For the most recent discussion of the FEC, the Internet, and election
law, go to http://slate.msn.com/id/2099571/
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Steven
Clift
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 8:01 PM
To: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Election Law and the Net in 2004
Is there anything new emerging this cycle with campaign regulations and
the use of the Internet in the U.S.? Or is the path fairly clear for
what is legal or not? For example, does the FEC make it clear at what
point an informal group must register as a political committee based on
technology spending?
I was recently in Korea and stopped by the National Election Commission.
Their attempts to deal with "false statements" on the Internet during
elections generated quite a bit of attention.
See:
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=10079
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=10250
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200404/kt2004041417541311970.htm
Is anyone aware of any similar problems in other countries?
Steven Clift
clift@publicus.net
P.S. I'll be in DC next week.
For those in the DC-area ...
Steven Clift and CDT invite you to a brown bag lunch discussion on ...
What:
Brown Bag Presentation and Discussion:
South Korea's 2nd Net Election - The Screen Shots
US Election 2004 Online - A Virtual Civil War?
When:
12:15 p.m. - 1:45 p.m., Wednesday, May 5, 2004
Where:
Conference Room, Center for Democracy and Technology
1634 I St., NW, Washington DC 20006
(Corner of 17th and I Sts.) - http://cdt.org
RSVP:
Free. Bring your own lunch. Space is limited.
RSVP by Noon on Tuesday, May 4 to: ari@cdt.org
Or call CDT: 202-637-9800
Agenda:
* Introductions
* South Korea Net Election - Short Virtual Tour Presentation
A preview for the 2006 election in the U.S.?
Slides and Comment from Steven Clift's recent visit to Korea.
More:
http://www.mail-archive.com/do-wire@lists.umn.edu/msg00173.html
* Possible Discussion Topics
Bring Your Global E-Election Insights - India, Korea, and more
Skulduggery Online - Stories from the US E-Campaign Trail
Virtual Civil War? - Plotting a Post-Election Recovery (Article
Below)
Join some old-tyme e-politicos and share your two cents
Early Networking:
If you would like to meet one-on-one or in a small informal
group with Steven Clift before or after the event, e-mail:
clift@publicus.net
More on Steven Clift:
Steven Clift is an e-democracy speaker and strategist who has spoken
across 25 countries since helping create the world's first
election-oriented web site in 1994. For more information and articles,
visit <http://publicus.net>. He runs http://DoWire.org, the Democracies
Online Newswire which reaches over 2700
e-democracy/e-government/e-politics experts in more than 80 countries.
He recently released a 40 page report on e-government and democracy that
he wrote for the United Nations: http://publicus.net/e-government
Below is a short article titled "Saving Democracy from the Information
Age." It should help spark our brown bag discussion ideas.
From:
http://www.publicus.net/articles/savingdemocracy.html
Saving Democracy from the Information Age
By Steven Clift, for CIO Government Magazine, Australia
April 2004
For the past 10 years, governments have had unprecedented opportunities
to use technology to connect directly with citizens. So why haven?t
they?
"Is this the end of politics as we know it?"
In the United States, journalists around the country were recently
falling over each other to write their local article on the Internet and
the presidential election. People are using the Internet to "MeetUp.com"
and get involved in the presidential campaign of their choice. It is a
real story.
I was actually asked the "end of politics" question by a reporter back
in 1994 when E-Democracy.Org created the world?s first election-oriented
Web site. Since then I have seen waves of excess hype and scepticism
about the role of new media in elections, governance and community.
As far as I can tell, the outcomes of elections, despite the Internet,
are pretty much the same ? someone wins and someone loses. Most citizens
remain cynical about politics and government. Beyond sorting through
their e-mail and putting their biography online, politicians seem
content to ignore online opportunities in governance until the next
election cycle.
Something has changed.
For the past 10 years, governments have had the opportunity to use
information and communication technologies through e-government to
connect directly with citizens. Government has had the opportunity to
become more accountable and transparent, and to build the trust of
citizens. Instead, most governments have taken the path of services
first and democracy later. Access to information has become easier and
many representative processes are more open than before the Internet,
but for the most part, what citizens experience has changed little.
Taking a path is different from choosing a path. The vast majority of
government "customers" want convenience and efficient service delivery;
however, in democracies we are also "citizens". We are the owners of
government. Government has focused on the one-way uses of the Internet
and service transactions because few citizens have asked for anything
different. Democracy in the information age is not a choice that will
exist based on citizen demand.
What has changed is that "politics as usual" has figured out how to use
the Internet to further their narrow interests. Online advocacy, while
democratizing in many ways, is primarily used to generate noise geared
towards our representatives and public processes.
Governments in wired countries now face a fundamental challenge.
Political interests are raising their voices online, but governments,
including our elected officials and representative institutions, are
largely unable to "listen" online. When speaking in Eastern Europe, it
really hit me: as designed, e-government is not able to accommodate the
will of the people. The lack of investment in the online needs of
representative democracy, compared to large investments in
administrative services, is changing the balance of power in our
democracies.
Despite significant policy explorations by governments in the United
Kingdom, Sweden and the Victorian parliament, for example, it is amazing
that the only state or nation to adopt a formal e-democracy policy is
Queensland. (Also note the CitizenScape project in Western Australia.)
Not that you need a policy to have significant government-based
e-democracy activity, but it helps to move beyond rhetoric and
experiments to real investments that save democracy from the negative
aspects of the information age.
What Should Be Done?
At a World Summit on the Information Society session in Geneva, I
promoted "democratic evolution" over the path of partisan "virtual civil
war". (Check back with me after the 2004 US election. I predict online
campaigning by "politics as usual" will poison many a citizen?s view of
the medium in politics and governance.) Governments, as democracies,
must act now in specific ways to ensure their ability to e-listen to
citizens, to make better public decisions and to more effectively engage
the public, civic organizations and business as they implement public
policy.
In my Geneva speech, I suggested that the following best e-democracy
practices be made universal thorough the rule of law:
1. All public meeting notices with agendas and all public documents to
be distributed at that meeting must now also be posted online.
2. All representative and regulatory bodies must make all proposed
legislation and amendments available online the minute they are
distributed as a public document to anyone.
3. Every citizen must have the ability to access up-to-date listings of
all those who represent them at every level of government. Technology
and practices must be implemented to allow citizens and, very
importantly, elected and appointed officials to communicate effectively
online with one another.
4. Funding must be provided and technology implemented to ensure
citizens the right to be notified via e-mail about new government
decisions and information based on their interests and where they live.
Overall, when it comes to e-government funding, I suggest that no less
than 10 percent be set aside for citizen input and democracy. Citizen
input embraces "two-way" communication including usability testing, user
focus groups, site feedback systems and surveys, and special
applications designed for representative institutions and elected
officials.
After speaking hundreds of times across 24 countries, mostly to
e-democracy interested governments, it is clear to me that what is
possible is not probable. The best practices and e-democracy
technologies are not being effectively shared. If we want the
demonstrated potential of the new medium to spread, democratic intent
will be required. The default path I see, without a political and
resource commitment, is democratic decline. As we enter the second
decade of e-democracy activity, now is the time to use the amazing
online tools before us and build information-age democracy for our own
and future generations.
Copyright 2004 - For free reprinting/translation permission, contact:
clift@publicus.net
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