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From: David All <da...@davidallgroup.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 10:54:52 -0400
Local: Tues, Jul 8 2008 10:54 am
Subject: Member Web-Use: Not "Allowed"
Please see the alert below from Republican Leader John Boehner warning
about a proposed rule by the arcane House Administration Committee
which would force "outside websites" like YouTube, Facebook, etc. to
comply with their primitive and ridiculous rules before a Member of
Congress is "allowed" to communicate with their constituents.
Not only could this stifle constituent interaction through a medium of
their choice but how exactly does the House Administration Committee
plan to enforce this rule? And won't this limit websites that can't
"afford" to create a new site just for privileged Members of Congress
from being added to the mix of constituent interaction?
As a co-author of the Open House Project's chapter on Member Web-use I
believe that every citizen interested in openness, honesty, and access
to their representative should make their voice be heard on this issue.
I am hopeful that the Sunlight Foundation will issue an immediate
press release on this issue.
**** Internet Freedom Alert ****
From: House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH)
TO: Online Community & Activists
RE: An Attack on Internet Free Speech
DATE: 08 July 08
I’m writing to alert you to an attack on free speech that is making
its way through Congress. This attack, which should concern activists
of all political affiliations across the ideological spectrum, comes
in the form of a new congressional rule that would prohibit Americans
from viewing content published by Members of Congress on websites that
are not “approved†by the Committee on House Administration, the panel
that creates rules governing the internal operations of the U.S. House.
Millions of Americans today utilize free, unregulated and uncensored
websites like YouTube on a daily basis to not only obtain information
from their elected leaders about what’s going on in their government,
but to also give feedback and easily share that information with
others. The advent of new media technology has empowered American
citizens with real-time information about the policy debates and
actions being undertaken by Congress. This has increasingly forced
Congress to become more transparent and made it easier for American
citizens to hold their elected leaders accountable.
The Committee on House Administration is considering a new rule that
could bring this trend to a screeching halt. The Committee is
considering the adoption of new rules that would require outside
websites such as YouTube to comply with House regulations before
Members of Congress could post videos on them. Under the proposal,
the House Administration Committee would develop a list of “approvedâ€
websites, and Members of Congress could post content only such
websites. The rule has been proposed by the Democratic chairman of
the Commission on Mailing Standards, Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA), and
is being considered for adoption by the Committee on House
Administration, chaired by Rep. Robert Brady (D-PA). A copy of Rep.
Capuano's letter is available at http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Capuano_letter.PDF
.
If the proposed rule is adopted, the free flow of information over the
Internet between Americans and their representatives will be
significantly curtailed. Americans who currently use free websites
like YouTube to obtain uncensored daily information about
congressional policy debates will instead be forced to go to websites
“approved†by the House Administration Committee in order to continue
getting such information. This would amount to new government
censorship of the Internet, by a panel of federal officials that is
neither neutral nor independent.
House Republicans, led by Reps. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), Kevin McCarthy (R-
CA), and Tom Price (R-GA), have expressed their opposition to this
attack on Internet freedom and proposed an alternative solution that
would allow Members of Congress to continue posting content at sites
of their choosing. I will continue to keep you updated as this
situation unfolds. For further information, please visit the House
Republican Leader website or contact Nick Schaper, my Director of New
Media Operations, at nick.scha...@mail.house.gov.
__________________________________
David All / President
David All Group, LLC
1920 L Street NW, Ste. 200
Washington, DC 20036
http://davidallgroup.com
http://techRepublican.com
http://slatecard.com
EM da...@davidallgroup.com
__________________________________
Check out our latest project: http://WhereistheRed.com
PH (202) 352 5644
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From: "Clay Shirky" <c...@shirky.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 11:48:13 -0400
Local: Tues, Jul 8 2008 11:48 am
Subject: Re: [openhouseproject] Member Web-Use: Not "Allowed"
> ...how exactly does the House Administration Committee plan to
> enforce this rule?
Don't make the mistake of assuming an unpoliceable rule is also unenforceable.> enforce this rule?
They can enforce it the way we enforce parking rules, which is to miss
most violations, and then bring on draconian enforcement of enough
violations to create a chilling effect. This would also allow the
Rules committee to use enforcement as a selectively wielded stick.
As an analogy, despite two decades of open access journals, academics
still stick to closed access ones, even though those journals are
organized to specifically thwart academic goals of sharing knowledge.
