Last week when Charles Ellison (an IPDI Fellow this year) blogged

In examining the intersection of technology, public policy and politics, I’ve thought, or perhaps, worried a bit about how that links into our national imagination and sense of purpose.  Does the proliferation of information technology actually contribute in fulfilling and long term ways to the common good?

He managed to strike at an issue I’ve been grappling with, mostly in private conversations, for the last few months.

For the past six years (and mostly during the early part of the past six years), the Internet-politics world seemed to embrace a common theme: the present, with the rise of citizen journalism and individual access to information on the Internet, is much like the rise of the printing press during the 15^th Century, during an era in which religion wove deeply into the daily lives, government, war-making, and commerce. Just as the printing press gave people access for the first time to the religious writings that were previously interpreted for them by the church, so the people of the 21^st century can access – and participate in – the flow of information about politics, current events, international relations, sports, and thousands of other issues. As many people in Europe turned away from the intermediary between humanity and the divine that was the Catholic Church, so people in the 21^st century will turn away from the intermediaries of mainstream journalism, the political establishment, and even the travel industry.

There was so much promise in this metaphor. The printing press started something. The era following its creation and the rise of what we now call Enlightenment thought carried with it so much activity, energy, invention, curiosity – all directed toward finding, building collecting, and, to some degree, improving society. The era we now call the Enlightenment wasn’t perfect. I’m certainly not trying to idealize it (although I am a tremendous fan of the System of the World), nor defend some of its negative consequences.

At the same time, I envy it.

I envy all the activity and energy, the invention, the focus on human potential to create a better government, city, way of viewing the world. I feel somewhat suffocated by the lack of creation in the name of the public good.

What does all the “stuff” we embrace – social media, twitter, widgets, online fundraising – actually do for society?

People build online communities and sites and sell them to the highest bidder. Beyond the sheer giddiness that must inevitably follow after becoming an insta-billionaire, what legacy does any of the things leave on society?

Perhaps the legacy is one of “access?” Greater access for the greater good? If this is the case, then we are certainly failing. Broadband penetration in some of the poorest, most rural parts of the country remains low. If access is our goal, then we are doing a terrible job of it.

Or is the legacy one of success for the few, but not the many? A few weeks ago, I saw a (somewhat) old program on PBS called Buffett & Gates Go Back to School. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates hold an open question-and-answer session for students at the University of Nebraska. One of the students asks Buffett what public good comes from companies like theirs. Buffet turns to Gates, then turns back to the student, and answers that the public good from their companies and the things they create mostly comes from their ability to give money philanthropically as private individuals.

Perhaps I am interpreting Buffett incorrectly, but is the only public good from the Internet boom meant to be the private philanthropic endeavors of its golden heroes – the pet projects they get to pick and choose?

How can we invest more money in building the kind of country that uses all the marvelous gadgets, widgets, social tools, and broadband access to continue the tradition of innovation and invention – not just to make a few billion bucks but to solve local problems and engage the citizens and residents of this country in new ways?

What kind of environment must we create to encourage the current and future generations of Americans to use technology for the greater good? More investments in education? Better rewards for applying technological skills and aptitude in the public arena? Leadership that values and fosters the entrepreneurial spirit?

I loathe to think that all of the potential good of our era (and its technological advances) devolves into frivolity or meaninglessness. Or perhaps we must wait a few more centuries to see this greater good?

A final note: If you have stories that conflict with my doom and gloom, then please send them my way. I’m desperate to collect them.

Back from that cauldron of caustic backbiting known as the Democratic primary, I’m about ready to crack  knuckles and get busy on the IPDI blog.  What’s good?  Lot to talk about, needless to say. 

In examining the intersection of technology, public policy and politics, I’ve thought, or perhaps, worried a bit about how that links into our national imagination and sense of purpose.  Does the proliferation of information technology actually contribute in fulfilling and long term ways to the common good?  It might appear like a non-sensical question at first glance, but there’s some keep it real below the surface.  Whereas there is quite a bit to celebrate or proudly observe with respect to the record number of voters who participated in the Democratic primary this year (defying past apathy and breaking records at ballot lines), there was something also quite problematic about it all.  It’s one thing to get energized over a candidate and to vote for or openly support that candidate, but how informed of a voter are you? 

The explosive growth of blogs and the insance rotation of the 24/7 news cycle blurs the line between accurate information and irresponsible speculation and innuendo.  We the people eat it up. 

But, there’s something else to it all.  The technology, as great as it is, always poses a risk in terms of our collective motivations.  It can, potentially, make us lazy and intellectually lethargic.  True research and information accessibility is lost to the instant gratification of “Googling,” and citizens are no more motivated to confirm rumors over a Presidential candidate’s religion or whether he pledges allegiance than they are in picking a nail stuck in their foot.  There is a worry here that IT overload lulls the collective society into a mass sleep, since there is this feeling that everything, the world even, is literally at our fingertips.  In pushing the concept of a 21st century modern democracy, I’m more worried about intellectual laziness than I am about apathy.  At least with apathy, much of it is connected to a negative reaction and sense of hopelessness rising from disenchantment with the process and its gatekeepers.

