The UK does employ significantly more than the US, but I’m afraid I’ve lost the link to the presentation that contained the numbers. I’ll have to dig it out.

The UK does employ significantly more than the US, but I’m afraid I’ve lost the link to the presentation that contained the numbers. I’ll have to dig it out.

I do understand better where you are coming from re: banning twitter from the white house. After all, it would be rather obvious who said what I should imagine!

Does the UK really employ significantly more people directly? I was very surprised to find that some of my classmates in Chicago were technically federal employees because they worked for the university. I know that universities in the UK are not connected to government in this way. That said, universities are not ‘nannying’ institutions.

I do understand better where you are coming from re: banning twitter from the white house. After all, it would be rather obvious who said what I should imagine!

Does the UK really employ significantly more people directly? I was very surprised to find that some of my classmates in Chicago were technically federal employees because they worked for the university. I know that universities in the UK are not connected to government in this way. That said, universities are not ‘nannying’ institutions.

I agree twitter can be used as a propaganda tool—it’s part of what won Obama his presidency, and No. 10 has nothing but bland, pro-labour updates. I don’t think Obama used it to convince folk he was hip, I think his campaign manager grasped its significance very well. Unfortunately, the engagement it was supposed to have demonstrated has petered out since the election. I see this as less of a US/UK or Obama/McCain difference. It’s a reflection of the short-term nature of Western politics. McCain lost the election, so he’s still got a reputation to maintain with twitter and social channels. Obama won, and he doesn’t need it any more (which is short-sighted!).

It’s about the attitude, though. A blanket ban announced by a flippant press secretary smacks of cover-up. If they had said: “there is a potential security threat”, I’d understand. BUT, I want to know what that threat is, what it could lead to, and how twitter is part of it. It’s too easy to call something a “security threat” and ban it without public accountability. What if they’d said all public interaction outside a state-appointed press officer is a potential security threat? As Jim pointed out, I’ll have to have a look at Colorado’s feed. With many things in the US, you have to look at a State equivalent of central government here, and it may be that some states themselves are making better use of engaging technologies.

WRT public data, the US has been SEEN to make available lots of its data, but there is a much different style in the process. The president days he wants to expose more data to seed innovation and do more catch-phrased good, so a spanking new site is launched, with much fanfare and press coverage (data.gov, btw). However, the site has little data available. It’s a show. It might be that there is already much data available in the States (most of it isn’t open enough to be cross-platform interoperable, though), but it’s the idea that it’s a marketing trick to even publish the (already supposedly public) data, that has me jumpy.

The current plan for the UK is leaning towards Linked Data, which would be instantly usable. They’ve appointed some of the best in the business, as it were, to make it happen; and this seems to me to be a logical way of accomplishing a task. It makes more sense to recruit and appoint a specialist than to recruit and pay for a designer and marketing team.

As for transparency, however, I think I’m generally a pro-transparency at most costs person. I think it’s up to us to make decisions about how we live, and we should have the best data or information available. Not all of us will make use of this data directly, necessarily, but someone will. So, for example, the UK taxpayer has essentially bought all the data which makes up Ordinance Survey maps. It’s publicly-funded data, but we have to buy it off the government whenever we use it. To me, that’s a double-tax, and excessive charge for costs we’ve already paid. There are many things which are of public record, but they’re published in a way which is often intentionally opaque, so they’re as good as siloed. What I want is to know what people think about a very different system: one in which we can ALL see EVERYTHING. I don’t know if it’s feasible, or even desirable, but I don’t necessarily trust the press—or Rupert Murdoch!—much more than an elected official.

And, I’d rather know that I could find out what an MP spent his/her allowance on than not. After all, I might decide to look up my local MP’s record before letting them have a second term. If they can’t be trusted with £5 on a lunch they shouldn’t have bought, why should I trust them with £5m for a school their mate might want to build? Transparency is a two-way thing: look at MP’s who HAVEN’T fiddled their expenses. I’d like to know who to trust as much as who not to, if that makes sense?

I don’t know what’s available in the US as far as expenses goes. Can you easily get a list of what your congressman spends? Can you easily compare it to the cost of travel to find out if it’s inflated or padded? If we’re paying for a congressman to fly, we should get a good deal too!

