bradley.will

bradley.will 9 months ago

Holy crap, make www.longlistofnames.com and move your 5 page list of names there. We care about your ideas here, not your names and titles.

bradley.will 9 months ago

The citizens are the governments' boss. We demand laws like the FOIA to ensure that our government employees and appointees are accountable to us. If they fail to adhere to these most basic of standards (the standard that LETS us hold them to standards) then they should be fired. In fact, since this really is the linchpin of the whole operation, the head of the agency and the budget decisionmaker(s) should be the ones to be fired. FOIA is a law to enforce laws, and failure to adequately provide for its operation won't be tolerated.

bradley.will 9 months ago

Lots of XML ideas on this site, but the bigger idea is that it needs to be accessible and tangible. An Excel doc or other tangible format would be fine too.

bradley.will 9 months ago

Skidadsr: This suggestion isn't about getting rid of guns, it's about allowing more than just police officers to see details about gun purchases. I'd kinda like to know if my wacky neighbor does or does not have an arsenal. This is 2009, the way to solve problems is by ensuring the government represents us, not by shooting people.

bradley.will 9 months ago

There are plenty of Americans who would step forward to fill those positions, too, if it were clear that the junk was being cleared from the gutters. Right now if someone asked me to work for the City, I'd wonder if the corrupt politicized upper management would be worth it.

bradley.will 9 months ago

Business Communication 101 from the local community college should be required training for all government employees and elected officials, among other government and ethics classes.

bradley.will 9 months ago

If you're a german national living in the US, or with relatives in the US, your opinion is just as valid as anyone's.

Not to mention that this website is costing taxpayers a whole $99/month, and such a "citizens-only" authentication scheme would cost way more than that... and be soberingly ironic for an "opengov" initiative.

bradley.will 9 months ago

Government: ho HO! Those Americans are doing a really good job cleaning up their environment... and! they spent 2 billion on toilet paper for the Army last year!

Spy: Hey Government, I've infiltrated Area 51 and have some secret plans for you to see!

Government: Not now! I'm too busy reading about how exactly this tiny town managed to repave six roads and build a new bridge for only 6 million dollars!

bradley.will 9 months ago

Transcripts of legislative meetings would be key.

bradley.will 9 months ago

Thanks for posting this, I hope it gets the attention it deserves.

bradley.will 9 months ago

Wait, "websites are not secure enough to provide trusted government information"? I'm afraid you've missed the boat, sir. Websites and the Internet are secure enough to conduct billions of dollars of transactions a day.

bradley.will 9 months ago

I agree with this. For example when Obama says that the Guantanamo photos would be damaging to national security and the value of releasing them would be destroyed by anti-American demonstrations, that judgment should be made by a citizen's council-- say 800 people across 4 randomly-selected towns.

It's sad that a judge's opinion isn't enough to effect the executive administration and we resort to taking matters into our own hands like this. Our judicial burden is always based on our idea of "a reasonable person," but we no longer believe that our legislature or executive officers are reasonable people.

bradley.will 9 months ago

Read Wikipedia on tax theory. Problem with sales and business taxes is that it's very hard to properly incentivize and tax the right people, and sales tax as a whole deincentivizes the act of consumption/production which potentially hurts the economy.

Personal income isn't generally used to create jobs or produce goods/services, and therefore a tax on personal income may not feel as fair as taxes on corporate profits, but logistically it's the best way to ensure that every person pays their share.

bradley.will 9 months ago

Exactly-- Federal government is visible to everyone, but our local governments (hell all the way down to PTAs and HOAs) tend to be the least-efficient, least-funded, and most incompetent. Let's construct 5 fewer stealth bombers and 100 fewer bombs, put that money into competent local management nationwide, and witness as our civil servants start to pull their heads out of their asses (no offense to those of you who are already doing fine jobs.)