The academics do this because the internal needs of the profession
(which journals matter most for tenure etc.) actually matter more to
them than the stated goals of the institution as a whole.
YouTube et al threaten to bring openness to the House, and to
normalize a channel in which franking privileges create no advantage
for incumbents. In a social environment as tight as the House, the
threat of unlikely but serious punishment, for an activity that
Members may not be in a hurry to embrace or defend anyway, will be
enough to make discussion with constituents out in the open an edge
case.
-clay
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From: "John Wonderlich" <johnwonderl...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 12:57:54 -0400
Local: Tues, Jul 8 2008 12:57 pm
Subject: Re: [openhouseproject] Re: Member Web-Use: Not "Allowed"
My response on Franking reform:
Member Web Use Reconsidered<http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2008/07/08/member-web-use-reconsid...>
- <http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/people/jwonderlich>
POSTED BY
John Wonderlich <http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/people/jwonderlich>
New lines are being drawn about the restrictions Members face when using
the Internet.
House Minority Leader Boehner today released a
memo<http://groups.google.com/group/openhouseproject/browse_thread/thread/...>,
entitled the "Internet Freedom Alert", criticizing a
letter<http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Capuano_letter.PDF>sent by
Rep. Capuano to the Chairman of the Committee on House
Administration.
Member Web use restrictions are among the main Open House
Project<http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/>priorities, and one of the
chapters<http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/the-open-house-project-report/7-me...>of
the report is about the restrictions set by the Franking Commission,
which operates under the Committee on House Administration. (This chapter
was written by David All and Paul Blumenthal.)
Boehner's letter today rightly sounds the alarm about Capuano's newly
proposed Franking commission guidelines. In his letter, Capuano admits that
Web use restrictions need to be redesigned, and proposes that acceptable Web
sites and uses be compiled by the Committee, and that content from Members,
when posted on outside sites, should "meet existing content rules and
regulations", and should "not be posted on a website or page where it may
appear with commercial or political information."
(pdf<http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Capuano_letter.PDF>
)
While reconsidering or reforming these antiquated restrictions is a
laudable goal, the proposed guideline reforms are only a half-measure toward
modernized engagement online, and don't address the underlying problems with
these unnecessary restrictions.
The Committee on House Administration and its Franking Commission are
tasked with making sure taxpayer money isn't spent on commercial or
political advertising on the Web. While there is good reason to limit
incumbents' advantage to be gained online, Capuano's memo overstates the
liability that comes when Members of Congress use popularly accepted
communication tools. Exaggerating the risks online hamstrings Members and
staff at exactly the time when they should be boldly engaging with
constituents.
Communicating online involves only negligible cost, which means that the
potential advantage given to incumbents, or the potential for a conflict of
interest, is only very slight. Imagine a traditional example. No one would
impugn the motivations of a Member who grants an interview to a very small
newspaper in their district, where perhaps their grandchild is a journalist.
Even though such an interview has a distinct financial benefit for the small
paper, Members are free to speak with whomever they wish, and can be
confrontational, or only pick interviews with sympathetic figures, at their
discretion.
This discretion is important. Members need to be able to communicate
freely, and the financial consequences of where their voice is featured are
tiny compared to the possible consequences of trying to limit Members'
speech.
Has it ever occurred that a Member gives interviews to *only* one
particular newspaper? I doubt it. That just isn't the way motivations work
in a political world.
If the potential for conflict of interest or political advertising is so
low the context of the traditional press, then why are we treating the
Internet differently? Is the Internet so unfamiliar, so *public*, that it
should be considered undignified to have a video on the same page as a link
that might link to pornography? That worry was reasonable in 1995, but not
now.
People generally understand the potential of digital communications
tools. Most services are provided without cost, and are open to public
viewing, and, increasingly, public content submission. While this opens the
door for disruptive participation, it also provides us with the immense
potential of our shared digital connection, with consequences as fundamental
as those of the printing press or the telephone.
If Members can use whatever brand of inkpen, or any brand of paper, or
buy whatever shoes they want, they should be given radically expanded
freedom to use the Internet, and make the same empowering discoveries that
their constituents are. Even if that same pen was once used to scribble a
ransom note.
The Committee on House Administration still has a line to draw, and plays
an important function through the Franking Commission in preventing abuse of
taxpayer funded resources. The restrictions, however, should reflect a
balance between the liability they're meant to avoid, and the potential
benefits Congress could realize. The conflict of interest (or
undignifiedness), is minimal, at best, and the potential benefits are
nothing short of revolutionary.
