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Internet and transparency: the new powers of citizens


Suggerisco un'interessante lettura.

Faith in government is rooted in transparency, and online resources are giving citizens an indispensible weapon in the arsenal of democracy.

By Ellen S. Miller
Source: USAToday

How powerful is the Internet in getting crucial safety information out to the public? In one case, that information went out 707 times per minute. That's how often, on average, people seeking information about salmonella-tainted peanut butter clicked on a website and widget sponsored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over a six-week period a total of nearly 44 million hits.

This was exponentially more than the number of people who called agency hotline numbers. By typing the brand or bar code of a product into the search engine, parents everywhere could find out if the peanut butter sandwich they were putting in their kids' lunch bags that day might contain salmonella.

Yet, the peanut butter problem also shows how far we have to go to prod government to make information available to the public. This week — Sunshine Week — news organizations shed light on how the public benefits from knowing what the government is doing, and why. And the Internet increasingly can play a role in providing more information to expose crises such as the salmonella story.

Recently, the story has unfolded about how one peanut-processing company, Peanut Corp. of America, could operate in filth with poorly trained employees and ignore its own tests showing salmonella infestation. We also found out that the only way the FDA could obtain copies of those testing records was to invoke terrorism laws. If the public had access to those records online, perhaps the illnesses of 19,000 people in 43 states and nine deaths could have been avoided.

Online resources also can help explain why the FDA can't get inspection records more easily. Through OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign contributions and lobbying expenses, we can find out that food processing and sales companies have contributed nearly $95 million to federal candidates and parties over a decade. Those companies also spent more than $29 million last year on lobbying. The industry has often blocked efforts to strengthen FDA's authority.

The salmonella story shows the many ways we are on the cusp of pushing for a government that is truly transparent. We now have the technological tools not only to get information out to the public, but also to help expose why there's a problem in the first place.

It's no accident that President Obama has made transparency a major part of his stimulus plan. He recognizes that conveying information to the public about how their money is being spent will enhance accountability. If done well, this approach can turn passive citizens into activists who help ensure that government works. With more newspapers laying off reporters and closing their doors, the Internet is allowing others to augment the press' function in watchdogging government.

There's a mighty appetite for this information. Last September, when the House took up the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill, House servers crashed after Speaker Nancy Pelosi posted the text on her website. When people did get their eyes on the text, they read it eagerly. Over the course of about two weeks, nearly 1,000 comments were posted on PublicMarkup.org, a site enabling the public to examine and debate legislation. Thousands of bloggers pored over the bill to find examples of earmarks, such as a reduction in taxes for wooden-arrow manufacturers.

A few years ago, bloggers known as the "Porkbusters" helped expose Alaska's "bridge to nowhere." This project to connect the tiny town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) to the even tinier Island of Gravina (population 50) cost some $320 million and was funded through three separate earmarks in a highway bill. Exposure created a huge furor and essentially stopped that earmark.

To take advantage of the full power of the Internet, there are some simple things every agency should do. All data should be made available in formats that are open, searchable and "mashable." That way, creative programmers can more easily create new ways of looking at things. For example, the EarmarkWatch.org map shows thousands of earmarks in the fiscal 2008 defense-appropriations bill layered over a map of the country.

There is also much Congress should do. For years, the Senate has refused to require members to file their campaign finance records electronically. Instead, they submit their records in paper form to the Federal Election Commission, which must then go through the laborious process of re-converting them back into electronic records at the cost of about $250,000 a year. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., recently introduced a bill that would require electronic filing. The House of Representatives has done it this way for years.

And while Congress has strengthened lobbying disclosure laws, they still don't go far enough. Lobbyists are required only to file quarterly, and then in very general terms. So ferreting out who lobbied on what and why is an exercise in "who done it" long after the fact. Lobbyists should file online daily with whom they meet and what they talk about.

A fundamental shift is beginning. Government is starting to recognize how the Internet can play a transformational role in restoring trust to its institutions and officials. And we, the people, are just beginning to imagine the ways we can use this transparency to demand more accountability.