I think you (Alex) are right to point to the difference between nanny-state and security-eroded liberties. The UK has many state functions I’d rather it didn’t, and I think the US is best to avoid. It employes more people than I think it should directly, it has restrictive policies and a tendency toward knee-jerk legislation. But on the surface, it certainly feels less jumpy than the States. It’s a post-9/11 world… Why do I have to keep hearing that? I think the argument is wearing thin. I don’t think we should be less vigilant, or less concerned with our safety, but we should be able to establish our own perspective.

I think it’s actually a cause for justifying more openness, actually. If we had more published, we might be able to make our own decisions about whether a law or measure was appropriate or not. We might decide, en masse, that we wanted to be physically safer, live more sheltered lives, and restrict our own liberties further: but at least we’d have the choice, based on information we’re already paying and working for anyway.

I agree twitter can be used as a propaganda tool—it’s part of what won Obama his presidency, and No. 10 has nothing but bland, pro-labour updates. I don’t think Obama used it to convince folk he was hip, I think his campaign manager grasped its significance very well. Unfortunately, the engagement it was supposed to have demonstrated has petered out since the election. I see this as less of a US/UK or Obama/McCain difference. It’s a reflection of the short-term nature of Western politics. McCain lost the election, so he’s still got a reputation to maintain with twitter and social channels. Obama won, and he doesn’t need it any more (which is short-sighted!).

It’s about the attitude, though. A blanket ban announced by a flippant press secretary smacks of cover-up. If they had said: “there is a potential security threat”, I’d understand. BUT, I want to know what that threat is, what it could lead to, and how twitter is part of it. It’s too easy to call something a “security threat” and ban it without public accountability. What if they’d said all public interaction outside a state-appointed press officer is a potential security threat? As Jim pointed out, I’ll have to have a look at Colorado’s feed. With many things in the US, you have to look at a State equivalent of central government here, and it may be that some states themselves are making better use of engaging technologies.

WRT public data, the US has been SEEN to make available lots of its data, but there is a much different style in the process. The president days he wants to expose more data to seed innovation and do more catch-phrased good, so a spanking new site is launched, with much fanfare and press coverage (data.gov, btw). However, the site has little data available. It’s a show. It might be that there is already much data available in the States (most of it isn’t open enough to be cross-platform interoperable, though), but it’s the idea that it’s a marketing trick to even publish the (already supposedly public) data, that has me jumpy.

The current plan for the UK is leaning towards Linked Data, which would be instantly usable. They’ve appointed some of the best in the business, as it were, to make it happen; and this seems to me to be a logical way of accomplishing a task. It makes more sense to recruit and appoint a specialist than to recruit and pay for a designer and marketing team.

As for transparency, however, I think I’m generally a pro-transparency at most costs person. I think it’s up to us to make decisions about how we live, and we should have the best data or information available. Not all of us will make use of this data directly, necessarily, but someone will. So, for example, the UK taxpayer has essentially bought all the data which makes up Ordinance Survey maps. It’s publicly-funded data, but we have to buy it off the government whenever we use it. To me, that’s a double-tax, and excessive charge for costs we’ve already paid. There are many things which are of public record, but they’re published in a way which is often intentionally opaque, so they’re as good as siloed. What I want is to know what people think about a very different system: one in which we can ALL see EVERYTHING. I don’t know if it’s feasible, or even desirable, but I don’t necessarily trust the press—or Rupert Murdoch!—much more than an elected official.

And, I’d rather know that I could find out what an MP spent his/her allowance on than not. After all, I might decide to look up my local MP’s record before letting them have a second term. If they can’t be trusted with £5 on a lunch they shouldn’t have bought, why should I trust them with £5m for a school their mate might want to build? Transparency is a two-way thing: look at MP’s who HAVEN’T fiddled their expenses. I’d like to know who to trust as much as who not to, if that makes sense?

I don’t know what’s available in the US as far as expenses goes. Can you easily get a list of what your congressman spends? Can you easily compare it to the cost of travel to find out if it’s inflated or padded? If we’re paying for a congressman to fly, we should get a good deal too!