In order to make our tax dollars work well, we've got to pay our government employees well and hire or train the best in their fields. That's how the military does it, and they get 50% of the federal budget. Let's spend our money on educating, not killing.

bradley.will 9 months ago

It might inconvenience commanders to have a gay soldier under their command, but that doesn't justify organizational self-deception. Instead I would suggest requiring the same standards of every soldier, male or female, in being modest and proper at all times. You can't be punished for what you think or feel, just for what you say and do. Behave and respect the rights of others.

bradley.will 9 months ago

In addition to this and the F/OSS recommendation, I'd like to see government IT more involved in the F/OSS community. I mean Microsoft would throw a huge fit, but let's solve a problem once and stop beating dead horses. If a Minnesota State tech worker programs something for the state offices to use, that should be immediately available on sourceforge or something with adequate publicity so that other governments can also benefit.

Thus, the problem of ODF versus other formats could be solved once and for all, by a vastly improved OpenOffice (or whatever) due to the increased collaboration by government agencies.

It only makes sense, as our government is For the People, By the People, and so is Free and Open Source Software. Private business exists to add value, and can't expect to continue to charge a fee for products that haven't added significant value in the past 14 years (see Office '95.)

bradley.will 9 months ago

Yes-- even if the President himself can't respond to this exact comment, an identified government employee should if they read it. Feedback is necessary for communication and thus openness. If we don't receive any feedback, we'll assume we were just a cow in the herd to be counted, not the voice of a citizen and taxpayer.

bradley.will 9 months ago

A lot of this is marketing and PR. I know conservatives are all for small government, but if a small government really sucks at marketing/PR, then what little is there will be difficult for citizens to access or become aware of. All this "web transparency" is just one facet of an effective government public relations program.

bradley.will 9 months ago

I like Canada's system of requiring people to have a "sponsor family" for a number of years, to ensure that new immigrants have a good chance at being productive and self-supporting.

bradley.will 9 months ago

I think the "black hole" of the IRS is there to prevent fraud-- i.e. if your employer reports to the IRS, and you report to the IRS, and the records match, then unless both of you are colluding to tax fraud then the numbers must be correct. But if the IRS just gives you the numbers and you say "yeah looks right" then it's very easy for you to grossly underpay your taxes due to an IRS error in your favor. Which we'd all like, of course, except when it's the fat cats who are getting the break and not us.

I do agree that a "red flag" for missing items would be a great first step though, i.e. "we show you as working in another state-- please add any additional state income here."

bradley.will 9 months ago

Definitely-- as any social media expert can tell you, people are talking and have been talking for years. As an entity you can either deny/ignore that people are talking, attempt to squelch the talking (which inevitably fails), or use the opportunity to be even more open/honest than is required to turn a negative situation into a positive "come clean" situation.

So it's your choice-- release all these things that obviously aren't "threats to national security" as interpreted by reasonable citizens, or keep lying to yourselves and us because it's temporarily easy (despite the snowballing effect such lies have.)

bradley.will 9 months ago

As an IT professional in a small biz, I know how time-consuming legal search & discovery can be. The tech requirement that will enable government to perform openly in this digital age without massive personnel costs is high, so strategic tech upgrades will be required. Perhaps the Federal Gov't can issue directives and work with tech vendors in such a way to create, for example, Exchange Server Government Edition (or even better, an Open Source Government Email Server) that is more able to facilitate the always-accountable nature of public offices without expensive third-party addons intended for enterprises.

bradley.will 9 months ago

All agencies should improve their websites, similar to how the White House website has been brought into 2009 with intuitive navigation and quality content only a few clicks away, using open web standards.

Also, each level of government (federal, state, county, city) should have a centralized website for all online services, with short click-paths for public resources and a focus on usability/accessibility. A standardized format such as a top-navigation bar for higher-level governments would also be preferable, so that it's easy to go from a city's site to the site of the county the city is in, and so on.

As examples, servicearizona.com and myazcar.com are two great resources for the AZ DOT, but really should be consolidated into maricopa.gov / phoenix.gov / az.gov / azdot.gov / you get my drift. Nobody cares which agency is at which address or is under which branch/level/wing of government-- they just know they live in Gilbert Arizona and want to register a car/start a business/request court records/find a nearby pediatric hospital/get a map of local schools. So they go to gilbert.az.gov and are routed within four clicks to the appropriate page for that information, whether they end up at the city, county, or state level sites.

bradley.will 9 months ago

The IRS website, along with most other agency websites, needs a major redesign.

