Midnight Rulemaking
OMB Watch sez:
Saturday's New York Times has an article about the White House's new policy setting deadlines for any regulations agencies intend to finalize during the Bush administration. The policy, outlined in a memo sent by Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, says, "Except in extraordinary circumstances, regulations to be finalized in this Administration should be proposed no later than June 1, 2008, and final regulations should be issued no later than November 1, 2008."
Bolten issued the memo under the guise of reversing "the historical tendency of administrations to increase regulatory activity in their final months" — commonly known as midnight regulations. In reality, the memo may simply change when the clock strikes midnight in order to insulate potentially controversial rules from disapproval by a new administration.
Read OMB Watch's analysis.
Continue readingCrowdsourcing Parliamentary Video
Our friends at MySociety.org have a new crowdsourcing project that's really neat.
They have added video of debates in the House of Commons on their TheyWorkForYou.com Web site and are asking individuals to help match up each speech with the corresponding video clips. Wow. They are crowd sourcing all the work that the technologists behind Metavid have been doing themselves for C-SPAN coverage of Congress. Recently Metavid has added ways for you to help too.
TheyWorkForYou.com provides a randomly-selected speech from Hansard, the printed transcripts of debates in Parliament. You can search the video for the correct snippet. You then timestamp the video by hitting one button button.
MySociety.org has set up a "top timestamper" contest as well. Check it out.
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GAO on DOD
Last week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that details the extensive revolving door where former Department of Defense officials are now working for defense contractors, creating glaring conflicts of interest.
GAO's report found that in 2006, defense contractors employed over 86,000 former DOD employees who had left the agency since 2001. The report found instances where former DOD officials were working on contracts under the responsibility of their form agency, office or command. And they found nine instances where former officials are working on a contract "for which they had program oversight responsibilities or decision-making authorities while at DOD."
This isn't a newly recognized problem. A 2004 report by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) on the revolving doors between the government and large private contractors found "conflict of interest is the rule, not the exception."
Continue readingTransparency, Bush Administration Style
The Washington Independent reported late this week on the Bush Administration's Orwellian use of the word "transparent" to describe its disregarding scientific opinion in favor of corporate interests in setting regulatory policy.
Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson used the new pet word last week to describe the process used to reverse EPA recommendations for limiting smog. Appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Johnson said of the administration's decision, "It's been a very transparent process." As if.
The next day, another Bush Administration official, the top regulatory officer with the Office of Management and Budget, used the word to describe new EPA rules that allow the Pentagon and industry to keep the EPA from evaluating toxics. OMB Watch has a helpful factsheet on the decision. Incredibly, the White House has the nerve to call this transparency.
One thing is transparent alright -- the Administration's total co-option by corporate interests. They don't even try to hide it anymore.
Continue readingProject Vote Smart Rocks
Richard Kimball wrote today to say that Project Vote Smart's Voter Self Defense "Manual" is complete. He thanked seven different people and organizations for our ideas and for helping make it happen. But in fact, it's the tens of millions of Americans who use this site who should be thanking him and Vote Smart's remarkable staff and volunteers for what they have created.
Usage of the site has exploded. It gets as many as 7 million hits a day (you read that right, that's hits per day) -- a 2300% increase over any other election year first quarter. Their estimate is that will get some 30 million hits by the election's end. Cite those stats to people who pooh-pooh American's interest in politics.
One hundred and fifty-four organizations, Clear Channel, LA Times, Gannet News Service, Dish Network among others are using their APIs to enrich their own reporting. (Sunlight modestly helped Vote Smart's able technologists in this arena.) Vote Smart aggressively developed their APIs because of the core desire to give everythin g they have to anyone might be able to use it, multiplying their work many-fold. Theory proven right.
Many kudos Vote Smart friends. Job well begun! (The job is never done...)
Continue readingNetSquared Year 3
I’m in
Follow the minute by minute conference action as updated by N2Y3 attendees, bloggers and vloggers.
What's happening at N2Y3 will be updated by their dedicated bloggers and vloggers (tagged n2y3media). These posts will be unedited so a well balanced perspective is ensured.
Watch interviews with attendees on the NetSquared blip.tv channel, follow real time updates on the Net2 Twitter feed.
It’s all about the 21 Featured Projects.
Telecom’s K Street Buy
Glenn Greenwald's latest column illustrates how telecom companies are attempting to buy amnesty from Congress through a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign. He is dead on by calling the effort "a perfect microcosm for how our government institutions work."
By accessing the Center for Responsive Politics' lobbying database, Greenwald reports that in the first three months of this year, three telecom companies (AT&T, Verizon, Comcast) have spent a combined $13 million lobbying Congress. If they maintain this pace throughout this year (and what's to stop them?), the three companies will spend $50 million. Nonprofit groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are leading the fight against amnesty. Greenwald links to a post by Kurt Opsahl, EFF senior staff attorney, on his organization's Deeplinks Blog. Opsahl makes the point that "AT&T's spending for three months on lobbying alone is significantly more than the entire EFF budget for a whole year, from attorneys to sysadmins, pencils to bandwidth."Wanna place any bets on the outcome of this one?
Continue readingDepartment of the Interior Reconnects
You can't make this stuff up.
Earlier this month, a federal judge's ruling lifted a seven-year court order that prevented 10,000 federal employees in hundreds of offices nationwide to be connected to the Internet at their desks. he employees work for five agencies within the U.S. Department of the Interior, with the Bureau of Indian Affair being one.
The ruling came out of a class-action suit brought by Native Americans who charge the Interior Department has botched trust records and accounts dealing with their land. Employees will now be connected to the Internet and email at their computers, and will no longer be forced to leave their desks to use a set of limited number of computers and fax machines.
Sp much for government working in the connected age.
Hat Tip: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Continue readingShow Us the Real Story
Nick Penniman, my friend and former colleague, has launched American News Project, a promising venture that's moving into the online video journalism world.
During the development of this project, Nick and I discussed how important it is to focus on the frequently overlooked stories and to show up, ready to film, where "traditional" journalists fear to tread -- covering Washington's behind the scenes decision/deal-making. Think of all the congressional hearings that aren't front page news, but should be, or advisory council meetings where corporate lobbyists advise policy makers out of the public's view. Lobbyists on their way into and out of the Capitol should be buttonholed: who are you meeting with and what did you talk about (maybe a regular feature?); lawmakers should be asked why they voted ‘yea' or ‘nay' on legislation as they leave the floor after a vote or what the last favor was they did for a "constituent." (Surely they would admit to some.) Freshman lawmakers should be interviewed about their vision for serving their constituents and their constituents should be interviewed to see if their expectations are the same.
The American News Project can make the information in databases come alive. Imagine looking at the wealthiest or poorest members of Congress and then showing us the homes in which lawmakers. Put some faces to the names of those who've been through the revolving door from the Capitol to K Street. Let's see footage of the private jets that ferry some members (still) in and out of Washington. Give some texture to earmarks with footage of the roads and bridges widened or bombers being built. Show us what our money buys.
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