I don’t suffer from claustrophobia, but as someone who has had an enduring love affair with science fiction, I have global claustrophobia.  Of being stuck on this planet and not having the luxury - at least in my lifetime - of traveling to other worlds or, at the very least, orbiting earth in a space hotel.  It is a sense that we still haven’t got our collective human act together, and as I’m watching episodes of Battlestar Galactica, I’m thinking that we’re way behind.  We can’t think outside the box of our cyberspace.  The Internet being so vast and infinite, there is a danger that too many users believe they have charted unknown territories already. 

“Why explore space when I have it on my desktop?”

Perhaps, I’m a bit old-fashioned, too.  This is, simply, how societies continue to evolve and technology is here to stay, so live with it.  It’s like music: just because I prefer Tribe Called Quest to Soldier Boy doesn’t mean the former is actually better than the latter; it just means that I’m older and that hip hop has changed or evolved - for better or for worse.

But, I can’t shake this feeling that our heavy reliance on information technology has moved us away from the purely academic but intellectually fulfilling exercise of DIY: doing it yourself.  We are duped into a sense of progress through bits, code and social networking sites. 

Gregg Easterbrook’s nightmarish article in this month’s Atlantic Monthly offers a higher sense of urgency to the argument above:

Given the scientific findings, shouldn’t space rocks be one of NASA’s priorities? You’d think so, but Dallas Abbott says NASA has shown no interest in her group’s work: “The NASA people don’t want to believe me. They won’t even listen.”

NASA supports some astronomy to search for near-Earth objects, but the agency’s efforts have been piecemeal and underfunded, backed by less than a tenth of a percent of the NASA budget. And though altering the course of space objects approaching Earth appears technically feasible, NASA possesses no hardware specifically for this purpose, has nearly nothing in development, and has resisted calls to begin work on protection against space strikes. Instead, NASA is enthusiastically preparing to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars on a manned moon base that has little apparent justification. “What is in the best interest of the country is never even mentioned in current NASA planning,” says Russell Schweick­art, one of the Apollo astronauts who went into space in 1969, who is leading a campaign to raise awareness of the threat posed by space rocks. “Are we going to let a space strike kill millions of people before we get serious about this?” he asks.

We can talk all day about the political reasons for the disastrous lack of common sense described above, but we must also ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: Are we lazy? The fact that we are so comfortable as to lounge back into a somewhat half-baked pre-Copernican worldview that Earth is “aight,” means that we give little thought to the vast universe in which we are a speck of dust.    

Charles D. Ellison, 6.5.08

It’s 2008. We call this the digital era. Yet, in the United States we seem to lack political leaders with a vision for technology, much less an interest in the ways technology can make all levels of government services more efficient, effective, and accessible to regular voters.

Yes, indeed, the rumblings are starting to get a little louder – snuggled, as they currently are, within our niche community of tech-savvy politicos and politics-friendly techies. Is a technology transformation upon us?

For some, the transformation begins when elected officials use technology to listen. There’s a word – listening. In the middle of an election season that has seen a glut of staged conversations, online and offline. Andrew Feinberg rants about some of these so-called listening exercises today at Capitol Valley. There’s a difference between talker at voters and listening to them.

Talkers get headlines. Listeners get things done.

Like fixing potholes and handling case work, increasing the efficiency and efficacy of government programs. A year ago, IPDI published Constituent Relationship Management: The New Little Black Book of Politics, which looks how political campaigns and elected office can use online and offline feedback loops to run case management and constituent communications. Many elected officials and political candidates already use database platforms to help this process.

The next step? Government institutions that employ tech-enabled feedback loops to deliver better goods and services.

In their Politico column, Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry write about some of the ways in which foreign citizens and governments are using technology to listen and act, including e-petitions in the United Kingdom and the government of New Zealand’s wiki for a new Policing Act. As Rasiej and Sifry put it, you can use the Internet to file your taxes, but you can’t use it to make suggestions on how your tax dollars ought to be spent:

Imagine then, that the next time you file your taxes online, your government asks for your feedback on how those tax dollars are being spent. Or it takes your suggestions on how to make a law more understandable. Or it helps you find groups near you that are doing things that benefit your community. It may sound mundane, but today in America, it would be the equivalent of a revolution. How much longer do we have to wait to bridge yet another digital divide?

What about tech policy?

At the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, Robert D. Atkinson writes,

we need a debate in America that focuses on the most important issues like to get fast broadband networks to all Americans; how to use IT to transform our health care system, transportation system, education system, and government; and how to encourage all organizations to become digital, thereby driving productivity and income growth and a better quality of life.

Atkinson thinks that better private-public partnerships can help create an environment of “digital transformation.”

