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Lessig Bets On the Net To Clean Up Government
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:30 AM
from the change-congress dept.
from the change-congress dept.
christian.einfeldt writes "Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig really 'gets it' when it comes to the efficacy of distributed open source code production. Now he is attempting to use distributed production methods to expose corruption in the US Congress with the launch of another 'CC' organization — this time it's called 'Change Congress'. CC (as opposed to cc for Creative Commons) would invite users to track whether US legislators are willing to commit to Change Congress' four pledges. CC will rely on users to record and map the positions of candidates who are running for open seats in the US House and Senate. Change Congress will use a Google mash-up to create a map depicting which legislators have taken the CC pledge, which have declined, and which have signaled support for planks in the Change-Congress platform. The four pledges (which are not numbered 0 through 3) call for greater transparency in government, and less influence of private money in shaping legislation."
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Augean Stables (Score:3, Funny)
I think I'll head over and sign up.
Hand me a mop and some bleach, bro.
It's the spending stupid. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Given Budget for year is X. If spending = X + 10% then all government employee pay is REDUCED the amount of the overage or 10%. If spending = x -10% for that year then government pay goes up say 5% In plain language: cut pay when the budget is missed. One year of this and the wastrels woud be voted OUT by workers interested in the bottom line. See? told'ya it would
Is he serious? (Score:2, Insightful)
Repeat after me - "In terms of fundamental human behavior, the internet has not, and will not, change JACK SHIT."
Politics is the way it is because of fundamental human behavior - greed, ambition, and apathy. No "series of tubes" will change that.
Re:Is he serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the "Internets" changing anything, it's the people using it making that change possible.
Parent
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Please don't forget that many wrong voices don't make right. The danger of mobs is mob rule at the expense of the minority rights.
In most cases, these "minority rights" (sic) of which you speak are corporate special interests, so they don't even deserve the label "rights" in the same sense as human rights, voter rights, etc. Yet they still seem to be put first in the current system.
In any case, this project won't force the system to change - all it does is effectively add a greater degree of transparency. Its up to the people to force the changes they want.
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Re:Is he serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, I guess I'm just going to have to refute you instead. The Internets have already changed politics as we know it, just like every other technological advance. Radio. TV. Mass-Mailing, Telephones... all changed the political fundraising and activity landscape as campaigns used these to reach their voters and to fund their campaign. In recent history, the 2004 election was dramatically change
Re:Is he serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Should all technological innovations should be ignored as they don't change human nature, nor could they influence something that does, such as education? I'll agree that humanity has changed very little in the past 2,000 years, and the fundamental nature of politics hasn't changed much - there's still deception, ambition, alliances, etc., however it has changed the effectiveness of certain aspects. Voters (a largely foreign concept 500 years ago) are now more educated, the butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the world causes hurricanes where it was ignored before, ideas can spread to the masses very quickly, etc.
So while maybe the fundamental nature hasn't changed, but how things are gone about certainly does. Your position is akin to saying that because the objectives of war are the same (erode your enemy's will to fight), machine guns, airplanes and the drastically increasing importance of public opinion are unimportant in war, when in fact they've fundamentally changed how it is fought, even though the fundamental goal is the same.
Parent
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Politics is the way it is because of fundamental human behavior - greed, ambition, and apathy. No "series of tubes" will change that.
Yeah, I mean it doesn't change anything that an information takes 100 ms to cross the country or 10 days. It doesn't change anything that anyone can search in news archives freely and in the blink of an eye.
The former makes it possible to have a less centralized government, the latter makes a transparency policy possible and cost-effective. Lobbyism is called corruption in other countries. It is not an inevitable flaw of any political system, it is a correctable flaw of the US political system. Lessig t
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The riots of the people in Myamar earlier this year are a good example of how the internet is changing the world. Without the internet, word would not have gotten out about the huge protests, monks getting killed, etc. The country had a clampdown on all other media (and thought it did on the internet), so we would not have heard anything about it.
Now the fact that nobody did anything other than to say pretty words is a completely different topic.
Hopeful (Score:3, Insightful)
Could *NOT* care less! (Score:2)
Realize it or not, the fact that Government is screwing the people is related to the fact that people accept lies as truth. "Could care less" means caring a lot, which is exactly the opposite of what you mean to say. It's the same kind of thing as instituting a program called the PATRIOT act to screw the citizens, or saying "we do not torture" but vetoing a ban on waterboarding. Democracy is damaged when the truth
Re:Hopeful (Score:4, Interesting)
There would be nothing stopping a candidate from publishing their answers on flyers that voters could take into the polling station and copy, but at least it would encourage them to actually know what the candidate believes in. And then you'd have a legal, public record that could be compared against their track record at the next election.
Parent
Nerds for Congress (Score:2)
Public Financing : Bad, Earmarks, Good (Score:3, Insightful)
First, I would advocate the internet model, with transparent donations. Let anyone donate any amount of money directly to their candidate of choice, and just have full disclosure over how much and who got what. If your candidate is 'Bill Gates boy', then it will be duly noted. But at the same time, if you work for Microsoft and are from that area economy, betting on 'Bill Gates boy', might well be in your interest.
