Some of you are wondering why I wrote so aggressively about Michael Capuano's proposed rules for House use of the web. Simply put, I've tried to work with members of the House and Senate to do neat internet projects (like Legislation 2.0, or putting legislation online), and ethics and franking rules always create bottlenecks to carrying them out. It's very irritating to have a neat project ready to go and be told "I have to ask ethics whether we can host this on an outside website" and then have the project drop because a 55 year old bureaucrat doesn't understand the internet. The mindset here is similar to the one that called the use of blogs a loophole in campaign finance reform laws and argued for regulating them. It's regulation for regulation's sake.
In an example of an early failure to foresee how the Internet would change everyday communication, the rules restricted members from sending e-mails to their family and friends, and from using the Internet to access Web sites that may be considered outside the realm of "official" business. As one House aide later complained, "Some Members say you should be able to e-mail your son, but you can't send franked mail to your son."
- The Open House Project Final Report
For Personal Democracy Forum's Rebooting America, I wrote about something called an Obviousmeter:
The Obviousmeter compares cultural trends and existing power centers and asks, "Can a sixteen year old do something our government can't?" If the answer in any particular area is yes, then that's a place to find out where the future is going to smack us in the ass.
I used the example of members being unable to post Youtube videos on their official web sites as a clear example of how Congress is unprepared for the future. As it so happens, the controversy over member restrictions on web use is now heating up.
The Sunlight Foundation (for which I consult) has started an advocacy campaign called Let Our Congress Tweet to let members of Congress use twitter to communicate with their constituents. Right now, Congresspeople have to clear all internet communications with the Franking Commission, a body that censors speech to make sure it's not 'political' in nature. In the 1970s, members used their 'franking' powers, which is just a complicated way of saying that members are allowed to mail their constituents for free, to advocate for their reelection and solicit political funds. This is now illegal, and rightfully so. It's not fair that members get to mail their constituents on the government's dime for their own reelection, since that helps incumbents at the expense of challengers. They do it anyway, on both sides, like Dave Reichert and Leonard Boswell, who send out huge glossy brochures to their constituents during election season. But they shouldn't, because it's illegal and an abuse of power.
What does this have to do with Twitter? And who really cares about Twitter? Good questions, which I'll answer.
Here's one reason Congress seems so unresponsive. It's a small example of the bureaucratic hurdles in bringing Congress into the 21st century, and it is frustrating younger staffers to no end.
Hey all,
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but my boss sits on the Franking Commission, and two weeks ago we had a meeting about this very topic. As current policy stands, you cannot embed YouTube videos on your website - currently, 100+ offices are doing it anyways, and they are in violation of the House Administration Committee's rules. The Committee is currently in the process of deciding how to handle the offices that are not in compliance with the rules as they relate to YouTube specifically.
While YouTube is the easiest way to get videos on your website, the only permissible means of posting videos is by using House resources (for more information, contact webassistace@mail.house.gov).
If you have any other questions about the issue, feel free to pitch them at me. The meeting that took place a few weeks ago was a riot in the sense that half of the Members there had no idea what YouTube, MySpace, or many of the other popular websites.
[name withheld]
Hey all,
I'm trying to figure out whether or not it is kosher to use YouTube to embed videos onto your website.
Web solutions says that they have never heard of YouTube not being allowed, but then I also heard that a web page with an embedding Youtube clip would not be approved by franking.
My goal is have Youtube videos (floor / committee proceedings mostly) on our front page.
If anyone has any input on this that would be awesome. Sorry for the mass email!
[name withheld]
The Franking Commission is a kafka-esque agency that tends to want to see all communication before approving it, which is precisely the opposite of the web. There are lots of interesting problems here but basically the situation is a mess and prevents members from communicating on forums, over video, and on many sites across the internet. It's as if someone sat down and said: "Let's create the most powerful and important set of public spaces imaginable, and then make sure members and Senators can't use them."
Transparency is going to be a key theme of the next twenty years of politics regardless of who comes into Congress and the White House. I did some work on The Open House Project to deal with problems like this, which are natural and not really anyone's fault, since we really are at a revolutionary moment.
If you want to see what the future might look like once we get through these problems, check out PublicMarkup.org. It's a mix of wiki, blog, and committee hearing, and the subject is transparency. I expect to see a huge number of bills take this form in the next few years and bring in untold and unimaginable power for citizens as we learn to group around policy decisions, but we're going to have to deal with bureaucratic obstacles like the Franking rules as we go. For longtime OpenLeft readers, PublicMarkup.org is the equivalent of Legislation 2.0, a discussion we did on OpenLeft and Redstate about broadband policy.
