Today, C-SPAN’s Facebook page will host streaming video coverage of Wednesday’s special U.S. House session on the Tucson shootings. The livestream will start at 10 AM ET, when the House will consider a resolution on the shootings. The session is also … Continue reading
Digital Capital Week is coming back to the United States Capital on November 4th, 2011. In a livestream today, the organizers of the inaugural 2010 event announced the data and opened the gates for DC Week registration and ideas for … Continue reading
Blackberrys, cell phones and communications devices are tagged with post-its during a briefing on Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Cabinet Room of the White House, March 26, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
The upcoming release of the final version of the White House “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace” highlights three key trends that face the world in 2011: online identity, privacy and security. Governments need ways to empower citizens to identify themselves online to realize both aspirational goals for citizen-to-government interaction and secure basic interactions for commercial purposes.
Earlier today, Stanford hosted an event today where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt talked about the Obama administration’s efforts to improve online security and privacy at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Here’s the NSTIC fact sheet the administration posted last year.
“As we look at the innovation engine that drives many of the things we’re doing, what does it mean to sit there as we’ve come together today,” asked Schmidt, “bringing these things together to overcome some of these risks associated with the technology we’ve deployed over the past 20 some odd years?”
The administration took public feedback on the document at NSTIC IdeaScale, which is now closed. (For a screenshot, see the story on IdeaScale on MSNBC.com.) “Every day at the end of the day. I would go back and read some of those comments,” said Schmidt today. “Some of them quite honestly were pretty silly. Other of them were very insight full and gave us some good thoughts about how can we do this right? How can we create a document that really does those things the secretary mentioned such as privacy enhancing but also giving us better trust?”
Schmidt took to the White House blog again today to announce a “National Program Office for Enhancing Online Trust and Privacy.”
Today, at Stanford University, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and I were pleased to announce that the Commerce Department will host a National Program Office (NPO) in support of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). As I’ve written previously, the NSTIC fulfills one of the action items in theCyberspace Policy Review (pdf) and is a key building block in our efforts to secure cyberspace.
This holiday season, consumers spent a record $30.81 billion in online retail spending, an increase of 13 percent over the same period the previous year. This striking growth outshines even the notable 3.3-5.5 percent overall increase in holiday spending this past year. While clearly a positive sign for our economy, losses from online fraud and identity theft eat away at these gains, not to mention the harm that identity crime causes directly to millions of victims. We have a major problem in cyberspace, because when we are online we do not really know if people, businesses, and organizations are who they say they are. Moreover, we now have to remember dozens of user names and passwords. This multiplicity is so inconvenient that most people re-use their passwords for different accounts, which gives the criminal who compromises their password the “keys to the kingdom.”
We need a cyber world that enables people to validate their identities securely, but with minimal disclosure of information when they’re doing sensitive transactions (like banking) – and lets them stay anonymous when they’re not (like blogging). We need a vibrant marketplace that provides people with choices among multiple accredited identity providers – both private and public – and choices among multiple credentials. For example, imagine that a student could get a digital credential from her cell phone provider and another one from her university and use either of them to log-in to her bank, her e-mail, her social networking site, and so on, all without having to remember dozens of passwords. Such a marketplace will ensure that no single credential or centralized database can emerge. In this world, we can cut losses from fraud and identity theft, as well as cut costs for businesses and government by reducing inefficient identification procedures. We can put in-person services online without security trade-offs, thereby providing greater convenience for everyone.
This is the world envisioned in the NSTIC. We call it the Identity Ecosystem. We will be working to finalize the NSTIC in the coming months, but that is only the beginning of the process. I’m excited to be working with Secretary Locke. The Commerce Department is perfectly suited to work with the private sector to implement the NSTIC. In addition, there are other departments and agencies with strategic roles to play as well. Above all though, we look to the leadership of the private sector. Therein lies the key to success. Now is the time to move forward with our shared vision of a better, more secure cyberspace.
The policy that the United States government makes towards the Internet has the potential to affect every person online in 2011, as advocates know, so how this is carried out bears close watching. The Center for Democracy and Technology filed key comments on NSTIC last year, including a key issue: “We alerted the Commerce Department to our concern about NSTIC’s current focus on the use of government credentials for private transactions: A pervasive government-run online authentication scheme is incompatible with fundamental American values,” wrote Heather West regarding the cybersecurity policy proposal.
The issue is at once simple and enormously complex, as Jim Dempsey from the Center for Democracy and Technology highlighted today. Government needs a better online identity infrastructure to improve IT security, online privacy, and support ecommerce but can’t create it itself, said Dempsey, outlining the key tension present. Dempsey advocated for a solution for online identity that lies within a broader trust framework and that is codified within a baseline federal consumer privacy law.
Some of the answers to the immense challenge of securing online privacy and identity won’t be technical or legislative at all. They lie in improving the digital literacy of for online citizens. That very human reality was highlighted after the massive Gawker database breach last year, when the number of weak passwords used online became clear. Schmidt highlighted the root caused of passwords today:
The reason most people do that is because we have to worry about remembering so many different passwords and then there’s so many layers of complexity and, complexity that we have to worry about, we have different time frame. We replace them every 30-day, 60 days, 90 days and it becomes really cumbersome. And recent survey found that 46% of the people surveyed never ever have changed their passwords and 71% use the same password with over and over and over again. From reading an on-line blog to doing sensitive financial transactions.