I think you (Alex) are right to point to the difference between nanny-state and security-eroded liberties. The UK has many state functions I’d rather it didn’t, and I think the US is best to avoid. It employes more people than I think it should directly, it has restrictive policies and a tendency toward knee-jerk legislation. But on the surface, it certainly feels less jumpy than the States. It’s a post-9/11 world… Why do I have to keep hearing that? I think the argument is wearing thin. I don’t think we should be less vigilant, or less concerned with our safety, but we should be able to establish our own perspective.

I think it’s actually a cause for justifying more openness, actually. If we had more published, we might be able to make our own decisions about whether a law or measure was appropriate or not. We might decide, en masse, that we wanted to be physically safer, live more sheltered lives, and restrict our own liberties further: but at least we’d have the choice, based on information we’re already paying and working for anyway.

I do not feel completely comfortable with the idea that I am able to know everything about the way in which my country works, not because I don’t trust myself, but because I realise that there are others who I wouldn’t trust with certain information. I see it as my democratic right to vote for people who I will trust to run the country, and if they mess up, then the press can come in and eat them alive.

During my time in Chicago, reading press reports, using GIS (which involved accessing US Government data online), tapping into US society and particularly by judging the reactions of American students in my ‘fabulous’ e-government classes, it certainly seemed that the American people are already hell-bent on transparency, believing in it as a fundamental human right, in a way in which we have not in the UK – perhaps contrary to the picture you have painted – although we seem to be fast moving in that direction. You write that the Office of Public Sector Information blogs about plans to make data available for public use, but that has happened in the US already, albeit with certain limitations set for national security reasons, and the FOIA procedures do not always work as intended.

I think it is slightly overgeneralising to draw conclusions from the white house’s ban on twitter to the wider political climate, but I would agree that it is over the top to have a white house twitter ban. That said, I do not think that twitter makes any government more transparent (if anything it could do the opposite and act as a propaganda tool – I used to follow no. 10 too!) I would argue that it isn’t more approachable either. Perhaps, though, it offers the illusion of approachability.

I think the US is further on with transparency than the UK, and I do not believe that it is a good thing. Once information is public, it can not be re-hidden, and sometimes it should be hidden, because not everyone uses information with the best of intentions. The British press, in my opinion, acts as an effective and extremely important control against things that are undesirable in our political system (ie the expenses row) but I do not think that us going down the road of demanding to know where every penny of our tax is spent is either helpful, worthwhile or healthy for politics. At a time when people are feeling untrusted by the government, it seems as though a quest for transparency is turning the problem on its head and asking whether the people trust the government…

If we are asking this, perhaps we’ve missed the point of the British press. The policing of British politics by British press gives the government a chance to get on with it behind a certain – and I would argue appropriate – level of secrecy, but to be held accountable at the end of the day. And to be honest, I think it is naive to believe that we would ever achieve true accountability anyway.

With regards to Mr Bailey’s response, I do not think that the government ‘taking care’ of us directly relates to invasion of personal liberty. Unfortunately it seems as though the two have happened at the same time in the US to achieve that perception, but the UK has been heavily nannied for a long time (with the welfare state) in contrast to the post 9/11 erosion of civil liberties that both countries have experienced. I don’t always agree with such a high level of looking after but I do separate that idea from the idea of supervision and the reducing of our civil liberties. I think that it is interesting to see how the US responds to erosion of civil liberties considering that there is a belief that government should be kept small. Here, I think the looking after makes people apathetic and individualistic in their thinking, but the reduction of civil liberties makes people resent the government and authority figures.

Well, you guys have made me think… back to painting walls now!

I do not feel completely comfortable with the idea that I am able to know everything about the way in which my country works, not because I don’t trust myself, but because I realise that there are others who I wouldn’t trust with certain information. I see it as my democratic right to vote for people who I will trust to run the country, and if they mess up, then the press can come in and eat them alive.

During my time in Chicago, reading press reports, using GIS (which involved accessing US Government data online), tapping into US society and particularly by judging the reactions of American students in my ‘fabulous’ e-government classes, it certainly seemed that the American people are already hell-bent on transparency, believing in it as a fundamental human right, in a way in which we have not in the UK – perhaps contrary to the picture you have painted – although we seem to be fast moving in that direction. You write that the Office of Public Sector Information blogs about plans to make data available for public use, but that has happened in the US already, albeit with certain limitations set for national security reasons, and the FOIA procedures do not always work as intended.