Citizens are overcoming their fears about engaging online, and Congress
should follow suit.
Congressional staff working on reforming Franking restrictions should be
praised for their efforts, and Republican Leader Boehner should be praised
for his bold stance on such reforms.
Posted: July 8th, 2008 Tags:
franking<http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/taxonomy/term/franking/>
- Hide quoted text -
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Clay Shirky <c...@shirky.com> wrote:
--> > ...how exactly does the House Administration Committee plan to
> > enforce this rule?
> Don't make the mistake of assuming an unpoliceable rule is also
> unenforceable.
> They can enforce it the way we enforce parking rules, which is to miss
> most violations, and then bring on draconian enforcement of enough
> violations to create a chilling effect. This would also allow the
> Rules committee to use enforcement as a selectively wielded stick.
> As an analogy, despite two decades of open access journals, academics
> still stick to closed access ones, even though those journals are
> organized to specifically thwart academic goals of sharing knowledge.
> The academics do this because the internal needs of the profession
> (which journals matter most for tenure etc.) actually matter more to
> them than the stated goals of the institution as a whole.
> YouTube et al threaten to bring openness to the House, and to
> normalize a channel in which franking privileges create no advantage
> for incumbents. In a social environment as tight as the House, the
> threat of unlikely but serious punishment, for an activity that
> Members may not be in a hurry to embrace or defend anyway, will be
> enough to make discussion with constituents out in the open an edge
> case.
> -clay
John Wonderlich
Program Director
The Sunlight Foundation
(202) 742-1520 ext. 234
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From: David All <da...@davidallgroup.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 14:42:54 -0400
Local: Tues, Jul 8 2008 2:42 pm
Subject: Re: [openhouseproject] Re: Member Web-Use: Not "Allowed"
If anyone else blogs about this issue, please ping the list.
Thanks,
David
On Jul 8, 2008, at 12:57 PM, John Wonderlich wrote:
- Hide quoted text -
> My response on Franking reform:
__________________________________> Member Web Use Reconsidered
> POSTED BY
> John Wonderlich
> New lines are being drawn about the restrictions Members face when
> using the Internet.
> House Minority Leader Boehner today released a memo, entitled the
> "Internet Freedom Alert", criticizing a letter sent by Rep. Capuano
> to the Chairman of the Committee on House Administration.
> Member Web use restrictions are among the main Open House Project
> priorities, and one of the chapters of the report is about the
> restrictions set by the Franking Commission, which operates under
> the Committee on House Administration. (This chapter was written by
> David All and Paul Blumenthal.)
> Boehner's letter today rightly sounds the alarm about Capuano's
> newly proposed Franking commission guidelines. In his letter,
> Capuano admits that Web use restrictions need to be redesigned, and
> proposes that acceptable Web sites and uses be compiled by the
> Committee, and that content from Members, when posted on outside
> sites, should "meet existing content rules and regulations", and
> should "not be posted on a website or page where it may appear with
> commercial or political information." (pdf)
> While reconsidering or reforming these antiquated restrictions is a
> laudable goal, the proposed guideline reforms are only a half-
> measure toward modernized engagement online, and don't address the
> underlying problems with these unnecessary restrictions.
> The Committee on House Administration and its Franking Commission
> are tasked with making sure taxpayer money isn't spent on commercial
> or political advertising on the Web. While there is good reason to
> limit incumbents' advantage to be gained online, Capuano's memo
> overstates the liability that comes when Members of Congress use
> popularly accepted communication tools. Exaggerating the risks
> online hamstrings Members and staff at exactly the time when they
> should be boldly engaging with constituents.
> Communicating online involves only negligible cost, which means that
> the potential advantage given to incumbents, or the potential for a
> conflict of interest, is only very slight. Imagine a traditional
> example. No one would impugn the motivations of a Member who grants
> an interview to a very small newspaper in their district, where
> perhaps their grandchild is a journalist. Even though such an
> interview has a distinct financial benefit for the small paper,
> Members are free to speak with whomever they wish, and can be
> confrontational, or only pick interviews with sympathetic figures,
> at their discretion.
> This discretion is important. Members need to be able to communicate
> freely, and the financial consequences of where their voice is
> featured are tiny compared to the possible consequences of trying to
> limit Members' speech.