Secondly, I have no problem with earmarks. Earmarks are comparatively small part of the federal budget and generally go towards pet district projects that generally do benefit the community from that district. If you don't like the way your Senator or Congressman does earmarks, don't vote for him or her.
If you want to really attack corruption in Washington, it is time to really dismantle the twin industrial complexes of defense and medicare. The defense industry is hip deep in all sorts of cosey relationships with the few mega-contractors that are left, and medicare is basically a buddy boy of the pharma industry. Any time a cut is threatened on both, we are treated to visions of [fill-in-the-blank country of origin] bombs exploding over all of our cities, or, millions of people dying because they were denied the latest $1000 a day super pill that only has marginally better efficacy than a $10 a day pill.
Sometimes, you just have to cut your risk aversion investments and focus on growth. No matter how much money we spend on security, if someone wants to bomb us, that bad, they are going to bomb us. And, people are going to die, no matter how much we spend.
So let's cap medicare and cut defense.
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Many (most?) congressmen run unopposed when running for re-election. Plus it's done by just about everyone, so there's almost no one to vote for who won't do it. The only option is not to vote, which won't change anything.
Earmarks are comparatively small part of the federal budget and generally go towards pet district projects that generally do benefit the community from that district.
We're still talking about b
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Something else that a lot of people seem to miss is that pork=jobs. A congressman who brings jobs to a district with high unemployment will always be reelected.
A lot of Americans live out in the boondoggles where there is no work and industry has no reason to build. It takes public works programs and bribing industry to relocat
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I thought it odd that public financing was on the list too. It's been discussed here in the UK, and the prevailing opinion seems to be that nobody wants taxpayers' money to be spent on the campaigns of parties like the BNP [wikipedia.org]. Every system of party campaign finance is going to be flawed, but this seems like a flaw that nobody wants to stomach.
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If the result is public financing putting the Greens, Libertarians and SWP on the same footing as the Democrats and Republicans, that would be a dream come true for me. Since it's going to be the Republicans and Democrats passing any such law, I have no reason to think they are going to let go of their m
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You misunderstand how the system works. Taxpayer funding for elections works just fine in Canada and other civilized countries. Ensuring fairness is trivially easy, and it cuts those idiotic two-year American campaigns to a matter of weeks. And our politicians actually do real work, instead of spending every moment trying to raise more money so they can outspend their rivals in the next election.
There's still problems in Canada relating to lobbyists and special interests, and the system (though better
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First off, Americans actually like the elections and the democratic process, which is why we revel in it so much.
4 pledges (Score:5, Informative)
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Eliminating the two-party system for lot
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But if the rules are done right, while it would be possible, I'll bet it wouldn't be very lucrative. I also suspect it would be *cheaper* than what we have today, where there are fewer are involved, but their "take-home" is a heckuva lot higher.
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Easy enough to fix. If the campaigns are publicly funded, then the amount of money handed out is known in advance. Then, demand that the candidates hand over invoices & receipts for the monies spent on the campaign, and all remaining monies. There: no living off the campaign funds. Sounds pretty reasonable to me!
Actually, in Australia, I believe the bulk of campaign funds are public in origin. Unfortunately, we also permit private & corporate donations, which means we still have a certain amount
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I never understood this one. Put the people worried about getting re-elected in charge of giving out money to their opponents? No room for corruption there huh?
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The idea is to remove the money disparity that people achieve by promising all kinds of things to deep-pocketed corporations and PACs.
Pers
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So the money will have to come straight from the heads of the oligarchy. The biggest open secret about politics is that all interests are "special interests". Banning money from lobbyists and PACs is just a way to shut out large groups of people that have NO power individually. If the politicos aren't being paid, they will have no reason to listen. At the end of the day, will Elizabeth Dole (my senator) listen to the CEO of Boeing and American Airlines, or a simple
Use the 'net to draft legislation with wiki's (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jan/29/skiers-might-get-become-citizen-lawmakers/ [rockymountainnews.com]
I think it's a great idea. To me it's one of the greatest ideas for implementing true democracy that I've ever seen.
Voters aren't the solution, they're the problem. (Score:2)
And who is watching? (Score:3, Insightful)
The formation of this watchdog group, or any grassroots organization that aspires to be a movement, assumes that people have an non-short attention span. I think that's a poor assumption and most marketers would agree. It's a long known lesson that most people are far too lazy to pay attention for even a few seconds.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll reach for my remote control and go back to watching the pablum that network television is spewing. Change Congress? Well, maybe I'll change the channel.
Lessig, Ashdown, and the Internet-savvy politician (Score:2)
Re:Lessig, Ashdown, and the Internet-savvy politic (Score:2)
There, interpreted that for you.
- Humma Kavul, missionary of the Jatravartid people
I'm almost impressed. (Score:2)
I love the idea and sincerely hop it works. I'm critiquing it here in hopes they'll improve it farther. I want this thng to work!