I think it is slightly overgeneralising to draw conclusions from the white house’s ban on twitter to the wider political climate, but I would agree that it is over the top to have a white house twitter ban. That said, I do not think that twitter makes any government more transparent (if anything it could do the opposite and act as a propaganda tool – I used to follow no. 10 too!) I would argue that it isn’t more approachable either. Perhaps, though, it offers the illusion of approachability.

I think the US is further on with transparency than the UK, and I do not believe that it is a good thing. Once information is public, it can not be re-hidden, and sometimes it should be hidden, because not everyone uses information with the best of intentions. The British press, in my opinion, acts as an effective and extremely important control against things that are undesirable in our political system (ie the expenses row) but I do not think that us going down the road of demanding to know where every penny of our tax is spent is either helpful, worthwhile or healthy for politics. At a time when people are feeling untrusted by the government, it seems as though a quest for transparency is turning the problem on its head and asking whether the people trust the government…

If we are asking this, perhaps we’ve missed the point of the British press. The policing of British politics by British press gives the government a chance to get on with it behind a certain – and I would argue appropriate – level of secrecy, but to be held accountable at the end of the day. And to be honest, I think it is naive to believe that we would ever achieve true accountability anyway.

With regards to Mr Bailey’s response, I do not think that the government ‘taking care’ of us directly relates to invasion of personal liberty. Unfortunately it seems as though the two have happened at the same time in the US to achieve that perception, but the UK has been heavily nannied for a long time (with the welfare state) in contrast to the post 9/11 erosion of civil liberties that both countries have experienced. I don’t always agree with such a high level of looking after but I do separate that idea from the idea of supervision and the reducing of our civil liberties. I think that it is interesting to see how the US responds to erosion of civil liberties considering that there is a belief that government should be kept small. Here, I think the looking after makes people apathetic and individualistic in their thinking, but the reduction of civil liberties makes people resent the government and authority figures.

Well, you guys have made me think… back to painting walls now!

It is also unfortunate that both major parties of the US gov’t continue to whittle away at the very liberties that created this country. In the name of security, we have seen our freedoms removed. In my opinion this current administration will further a belief in the voters that it is the responsibility of the gov’t to “take care of us.” Thus, they will create a dependency on the gov’t that will further erode the liberties upon which this country was founded. It is for this reason that I abhore big government- one which goes beyond the bounderies set in the Constitution and creates such dependencies.

Before however you reach the conclusion that all of the US gov’t is inclined to suppress the movement of information through social medias such as Twitter, I encourage you to look at two federal and two local sources that show otherwise. The first is Senator John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) who recently passed a million followers on Twitter. The second national source is Tweet Congress (@tweetcongress) which actively encourages Congress and the Senate to use Twitter as a means of communication. When a Representative starts using Twitter, they send out a notification.

On a local level, the State of Colorado (your former place of residence) has an active stream of tweets coming from @statebill and @coloradogov that make public upcoming votes, legislation and even the Gov’s appearances.

It is also unfortunate that both major parties of the US gov’t continue to whittle away at the very liberties that created this country. In the name of security, we have seen our freedoms removed. In my opinion this current administration will further a belief in the voters that it is the responsibility of the gov’t to “take care of us.” Thus, they will create a dependency on the gov’t that will further erode the liberties upon which this country was founded. It is for this reason that I abhore big government- one which goes beyond the bounderies set in the Constitution and creates such dependencies.

Before however you reach the conclusion that all of the US gov’t is inclined to suppress the movement of information through social medias such as Twitter, I encourage you to look at two federal and two local sources that show otherwise. The first is Senator John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) who recently passed a million followers on Twitter. The second national source is Tweet Congress (@tweetcongress) which actively encourages Congress and the Senate to use Twitter as a means of communication. When a Representative starts using Twitter, they send out a notification.

On a local level, the State of Colorado (your former place of residence) has an active stream of tweets coming from @statebill and @coloradogov that make public upcoming votes, legislation and even the Gov’s appearances.