if Congress worked the way I wanted it to work...

After reading Dennis Johnson's chapter on Congressional Websites in Congress Online, I decided that in my ideal world there would be a congressional committee that set up requirements that every member must have on their website, how frequently it should be updated, and how much money should be allocated to pay a staff member to oversee the site. When I read that only five members had their schedules posted, I was not surprised. But if every member was required to post it, then it should not be a tool for his opponent to use against him. Unless of course, he truly was slacking off on the job.

As we've learned in class, the ability to interact and provide feedback are important aspects of a website that can help a constituent feel involved. Since we aren't talking about campaigns here, volunteer and fundraising forms are unnecessary. Instead, Congressional sites typically utilize forms to e-mail issue concerns. In addition, a message board option, moderated by a rotating group of staffers, and maybe for a special hour a week, the Senator or Congressperson himself could take questions. This feature could actually cut back on constituent mail by providing immediate feedback.

I know most of my ideas will never happen, but it's fun to be idealistic every once in awhile.

So technology was supposed to make our lives easier?

I had the pleasure of interning on the Hill in a Senate office during my sophomore year of college. September 11th had occurred the previous year, and the war on Iraq resolution was being debated. From afternoons spent in the mail room, I saw first hand the effect of the anthrax situation. The mail we received had been sent weeks, if not a month or two, before. Among my other responsibilities was sorting through faxes and e-mails, picking out ones that were "form letters" and separating them from actual constituent correspondence. Until you've personally spent hours of your day at such a task, there is no way to understand the sheer mass of correspondence a Senate office receives daily. My particular office chose to respond to all letters by snail mail, regardless of the form they originated in.

After I had been there a few months, I got "adopted" b a few of the LCs, which bumped me from mail room duty to drafting responses to constituent letters. I went in three days a week, and most days I would find e-mails in my in-folder that were at least 2 weeks old. By the time I got through with them and the LC revised them, I imagine a month would pass before a response was even ready to be mailed. I'm not sure whether my office was particularly bad at staying on top of correspondence, but if Dennis Johnson was right in his book, Congress Online, falling behind in mail is a fairly common problem on the Hill.

With more and more correspondence coming in electronically, I don't blame Congress for wanting to use filtering systems, so that they can give their interns and staff assistants tasks other than sorting through mail and given them substantial work. And more importantly, of course, so that their office can run more efficiently. However I, like Johnson, am a bit concerned that leaving the responsibility to technology is just asking for trouble. EchoMail, a system set up to automatically reply to e-mails based on keywords, may be efficient, but a couple of screw ups getting reported in the news, and good luck getting reelected.

I get MoveOn's e-mails, and I've seen the formats they provide in order to launch a cyber protest at a Congressman with whom they disagree. Unfortunately for Hill staffers, that's always going to be a problem with or without e-mail. E-mail just makes it that much easier for the young professional stuck in front of a computer all day to get involved. Good for democracy, bad for overworked, underpaid Hill staff.

learning from past mistakes...

Not to sound like a broken record, but after last night's discussion in class and finally reading the CNN.com article that so many of my classmates have commented on, I need to throw my five cents into the mix.

First of all, Jim Mergler, the former Ohio Dem, who went out and volunteered for Bush just because they were the campaign that called him? Um, obviously not a strong Dem to start with. The article was written before Election Day, so it doesn't say who he actually voted for, but I find it hard to believe that there are many people out there who are so desperate to volunteer that it doesn't matter which party calls them. Also, if that's all it takes to decide who you're going to support, I fear for our country. Do the issues not matter AT ALL anymore?

As has been said before, the Republicans used the four year since 2000 to learn from all of their mistakes in the ground game, while the Democrats apparently lounged around building useless databases. That was at least half sarcastic. Regardless, yes, the Dems lost a great opportunity in 2004. Yes, the 527s probably hurt more than they helped in the long run, but only because the Dems did not view them as they should be viewed. In other words, if the 527s existed solely to raise money and register voters and throw concerts, etc while the Democratic Party and the campaign were simultaneously forming an airtight strategic message, pimping their candidate for his own qualities and not just because he's not Bush, and getting out the vote, then we may have had a very different election.

I think what's important for the Democratic party at this point is to reevaluate how to use the 527s to their advantage. Obviously, they can't directly communicate and strategize, but form some type of understanding of who does what. And for the love of god, find a good strategist/campaign manager and stick with them!

What is the Patriot Act good for exactly?

When reading more in Vaidhyanathan's Anarchist in the Library, I was struck by the timeliness of the discussion of the Patriot Act. Vaidhyanathan used the Patriot Act to show how libraries have been effected by the government's desire to invade our privacy, especially since public libraries have been shown to be how terrorists obtained information that they then used against the country. Vaidhyanathan is not a fan of the act, even going so far as to say:

Five weeks after the attacks [9/11], the U.S. Congress passed, without
debate, and the president signed into law, without hesitation or deliberation a
342-page document that hardly anyone had read completely: the Uniting and
Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism (USA Patriot) Act of 2001. The act radically revised
legal protections against government surveillance of electronic communication.
It eased the burden on federal law enforcement agents who monitor Internet and
telephone traffic. And it severely challenged librarians to adhere to their
Enlightenment principles.

Many of the act's provisions are set to expire at the end of this year, and the president wants the law reauthorized without any changes made, except perhaps to strengthen it. The current debate is over how intrusive the law really is or needs to be. Our Fourth Amendment right protecting us against unlawful search and seizure is being called into question. Of course, how often was the Patriot Act even invoked? It's fairly innocuous, and most privacy issues have nothing to do with the act itself. Whether or not libraries have been severely compromised as a result of the act will probably never be known.

Libraries serve as an important facet of our culture. It is unfortunate that a terrorist took advantage of the services that libraries provide, but I hope that they remain, more or less unchanged. I visit the DC public library on a weekly basis to check out a novel or two that I don't have the money to buy. Providing books and Internet services to those who are significantly less well off than I am is important. I don't see the Patriot Act necessarily affecting the services libraries provide and sincerely hope that Vaidhyanathan is projecting a worst case scenario that will never actually hold true.