> Has it ever occurred that a Member gives interviews to only one
> particular newspaper? I doubt it. That just isn't the way
> motivations work in a political world.
> If the potential for conflict of interest or political advertising
> is so low the context of the traditional press, then why are we
> treating the Internet differently? Is the Internet so unfamiliar, so
> public, that it should be considered undignified to have a video on
> the same page as a link that might link to pornography? That worry
> was reasonable in 1995, but not now.
> People generally understand the potential of digital communications
> tools. Most services are provided without cost, and are open to
> public viewing, and, increasingly, public content submission. While
> this opens the door for disruptive participation, it also provides
> us with the immense potential of our shared digital connection, with
> consequences as fundamental as those of the printing press or the
> telephone.
> If Members can use whatever brand of inkpen, or any brand of paper,
> or buy whatever shoes they want, they should be given radically
> expanded freedom to use the Internet, and make the same empowering
> discoveries that their constituents are. Even if that same pen was
> once used to scribble a ransom note.
> The Committee on House Administration still has a line to draw, and
> plays an important function through the Franking Commission in
> preventing abuse of taxpayer funded resources. The restrictions,
> however, should reflect a balance between the liability they're
> meant to avoid, and the potential benefits Congress could realize.
> The conflict of interest (or undignifiedness), is minimal, at best,
> and the potential benefits are nothing short of revolutionary.
> Citizens are overcoming their fears about engaging online, and
> Congress should follow suit.
> Congressional staff working on reforming Franking restrictions
> should be praised for their efforts, and Republican Leader Boehner
> should be praised for his bold stance on such reforms.
> Posted: July 8th, 2008 Tags: franking
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Clay Shirky <c...@shirky.com> wrote:
> > ...how exactly does the House Administration Committee plan to
> > enforce this rule?
> Don't make the mistake of assuming an unpoliceable rule is also
> unenforceable.
> They can enforce it the way we enforce parking rules, which is to miss
> most violations, and then bring on draconian enforcement of enough
> violations to create a chilling effect. This would also allow the
> Rules committee to use enforcement as a selectively wielded stick.
> As an analogy, despite two decades of open access journals, academics
> still stick to closed access ones, even though those journals are
> organized to specifically thwart academic goals of sharing knowledge.
> The academics do this because the internal needs of the profession
> (which journals matter most for tenure etc.) actually matter more to
> them than the stated goals of the institution as a whole.
> YouTube et al threaten to bring openness to the House, and to
> normalize a channel in which franking privileges create no advantage
> for incumbents. In a social environment as tight as the House, the
> threat of unlikely but serious punishment, for an activity that
> Members may not be in a hurry to embrace or defend anyway, will be
> enough to make discussion with constituents out in the open an edge
> case.
> -clay
> --
> John Wonderlich
> Program Director
> The Sunlight Foundation
> (202) 742-1520 ext. 234
David All / President
David All Group, LLC
1920 L Street NW, Ste. 200
Washington, DC 20036
http://davidallgroup.com
http://techRepublican.com
http://slatecard.com
EM da...@davidallgroup.com
__________________________________
Check out our latest project: http://WhereistheRed.com
PH (202) 352 5644
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Please update your nickname on the subscription settings page before posting.
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From: deichmans <sh...@deichman.net>
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 18:05:01 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Tues, Jul 8 2008 9:05 pm
Subject: Re: Member Web-Use: Not "Allowed"
> If anyone else blogs about this issue, please ping the list.
http://oz.deichman.net/2008/07/house-of-representatives-v-web-20.html
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From: "John Wonderlich" <johnwonderl...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:47:17 -0400
Local: Wed, Jul 9 2008 12:47 am
Subject: Re: [openhouseproject] Re: Member Web-Use: Not "Allowed"
another post below (not mine). (also note John Culberson's reply in the
comments. Very cool that he's engaging in the comments thread on a post
criticizing his engagement...)
Politician Using Twitter To Ignite Misleading Partisan Fight Over
Politicians Posting To Twitter from the *politics-as-usual* dept Last month,
I posted how cool it was that Republican Congressman John Culberson was really
using Twitter <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080626/1824551529.shtml>to
communicate with people. It was a great use of the technology.