A simple "here's your forms, fill them out online, push submit, and if you need to check the status or get help just login to irs.gov" would be revolutionary. Sorry TurboTax, the IRS is web2.0 now.

bradley.will 9 months ago

this among other things would greatly help those who are trying to live here legally. i'm sure a huge percentage of illegal aliens are here because they tried to immigrate but never got an adequate response.

bradley.will 9 months ago

The only problem is that the daylight hours shift through the seasons. So in a perfect world, we'd all have sun-based clocks that let us wake up a given numbers after sunrise every day, or whatever.

Unfortunately such a constantly-changing system like that isn't practical, so we're left with the twice-yearly shift. I've lived in Arizona and Hawaii, and although it's one less thing to worry about, you also lose a lot of daylight sleeping past sunrise (or you're groggy eyed from waking up "too early") half the year.

bradley.will 9 months ago

And, all police officers and elected officials should be required to re-take this class every 2-4 years. In the same classes as regular students, not some internal curriculum. Seems like the people we trust to uphold our rights tend to have very little interest in exactly what those rights are, in practice. (Probable cause, search and seizure, warrants...)

bradley.will 9 months ago

This website costs the federal government something like $99/month. Just look at ideascale.com under Pricing.

Damned cheap way to give a voice to citizens if you ask me. Don't be naive and think that the highest voted idea will just automatically become law, this is an official citizen's brainstorm. Talk about open government, hallelujah.

bradley.will 9 months ago

Although it might sound attractive to you, Robert, this goes against everything America was founded on and the entire civil rights movement.

Voter qualification tests have been used repeatedly in the past to block groups of people from having representation in government. Any deviation from "one person, one guaranteed, secret, vote" is anti-American.

bradley.will 9 months ago

I'm in favor of this, even if the standard expiration date is 10 years, or 20 for a 70% majority vote. It should also be easier for citizens to challenge a law/ordinance/statute/directive/vote at any point by a 70% majority popular opinion, which sends the law back to the legislature except with a higher majority vote required for the law to stay than when it was originally passed.

There are too many things that get slipped through and locked in stone, that with hindsight nobody wants.

bradley.will 9 months ago

I'd prefer a blog and twitter feed, personally. Video programs are costly to make and time-consuming to watch. The government shouldn't rely on press releases and media to communicate with citizens, but for accountability's sake a citizen's watchdog group inside the government should post on official government websites what's actually happening in various meetings and offices.

bradley.will 9 months ago

Whatever $ amount that is, even $1 per year, should go first to the schools themselves and the oversight making sure those dollars are actually used to productive, not bureaucratical, ends. For example new computers might be buzzworthy, but what a school might really need is a better student-teacher ratio or just newer textbooks.

bradley.will 9 months ago

What do you think this website is for???

bradley.will 9 months ago

The government has nothing to do with this idea, please delete.

Save up your money and buy a G1 or other Android-powered mobile phone, there are free/cheap apps that will let you do almost all of this. Super-cheap phones don't have advanced features, sorry.

bradley.will 9 months ago

As an IT professional and someone who wishes there were both more opportunity for anonymity and more believable accountability on the Internet, I wish your proposal would work but in fact it can't for many reasons.

First, IPv6 sounds like the increased address space you're proposing, however the addresses aren't encrypted. The problem with encrypted addresses is that you'd effectively be turning the Internet from a roadmap into an underground railroad. Might sound attractive until you realize the huge amount of unnecessary work involved.

Second, despite its history in ARPAnet, the Internet shouldn't be managed by government. This last haven of pure democracy mustn't be co-opted by government any more than it has already been by corporations.

And finally, obscurity of IP addresses isn't nearly as important to security as increased ability to trust others on the internet, in combination with ability to truly protect your privacy on the internet.

Categories

User Activity Stream

Comments Posted