up in a heartbeat. Maybe "adopt" like 10 congressmen and focus on their contributions.
- fkr3, on 03/24/2008, -3/+1The problem with that model is everybody - informed, uninformed, biased, unbiased - is going to have some problem with some source of contributions which would result in everything always being flagged for review which would require a team of reviewers for every source of contributions for every congressmen, who would then be too busy being reviewed constantly to actually do their job.
I guess it'd create jobs at least.- djruden, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3So far it's working alright for wikipedia so I see no huge problems.
- fkr3, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Really? Is that why they have to spend so much time repairing vandalism, locking articles etcetera?
- bgrah449, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1I don't think anyone would argue that Wikipedia isn't a better encyclopedia than it was 6 months ago; or that 6 months ago, it wasn't a better encyclopedia than it was 6 months before that. The point is that despite inappropriate flagging (i.e., error and vandalism), the project has moved forward. There is no reason to suggest that couldn't happen with something like I proposed.
- djruden, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3So far it's working alright for wikipedia so I see no huge problems.
- fkr3, on 03/24/2008, -3/+1The problem with that model is everybody - informed, uninformed, biased, unbiased - is going to have some problem with some source of contributions which would result in everything always being flagged for review which would require a team of reviewers for every source of contributions for every congressmen, who would then be too busy being reviewed constantly to actually do their job.
- philodygmn, on 03/24/2008, -4/+3We need to start electing -- and authoring, ourselves -- legislation, and not legislators. Combination Wikipedia and Digg. No, I'm not joking.
http://web.mac.com/dynamist/iWeb/dynamist/ideas/50 ...- capiCrimm, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3I think the problem is not how the laws are made, but that too many moral laws and one-off laws are put into place. I don't see giving legislative power to the masses decreasing that, but only increasing it.
I'd prefer some level of anarchy. - waspbr, on 03/24/2008, -0/+5I know you are not joking , that's what makes it funny
- fkr3, on 03/24/2008, -0/+4The last thing any country needs is a crowd of idiots on a digg-style site calling the shots, let alone enabling any retard to change it at any time.
- capiCrimm, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3I think the problem is not how the laws are made, but that too many moral laws and one-off laws are put into place. I don't see giving legislative power to the masses decreasing that, but only increasing it.
- AManWithNoName, on 03/24/2008, -2/+1iAlex: Congress is the Senate AND the House of Representatives...Basically, the entire legislative branch of the government is considered part of congress. At least, the parts that truly mean anything.
Our government needs a complete overhaul. We've had a good run with our constitution, but it's outdated. This will be a good first step. Maybe after this, we can move on to removing that damn electoral process.- multifacet3d, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2So you are saying that we need to do away with our archaic constitution??? You may want to reconsider that statement my friend.
- Pfhor, on 03/24/2008, -1/+1I see no problem with calling a new constitutional convention. The act of calling a new convention wouldn't necessarily mean that the old draft is thrown out. It would mean, however, that it's contents are throughly reviewed. It would also mean that amendments like the bill of rights could be directly placed in the constitution. Holding a convention every century would, at the very least, raise public awareness about the document.
- Rekutyn, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Only if we get to opt-out of the Federal Government, each draft, on a state-by-state basis ;)
- Pfhor, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Why? Passing amendments is just a less formal process of revising the constitution. You don't see states opting out of the Federal Government after a new amendment is passed, do you?
- Rekutyn, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Only if we get to opt-out of the Federal Government, each draft, on a state-by-state basis ;)
- Pfhor, on 03/24/2008, -1/+1I see no problem with calling a new constitutional convention. The act of calling a new convention wouldn't necessarily mean that the old draft is thrown out. It would mean, however, that it's contents are throughly reviewed. It would also mean that amendments like the bill of rights could be directly placed in the constitution. Holding a convention every century would, at the very least, raise public awareness about the document.
- multifacet3d, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2So you are saying that we need to do away with our archaic constitution??? You may want to reconsider that statement my friend.
- laserblazer, on 03/24/2008, -2/+3Maybe if Congress could stop smoking GW's pole for a minute they'd get something done.
- yoshman, on 03/24/2008, -0/+13Unfortunately, most politicians would shoot this down as fast as they can. Why would they want to give up their bonus checks?
- Khast, on 03/24/2008, -0/+0Too bad "we the people" can't put something like this in place to give our government a true checks and balances.
Like Yoshman said, this would be shot down very quickly, because there is so many little bonuses which our government gets to do corporate bidding. - TsuruchiBrian, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3Why would congress ever do this? There is nothing in it for them. Only people voting these D-bag politicians out of office would ever fix this, and for that they'd have to stop watching reality TV 1 night every 2 years.
- galleryfront, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2EVERYONE should visit http://change-congress.org
Locate and embed that blip.tv video onto your sites/social sites/blogs/etc. - dakong27, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2Building tools like this and opensecrets.org are a big step toward reclaiming our democracy and freedom. But the real trick is changing our culture to one that will use them. At the moment, the average American is quite passive when it comes to civic involvement. You can put any number of fine tools in front of them, but it won't help if they either don't know how or don't care to pick them up.
So the burden is on those of us who do care and do know how to use them and teach those we know how to use them and understand why they should. If you have kids, teach them how to vote by taking them with you when you vote. Have them sit next to you while you use Lessig's site or opensecrets.org. Talk to them about what's going on in the world and country. If you don't have kids, talk to your friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors. Only 5 in 50 will listen and act, but that's still a 500% increase over it just being you. - oldgal, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3At least someone is trying. If you don't try you never get there. Nice to see a proposed solution set instead of a set of complaints.
- kd1s, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1I feel fortunate to have been part of an open government initiative here in Rhode Island under then Secretary of State Matt Brown.
We rolled out things like lobbytracker which allows you to see what lobbyists are registered, who pays them, and on what bills they either approve or reject. It's rather enlightening to see where the money goes.
The other initiative was a thing called Billtracker that scraped the legislative journals and pulled out relevant bill information. It never got approved for publication because the legislature put up a stink about it.
But we tried our damnedest to shine the disinfectant sunshine on the political process.
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