However,
today he's been using Twitter to ignite a totally misguided partisan war,
pretending (falsely) that Democrats are trying to prevent him from using
Twitter. First, he announced on Twitter that "the Dems are trying to censor
Congressmen's ability to use
Twitter"<http://twitter.com/johnculberson/statuses/853019490>claiming
that "They
want to require prior approval of all posts to any public social
media/internet/www site by any member of
Congress!!!"<http://twitter.com/johnculberson/statuses/853128500>Fascinating,
and troubling, if true, but it's not actually true...
(much more post, available
here<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080708/1602521624.shtml>
.)
Culberson's reply available
here<http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20080708/1602521624#c113>
.
Based on the friendfeed and twitter chatter I'm still seeing at this hour, I
expect this to be all over the blogs tomorrow, probably covered from a bunch
of different angles.
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 9:05 PM, deichmans <sh...@deichman.net> wrote:
--> > If anyone else blogs about this issue, please ping the list.
> Done and posted:
> http://oz.deichman.net/2008/07/house-of-representatives-v-web-20.html
John Wonderlich
Program Director
The Sunlight Foundation
(202) 742-1520 ext. 234
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From: "John Wonderlich" <johnwonderl...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:54:30 -0400
Local: Wed, Jul 9 2008 12:54 am
Subject: Re: [openhouseproject] Re: Member Web-Use: Not "Allowed"
Sorry for the repeat emails, but I've just found a compilation of blog posts
and coverage on
friendfeed<http://friendfeed.com/e/210ecb0e-08ea-46d9-92bc-54f598d7f687/Ok-Post-...>
.
The really interesting part of the story might be the way Rep. Culberson
managed to stir up attention through twitter.
Nothing gets attention through social media like hot stories about social
media. :)
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 12:47 AM, John Wonderlich <johnwonderl...@gmail.com>
wrote:
- Hide quoted text -
> another post below (not mine). (also note John Culberson's reply in the
> comments. Very cool that he's engaging in the comments thread on a post
> criticizing his engagement...)
--> comments. Very cool that he's engaging in the comments thread on a post
> criticizing his engagement...)
> Politician Using Twitter To Ignite Misleading Partisan Fight Over
> Politicians Posting To Twitter from the *politics-as-usual* dept Last
> month, I posted how cool it was that Republican Congressman John Culberson
> was really using Twitter<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080626/1824551529.shtml>to communicate with people. It was a great use of the technology. However,
> today he's been using Twitter to ignite a totally misguided partisan war,
> pretending (falsely) that Democrats are trying to prevent him from using
> Twitter. First, he announced on Twitter that "the Dems are trying to
> censor Congressmen's ability to use Twitter"<http://twitter.com/johnculberson/statuses/853019490>claiming that "They
> want to require prior approval of all posts to any public social
> media/internet/www site by any member of Congress!!!"<http://twitter.com/johnculberson/statuses/853128500>Fascinating, and troubling, if true, but it's not actually true...
> (much more post, available here<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080708/1602521624.shtml>
> .)
> Culberson's reply available here<http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20080708/1602521624#c113>
> .
> Based on the friendfeed and twitter chatter I'm still seeing at this hour,
> I expect this to be all over the blogs tomorrow, probably covered from a
> bunch of different angles.
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 9:05 PM, deichmans <sh...@deichman.net> wrote:
>> > If anyone else blogs about this issue, please ping the list.
>> Done and posted:
>> http://oz.deichman.net/2008/07/house-of-representatives-v-web-20.html
> --
> John Wonderlich
> Program Director
> The Sunlight Foundation
> (202) 742-1520 ext. 234
John Wonderlich
Program Director
The Sunlight Foundation
(202) 742-1520 ext. 234
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From: David All <da...@davidallgroup.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 08:21:26 -0400
Local: Wed, Jul 9 2008 8:21 am
Subject: Re: [openhouseproject] Re: Member Web-Use: Not "Allowed"
Might this be a good time to re-ignite The Open House Project? It
looks like there could be some opportunities with Members of Congress
that are paying attention.
David
On Jul 9, 2008, at 12:54 AM, John Wonderlich wrote:
- Hide quoted text -
> Sorry for the repeat emails, but I've just found a compilation of
> blog posts and coverage on friendfeed.
__________________________________> blog posts and coverage on friendfeed.
> The really interesting part of the story might be the way Rep.
> Culberson managed to stir up attention through twitter.