I say "Partially" broken because the Google Map takes so long to load it SEEMS to not work; one would click a page link or the "back" button long before the map loaded. Perhaps I'
All politics is local (Score:2)
That can be as simple a thing as replacing the cross-town bridge. It can as complex as providing food, medical care and housing for the elderly.
The winning candidates delivers the goods.
The present mood isn't for political reform as the Geek understands it.
It is a demand for attention to pressing domestic needs and a deep-rooted fatigue with the ideologues of the left and the right.
Transparency is the best solution of the 4 pledges (Score:3, Interesting)
While we like to think of politicians as corrupt, money-grubbing jerks who'll take money from any lobbyist in order to stay in office, the truth is that most politicians already believe in certain causes and will gladly take money from their allies in those causes. The NRA is not likely to change the mind of an anti-gun senator with promises of money. That senator is likely getting money from an anti-gun group already, since that group's aims match his own. Perhaps this would be less true of corporate lobbying, but transparency could help alleviate this by letting voters see who a politicians allies are. If a politician were known to be taking Archer-Daniels money, and that politician then voted for more ethanol subsidies, I might be less likely to vote for him next time. Long story short, I don't think there is much quid-pro-quo going on, it's more an aligning of interests between pols and PACs. This is not to mention the potential freedom of speech issues of banning lobbying. After all, everyone has the right to petition the government.
2. Vote to end earmarks
This is kind of like laws against profanity - "I know it when I hear it". One man's earmark is another's worthy cause. It would be ideal if we could prevent earmarks, but defining exactly what an earmark is in such a way as to make it difficult or impossible to pass another earmark without also impacting useful legislation is practically impossible. English is a rich language that lets you say one thing and mean another in some cases, and politicians are especially adept at using the language to get what they want. Transparency is the best choice here as well, since the only sure way for "obvious" earmarks to be stopped is if the people are aware that they have been attached to unrelated bills or perverted the intentions of related bills.
3. Support publicly-financed campaigns
To me, this is the worst of all the pledges. Why should we have political welfare for people running for office? Do we really want our tax dollars spent so that some candidates can have an election allegedly free of special interests? Remember, he who controls the gold makes the rules, so public financing could be perverted into an institution that funds only "worthy" candidates, with "worthy" defined by whomever is currently in power. Even with the currently limited system for Presidential candidates, the candidates have to raise a certain amount of money and be subject to other restrictions that they find onerous. This is one reason why many of the present candidates did not accept public funding - it got in the way of raising the real sums they needed to win.
4. Support reform to increase Congressional transparency
This is one pledge I can get behind, but the devil is in the implementation. Every donation to every candidate would need to be disclosed, preferably on the web, and there would need to be dire consequences if anyone was caught trying to hide a donation or the source of a donation. Every bill, including amendments and votes, would need to be available as well. All meetings would need to be open, meaning that the press (at the least) is invited and minutes are taken and made available on-line (with reasonable exceptions for things like national security issues and maybe a few others - of course, this can be perverted as well). There are numerous documents that the government has erroneously (or illegally, if it was to CYA) classified as secret which would need to be declassified, and better oversight for what can be classified should be put into place (perhaps this is a bit beyond the scope of Congress itself). Some of these things already exist, to some degree.
Re:Transparency is the best solution of the 4 pled (Score:2)
If a politician voted for ethanol subsidies, I would be less likely to vote for him or her regardless of where they got their campaign money from, because ethanol subsidies are stupid.
Re:Naive (Score:5, Insightful)
Voter outrage is a bit more powerful than you seem to understand. When the politicians can control what news the people hear, they can control how those people vote. That should by now be common knowledge. When the people get to hear the truth, the will make their voting decisions based on it. yes, there will be those that will vote the party ticket always, but that will be a small percentage compared to those that will make informed voting decisions. People want to be informed, information wants to be free. The current system prevents both with regard to political information and voting.
Parent
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I don't think you can ever stop the influence of big money on politics but anything that will force it out into the open is a step in the right direction.
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Even after getting a higher % of the votes than Guiliani, he was omitted from the debate and Guiliani was a allowed in.
The local "conservative" radio station (i.e. pro wealthy people, anti-abortion types) tore him to pieces from their first question with stuff like "when did you quit beating your wife".
The same thing happens for minor democratic candidates.
It's really blatant some times.
Two simple fixes (Score:2)
The other would be in the new 'virtual' world, have Congress meet virtually like any other organization. They could each get offices in their State complexes and keep them closer to home and make it that much tougher for lobbyists to sway votes.
Plus you would hopefully have fewer unfaithful public servants.
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What the heck does this mean? This is typical political BS, it sounds good but has no meaning.
4) support public financing of public elections.
This will mean that those who are currently in power will control the purse-strings of elections. Is this really a good idea? Do you imagine that the Democrats and Republicans would allow say Greens or Libertarians to get any public financing? If you look at the history of ballot access, you will see that the