Let Our Congress Tweet? Who's Stopping Them?

A quick follow-up: When Ellen Miller posted to further promote Sunlight Foundation's Let Our Congress Tweet" petition, she made this statement:

Under the current system, members of Congress are forced to break rules to use new technologies and services to do what their constituents ask of them: connect, listen and be held accountable. So, that YouTube video you saw on a lawmaker’s Web site? Illegal! [...]

She also linked to the "Unsolicited Mass Communications Restrictions" section of the House Administration Committee's Member Handbook, presumably indicating that this was the section that supported her statement.

I read the section (and the bulk of the rest of the handbook for good measure. So I asked for clarification in the comments of her post. What I got was a response from John Wonderlich, who authored the original post, saying in essence that the rules are unclear and they're seeking clarity. Much softer stance, it seems, than the original hard line that our Representatives were being forced to break the law.

I tried to respond, but it seems the blog isn't accepting further comments from me. Here's the comment that wasn't:

Fair enough. I share your interest in transparency. Having spent the time to read these rules, I also heartily endorse any efforts to update and clarify them.

That said, I take issue with the sensationalist nature of the copy on http://letourcongresstweet.org/ as well as the assertion that it's outright illegal rather than unclear. Furthering your cause by scaring people with incomplete information and vague possibilities demeans your mission. The means count as much as the end.

I'd also assert that transparency is more about being able to reach in for information than those inside being able to push information out. A commenter at MetaFilter summarizes it well (http://www.metafilter.com/73194/Let-Our-Congress-Tweet#2178791):

"How is Yet Another One Way Communication Medium "sunlight"? Sunlight is when I can see what they are doing, even when they don't want me to. It's not a press release."

Good luck.

Disappointing that they had to resort to unclarity to fix the clarity thing.

Comments

[John Wonderlich]

Hi, I'd like to let you know that I've added a link to this post in a comment on the Sunlight Blog: http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2008/07/10/let-our-congress-tweet/#comment-872

We're happy to receive criticism about any of our projects, and value your input. If you'd like to see a pretty full ranging discussion of the franking reform, check out the open house project google group, which has dozens of messages over the last few weeks on this issue.

http://groups.google.com/group/openhouseproject

If you'd like to submit your comments again, we'd be happy to post them; I have no idea what happened to your original post.

As to the substance of your post, we don't intend to be misleading about what the franking restrictions have done. The restrictions hvae resulted in Members and staff breaking rules in order to engage online. I've encountered numerous examples of staff linking inappropriately, using youtube on house.gov sites, posting personal information, or embedding google maps mashups, etc, and these things are clearly against the rules, as evidenced by the admonitions reported by staff from the franking commission in response to their posting.

[Jim Meyer]

@John: I appreciate your response. I'm sure the comment issue on your blog was some bug manifesting at an inopportune moment; I don't feel the need to repost what I've said here there as well.

Under current rules, Representatives are NOT breaking the law when they use Twitter, YouTube, or many other publicly-accessible websites. The buzz around LOCT is that lawmakers are prohibited from using these sites; that buzz is not true.

However, it becomes far more difficult when the Representative wants to link or embed content in their House.gov site; while linking or embedding from these services doesn't necessarily break the rules, the exit page requirement (http://gop.cha.house.gov/services/membershandbook.shtml#websites #5) and the no ads/endorsements requirement (http://gop.cha.house.gov/services/membershandbook.shtml#websites_content #5) make it impossible to do without some engineering effort.

That's unfortunate, but understandable. YouTube wants that burned-in logo to further their brand; it's the cost of their free service, and one which most consumers can easily bear. Congress wants to remain visibly separated from commercial interests and implied bias towards those interests; as a constituent and as a small business owner, I completely support that, too.

I'll reiterate that I support wholeheartedly the goal of clarity in these rules. They started vague, as any ruleset should. We understand more; we should define what's acceptable (and what's not) more clearly ... and leave in some room so that the next wave of technology isn't forbidden, just appropriately constrained.