Technology and democracy hand in hand
They called the internet the great democratizer. Here’s a great example.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m an advocate of copyright reform. House bill HR.5439, currently in committee, provides some necessary reform with regards to orphaned works (copyrighted works for which the owner can no longer be found (e.g. think of some random WWII photograph found in a closet)). I’m interested in how this bill is proceeding in committee.
Using Thomas, I was able to find the current status of the bill: referred to the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property for markup and comment. Going to the House web site, I was able to find that subcommittee’s web site. There, I was able to watch a feed of the last discussion of this bill. They raised some of the issues I was concerned about it, and postponed further discussion. Interested in being notified further events going on with this bill, I went to GovTrack and signed up for an RSS feed to track this bill’s progress. Then, using the list of members from the subcommittee’s home page, I was able to send emails to committee members stating that I am in favor of the bill, provided they include a provision for creating a searchable image database as described in the opening remarks.
Never before has it been possible for citizens to so actively and closely participate in democracy - I never left my office, yet I was able to be notified of issues that concern me, watch the legislators discuss the issues on camera, and contact relevant representatives. This simply wasn’t possible a few years ago. One of my favorite quotes from West Wing (and they probably stole it from elsewhere): “Decisions are made by those who show up”. These technologies - and the avid use of them by the government and people - allow more people to show up. Democracy always functions better with more participation.
What a cool demonstration for how technologies can be leveraged to improve the world.