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Transparency and assessment: Agreement between Active Citizenship and Public Service


Al via il Protocollo di intesa tra Dipartimento della Funzione Pubblica e Cittadinanzattiva: una collaborazione tra istituzioni e cittadini Anti-corruption and evaluation of civic PA

Working together to promote a culture of legality and the analysis of the quality of civic services, through a collaboration between the Minister for Public Administration and Innovation, Renato Brunetta, and Active Citizenship. This is the meaning of the memorandum of understanding signed this morning between the Head of Department of Public Service, cons. Antonio Naddeo and Secretary General of Active Citizenship, Teresa Petrangolini.
The theme will be represented by the themes subsidiarity, transparency and evaluation. Among the various commitments contained in the realization, at least 15 Italian cities, initiatives awareness and training on transparency in public administration and municipal budgets. Will be tested innovative initiatives of assessment of the civic administration, especially in the areas of justice, education, health and public services, also based on the wealth of reports Cittadinanzattiva accessible by citizens themselves.
Another key point is the collaboration system for the development and enhancement of the service friendly lines.
"Partnering with an organization as Cittadinanzattiva - said the Minister Brunetta - is of great importance for the initiatives that my Ministry has embarked on transparency, the evaluation is the fight against corruption. The government should have as its primary objective to meet the needs of citizens and their word is essential to address the administrative action "
" The goal of this initiative, "said Teresa Petrangolini," is to combat corruption PA and the phenomena of lawlessness through the tools of active citizen participation, transparency and evaluation of civic education, areas in which our organization has now established a multi-year experience. "

The protocol can be downloaded on www.cittadinanzattiva.it

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In the two years of democracy in Turin


This Article point out an important event.

La Biennale Democracy is not just a way to retrospectively recall and celebrate one of the most important aspects of the story of a united Italy. He wants to be a means for training and dissemination of a culture of democracy that will result in democratic practice, the problems at the present moment. It will focus its efforts in a three-pronged dissemination and deepening democratic ethics: how habitus of citizens, respect for the rules as common and as awareness of the characteristics of democracy as a political ideal.

* The promotion of democracy as a habit entails the distribution, in practice, patterns of behavior-based, by way of example, the definition and practice of recruitment generally accepted standards of justice, care and the pooling of diverse talents that every individual is gifted with the spirit of dialogue and equality; on openness, curiosity and willingness to "contamination" in respect of different cultural identities, critical attitude towards their starting assumptions and the ability to learn from those of others; experimental attitude, willing to learn from own mistakes, on the assumption of responsibilities that follow the application of the principle most part, both by those who are the majority by the minority who is, selfless attitude and honesty of communication, through a special attention to the accuracy, understandability, the non-violent and not suggestive of the language used. One imagines that this promotion, including through practical experience of involvement, the course addresses, in the first place, where citizens are formed democracy of tomorrow, which means the schools. But the practice of democracy may also be promoted through the organization of practical experience of "deliberative democracy" in various areas, in which involve people who are motivated, competent and responsible in order to promote participation models qualified to collective decisions.
* The need to respect the common rules will be subject to popular programs, aimed not only to encourage awareness of the value of legality, as a condition-based civil, political and administrative as possible free from bullying, deceit, favoritism and injustice, but also to promote the participation and control, about the proper use of public and private powers, which affect the collective life of citizens. In this respect too, you can promote experiences of participation-control at different levels and in different sectors of collective life. *
Democracy as a political ideal is the subject of a program of lectures and conferences devoted primarily to the doctrines of democracy, the history of their achievements, their failures and betrayals, the problems and challenges facing the world in which it is contemporary, with an emphasis on not only the immediate political dimension of democracy. All aspects of community life, in fact, lend and need to be considered from the point of view of democracy as an example, the character of urban and architectural structures and ways of experiencing them, ways of organizing work and the protection of workers, cultural institutions, starting from schools, information systems and communication, reports that say "gender", the ways of coexistence between individuals. Democracy is self-multiplying, you can search all the social relations and can be found using all means of social communication: not just with lectures and conferences, as well as film shows, drama and music to which we will pay attention equally not only to reach a vast audience as possible, but also to tap a range of topics as broad as possible.

The initiatives referred to the items listed, practical and theoretical, will be implemented. In particular, those that take place in schools and places of practical experience should also have a preliminary value to those of theoretical, but also the opposite: the discussion of issues of democracy in theory could have an impact in the practical dimension.

This program will be developed over the years. Every two years, beginning in April 2009, will focus efforts "visible", and call for greater social involvement, but the time will not be a long term passive and silent, as it will be dedicated to promoting common experiences and reflections pervasive in the fabric of the city and region, as well as a call for democratic theory and practice.


President Gustavo Zagrebelsky Biennale Democracy
Source: www.biennaledemocrazia.it