> Nothing gets attention through social media like hot stories about
> social media. :)
> On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 12:47 AM, John Wonderlich <johnwonderl...@gmail.com
> > wrote:
> another post below (not mine). (also note John Culberson's reply in
> the comments. Very cool that he's engaging in the comments thread
> on a post criticizing his engagement...)
> Politician Using Twitter To Ignite Misleading Partisan Fight Over
> Politicians Posting To Twitter
> from the politics-as-usual dept
> Last month, I posted how cool it was that Republican Congressman
> John Culberson was really using Twitter to communicate with people.
> It was a great use of the technology. However, today he's been using
> Twitter to ignite a totally misguided partisan war, pretending
> (falsely) that Democrats are trying to prevent him from using
> Twitter. First, he announced on Twitter that "the Dems are trying to
> censor Congressmen's ability to use Twitter" claiming that "They
> want to require prior approval of all posts to any public social
> media/internet/www site by any member of Congress!!!" Fascinating,
> and troubling, if true, but it's not actually true...
> (much more post, available here.)
> Culberson's reply available here.
> Based on the friendfeed and twitter chatter I'm still seeing at this
> hour, I expect this to be all over the blogs tomorrow, probably
> covered from a bunch of different angles.
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 9:05 PM, deichmans <sh...@deichman.net> wrote:
> > If anyone else blogs about this issue, please ping the list.
> Done and posted:
> http://oz.deichman.net/2008/07/house-of-representatives-v-web-20.html
> --
> John Wonderlich
> Program Director
> The Sunlight Foundation
> (202) 742-1520 ext. 234
> --
> John Wonderlich
> Program Director
> The Sunlight Foundation
> (202) 742-1520 ext. 234
David All / President
David All Group, LLC
1920 L Street NW, Ste. 200
Washington, DC 20036
http://davidallgroup.com
http://techRepublican.com
http://slatecard.com
EM da...@davidallgroup.com
__________________________________
Check out our latest project: http://WhereistheRed.com
PH (202) 352 5644
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From: "Greg Palmer" <jgpal...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 19:30:11 -0400
Local: Wed, Jul 9 2008 7:30 pm
Subject: Re: [openhouseproject] Re: Member Web-Use: Not "Allowed"
This article outlines things pretty accurately, I think.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/07/09/loose-tweets-sink-fleets...
Loose Tweets Sink Fleets,
Congressman<http://www.webpronews.com/user/jason-lee-miller> By
Jason Lee Miller <http://www.webpronews.com/user/jason-lee-miller> - Wed,
07/09/2008 - 5:26pm.
*Sound, fury, and mailing regulations 2.0 *
US Representative John Culberson (R-TX) tweeted
loudly<http://twitter.com/johnculberson/statuses/853128500>in the
spirit of Paul Revere:
"They want to require prior approval of all posts to any public social
media/internet/www site by any member of Congress!!!"
Luckily, Revere didn't have quite the mouthful to warn of the arrival of the
Red Coats—he didn't have Twitter, either. Culberson's alarm was rung just
hours after he discovered and tweeted about a nefarious Democrat
plot<http://twitter.com/johnculberson/statuses/853019490>to prevent
members of the House of Representatives from posting to Web 2.0
citizen media channels like YouTube and Twitter:
"I just learned the Dems are trying to censor Congressmen's ability to use
Twitter Qik YouTube Utterz etc - outrageous and I will fight them "
He still had room for "varmints" there at the end and some "green horny
toads!" Shame the Texas Congressman doesn't utilize the 140 characters
available to him. He does, however, tweet with the
frequency<http://twitter.com/johnculberson>of a twelve-thumbed quail
in a BlackBerry patch.
Culberson has promised all day to corner those responsible—namely Bobby
Brady (okay, "Robert Brady," D-PA), who is chairman of the Congressional
Committee on Mailing Standards, and Michael Capuano (D-MA)—and Qik
them<http://qik.com/>.
His concern stems from a letter Cupuano
sent<http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Capuano_letter.PDF>to Brady
regarding the Committee on House Administration's and the Franking
Commission's approval of official content posted outside the House.gov
domain.
Maybe Culberson will find out when he Qiks them, since he ignored both
TechDirt's Mike Masnick's
<http://twitter.com/mmasnick/statuses/853216602>and Tim
O'Reilly's <http://twitter.com/timoreilly/statuses/853212321> tweeted sleeve
tugs <http://techdirt.com/articles/20080708/1602521624.shtml> (among
others), that the letter is actually about loosening current restrictions,
which regulate how Congressmen can use mass communication devices from
telephones to email <http://cha.house.gov/franking_policy.aspx>. *That is*,
Culberson's upset about an already existing law regarding official content
(is a tweet official?), and has pinned the blame for it on rival party
members.