Over at Open Left, Matt Stoller blogs about the successful efforts of blogger and member of the California Democratic Party platform committee, Dante Atkins, to get Net Neutrality in the party platform:

California Democrats, in order to promote vigorous free speech, a vibrant business community, and unfettered access to all information on the Internet, support policies to preserve an open, neutral and interconnected Internet. California Democrats strongly agree with recent rulings by the Federal Election Commission that political communications, including blogging, which take place independent of a political party, committee or candidate, receive a media exemption from campaign finance regulations. California Democrats further reaffirm their support of the right to free speech as expressed in the First Amendment, including the right to critique any elected official or comment on any and all public policy, whether during war or peace, without fear of reprisal.

 Perhaps it is time that we — voters that we are — begin to expect more from our elected officials and encourage digital leadership on our blogs as well as in our voting booths.

Yesterday we hosted Steven Clift for a discussion about eGov. Yes, we held a discussion about eGov amid all the sex and rock-n-roll that is the presidential primary season, when (oddly enough) the actual process of leading may at times get lost in a fog of stump speeches, debate bickering, and negative ads.

In the United States, we’ve become incredibly effective at raising money online – for political candidates, for big, fancy non profits, for issues groups. We’re also good at generating a tremendous amount of noise online.

Perhaps part of the problem results from a lack of executive-level vision about using technology in public leadership. When I talk to leaders about using the Internet, for example, to increase government transparency and build public spaces online, I am more often than not told “you should talk to my webmaster. S/he handles this for me.” Or, “You should talk to my online consultants.” As if every major technology decision trickles hap-hazardly from a few rungs lower on the hierarchy up to the top. As if technology and technology-powered public involvement are too trivial (or overlooked or tedious or technical) to receive a place in the organization’s vision.

Clift thinks that a disconnect occurs between what people want and what politicians want. In a digital age, says Clift, voters expect two-way communications. We want to talk, and we want politicians to hear us before talking back. Politicians want one-way communication.

Where do we go from here, as the excitement of this week becomes that awkward lull between the primaries and the conventions? Clift has a top-five list of things we can do to make digital leadership an important part of the democratic process:

1. Build public life online.
2. Get candidates to make public promises about how they will use the Internet in office.
3. Contribute time and money to public spaces online.
4. Request a new government vision for technology and require more information services online.
5. Demand truly public spaces online, built from the local level up.

Ari Schwartz from the Center for Democracy & Technology has a good metaphor for this. Public parks, he said yesterday, are a precedent. Americans already value the preservation of public spaces in the form of parks. Preserving public spaces online, however, will require building public demand and pressure over time.

Building public spaces is one of the many things Clift does daily. Check out http://e-democracy.org.

We’ll cover the topic at a plenary panel Schwartz is chairing at the Politics Online Conference and a breakout panel Clift will speak on.

Last Thursday I went to the Senate Hart building to mingle with Americans for Prosperity.  They had been running around the Hill all day and were there to hear Senators McCain and DeMint speak; I was there for McCain and some schmoozing.  I couldn’t find the registration table where my credentials were at, so naturally, I walked around as if I didn’t need them.  I spoke with a few people, all of whom were friendly.  I talked politics with a couple of ladies from Ohio.  They, like a lot of people, were undecided and unimpressed with their choices.

The rest of our conversation was cut short by McCain taking the podium.  He spoke for a bit and received a few rounds of applause.  He got a round of applause, from myself as well, when he called on Congress to permanently ban the Internet tax before the moratorium ends November 1.  I then proceeded towards the entrance/exit hallway so I could watch McCain get mobbed on his way out.  And that’s exactly what happened.  To his credit, he took plenty of time to shake hands, pose for pictures, and answer questions.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a Thursday afternoon.

TechRepublican just launched its Tech Policy Series. The first edition pits two conservative politicos against each other in a discussion about Net Neutrality.

In this corner, Phil Kerpen (Americans for Prosperity) argues against Net Neutrality.

A government-run, centrally-planned network would shut down the innovation engine that the Internet has become. It would be a step backward 20 years, ignoring the verdict of the 20th century that central planning doesn’t work. In the absence of any demonstrated mischief by network operators, it would be a serious policy error to embark on a regulatory course that could lead to such an outcome.

And in this corner, Jim Backlin (Christian Coalition of America) argues for Net Neutrality.

This is what the net neutrality debate is really about, at its core: the ability of diverse voices and alternative views to continue to be heard, whether or not it is profitable for Viacom or Disney to air these views. It’s about the ability of conservative activists and candidates to communicate directly to our members and supporters without paying an additional toll to Verizon or AT&T.

You can’t go a day without mentioning Google.

At least, that’s certainly the joke inside the IPDI offices.

That’s why we’ve been passing around blog posts about and YouTube footage of CEO Eric Schmidt recent speech at the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s (PFF) annual Aspen Summit.

We’re particularly interested in the list of Schmidt’s policy priorities (as originally relayed by Tech Policy Summit blog), most of which is what we’d call “user-friendly”:

• Defending free speech
• Promoting universal broadband access
• Backing network neutrality principles
• Calling for government information transparency

YouTube footage on GigaOm.