Those rival party members did seem to be looking for a way to extend the
Committee on House Administration's and the Franking
Commission's<http://gop.cha.house.gov/services/franking_commission_about.htm>authority
to Congress's use of websites and social media sites. Extending
centralized authority would be alarming to any self-respecting Jeffersonian
Republican, no doubt.
However, Capuano's goal in his letter, while extending authority into where
Culberson must have considered a Wild West for talkative Congressmen (it
wasn't), was to make it easier for members of the legislature to communicate
to large groups of constituents outside the official government channels. As
more in Congress become web-savvy and make use of web video especially,
Capuano reports modern communicative possibilities far exceed the capacity
of the government website. In short, we just ain't got the bandwidth for
what the hipper legislators want to do here.
But restrictions on Congressional speech? Like it or not, they were there
well before, set in place (presumably) as a safeguard against classified,
incomplete, inaccurate, or damaging content being released en masse to the
public by a US Congressman. Capacity for abuse? Definitely. But, unlike how
Culberson seems to feel about himself, one cannot (currently) be
simultaneously a legislator and a member of the press, not even the citizen
media.
- Hide quoted text -
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 8:21 AM, David All <da...@davidallgroup.com> wrote:
> John -
> Might this be a good time to re-ignite The Open House Project? It looks
> like there could be some opportunities with Members of Congress that are
> paying attention.
> John -
> Might this be a good time to re-ignite The Open House Project? It looks
> like there could be some opportunities with Members of Congress that are
> paying attention.
> David
> On Jul 9, 2008, at 12:54 AM, John Wonderlich wrote:
> Sorry for the repeat emails, but I've just found a compilation of blog
> posts and coverage on friendfeed<http://friendfeed.com/e/210ecb0e-08ea-46d9-92bc-54f598d7f687/Ok-Post-...>
> .
> The really interesting part of the story might be the way Rep. Culberson
> managed to stir up attention through twitter.
> Nothing gets attention through social media like hot stories about social
> media. :)
> On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 12:47 AM, John Wonderlich <johnwonderl...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> another post below (not mine). (also note John Culberson's reply in the
>> comments. Very cool that he's engaging in the comments thread on a post
>> criticizing his engagement...)
>> Politician Using Twitter To Ignite Misleading Partisan Fight Over
>> Politicians Posting To Twitter from the *politics-as-usual* dept Last
>> month, I posted how cool it was that Republican Congressman John Culberson
>> was really using Twitter<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080626/1824551529.shtml>to communicate with people. It was a great use of the technology. However,
>> today he's been using Twitter to ignite a totally misguided partisan war,
>> pretending (falsely) that Democrats are trying to prevent him from using
>> Twitter. First, he announced on Twitter that "the Dems are trying to
>> censor Congressmen's ability to use Twitter"<http://twitter.com/johnculberson/statuses/853019490>claiming that "They
>> want to require prior approval of all posts to any public social
>> media/internet/www site by any member of Congress!!!"<http://twitter.com/johnculberson/statuses/853128500>Fascinating, and troubling, if true, but it's not actually true...
>> (much more post, available here<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080708/1602521624.shtml>
>> .)
>> Culberson's reply available here<http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20080708/1602521624#c113>
>> .
>> Based on the friendfeed and twitter chatter I'm still seeing at this hour,
>> I expect this to be all over the blogs tomorrow, probably covered from a
>> bunch of different angles.
>> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 9:05 PM, deichmans <sh...@deichman.net> wrote:
>>> > If anyone else blogs about this issue, please ping the list.
>>> Done and posted:
>>> http://oz.deichman.net/2008/07/house-of-representatives-v-web-20.html
>> --
>> John Wonderlich
>> Program Director
>> The Sunlight Foundation
>> (202) 742-1520 ext. 234
> --
> John Wonderlich
> Program Director
> The Sunlight Foundation
> (202) 742-1520 ext. 234
> __________________________________
> *David All* / President
> David All Group, LLC
> 1920 L Street NW, Ste. 200
> Washington, DC 20036
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> EM da...@davidallgroup.com
> __________________________________
> Check out our latest project: http://WhereistheRed.com
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