Others answers may be founded in creating online trust frameworks, which were a key initiative in 2010 for the federal government. Multifactor authentication, where more than one forms of identity are used in transactions, will be part of that vision. Schmidt described, loosely, what that might look like.
I go to a store. I go to a grocery store in some cases. I do some level of proofing, whatever I want to wind up doing, whether it’s the lowest level or the highest level to get an online identity stored on a token. A digital identity. Whether it’s on a USB drive or whether it’s on a smart card, I have the ability to do something beyond what I’m doing now. I go to log-in to these accounts. I use the USB device, I use a smart card. I use a one time password on my mobile device that no longer puts me in a position where I’ve been in the past where I can wind up making one small mistake and paying for it for years. But then I also get the log-in to my web mail account. That credential is passed on as well. So I have the ability to do these things seamlessly without all the baggage and overhead that goes with it. But then here comes the true test – this web mail – this phishing e-mail – comes in, and working together between the token and my digital identity and the browser, it stops me from doing things that are going to be harmful. And I had the ability to control that. I have the ability to set this up. And then it keeps me from becoming a victim of fraud.
That combination of physical tokens that interface with commercial and communications infrastructure to authenticate a consumer or online user are one vision of an identity ecosystem. Given the commercial needs of the moment, it should not be a surprise that the Department of Commerce is a key player. Secretary Locke offered perspective on the challenges that face the nation in 2011. [Full unedited transcript]
Let’s flash forward to today to 2011. Nowadays the world does an estimated $10 trillion of business online. Nearly every transaction you can think of is being done over the Internet. Consumers paying their utility bills, even from smartphones. People downloading music, movies and books online. Companies from the smallest local store to bed and breakfasts, to multinational corporations, ordering goods, paying vendors, selling to customers, all around the world. All over the Internet. E-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2010 were estimated at over $41 billion, up almost 14% over last year. And early reports indicate that the recent holiday buying season saw similar growth with year over year sales up by over 13%.
But despite these ongoing successes, the reality that the Internet still faces something of a trust issue. And it will not retch its full potential until users and consumers feel more secure than they do today when they go on-line. The threats on the Internet seem to be proliferating just as fast as the opportunities. Data breaches, malware, ID theft and spam are just some of the most commonly known invasions of a user’s privacy and security. And people are worried about their personal information going out and parents, like me, are worried about unwarranted sexually explicit material coming in before their children. And the landscape is getting more complex as dedicated hackers undertake persistent targeted attacks and develop ever more sophisticated frauds.
The approach that Locke outlined will apparently be housed within the Department of Commerce, a choice that is likely relevant to the scale and growth of e-commerce online:
The end game of course, is to create an identity ecosystem where individuals and organizations can complete online transactions with greater confidence, putting greater trust in the online identities of each other, and greater trust in the infrastructure that the transactions run over. Let’s be clear, we’re not talking about a national ID card. We’re talking about a government controlled system. But what we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing, and perhaps even eliminating, the need to memorize a dozen password through the creation and use of more trusted digital identities. To accomplish this, we’re going to need your help. And we need the private sector’s expertise and involvement in designing, building and implementing this identity ecosystem. To succeed we’ll also need a national program office at the Department of Commerce focused on implementing our trusted identities strategy.
For more context, look back to Schmidt’s introduction of the NSTIC at the WhiteHouse.gov blog last year:
Cyberspace has become an indispensable component of everyday life for all Americans. We have all witnessed how the application and use of this technology has increased exponentially over the years. Cyberspace includes the networks in our homes, businesses, schools, and our Nation’s critical infrastructure. It is where we exchange information, buy and sell products and services, and enable many other types of transactions across a wide range of sectors. But not all components of this technology have kept up with the pace of growth. Privacy and security require greater emphasis moving forward; and because of this, the technology that has brought many benefits to our society and has empowered us to do so much — has also empowered those who are driven to cause harm.
Today, I am pleased to announce the latest step in moving our Nation forward in securing our cyberspace with the release of the draft National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). This first draft of NSTIC was developed in collaboration with key government agencies, business leaders and privacy advocates. What has emerged is a blueprint to reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities and improve online privacy protections through the use of trusted digital identities.
The NSTIC, which is in response to one of the near term action items in the President’s Cyberspace Policy Review, calls for the creation of an online environment, or an Identity Ecosystem as we refer to it in the strategy, where individuals and organizations can complete online transactions with confidence, trusting the identities of each other and the identities of the infrastructure that the transaction runs on. For example, no longer should individuals have to remember an ever-expanding and potentially insecure list of usernames and passwords to login into various online services. Through the strategy we seek to enable a future where individuals can voluntarily choose to obtain a secure, interoperable, and privacy-enhancing credential (e.g., a smart identity card, a digital certificate on their cell phone, etc) from a variety of service providers – both public and private – to authenticate themselves online for different types of transactions (e.g., online banking, accessing electronic health records, sending email, etc.). Another key concept in the strategy is that the Identity Ecosystem is user-centric – that means you, as a user, will be able to have more control of the private information you use to authenticate yourself on-line, and generally will not have to reveal more than is necessary to do so.
This is all wonky stuff that may seem a bit dry to some readers, but it’s important. The intertwined issues of identify, security and online privacy are increasingly relevant to every citizens as more commerce, education, communication and elements of everyday life move onto the Internet and mobile infrastructure. This strategy is central to how the United States government will work with industry, nonprofits, citizens and other states to improve the status quo. On that count, Bob Gourley, CTO of Crucial Point, commented extensively on the NSTIC at CTOVision.
It won’t be easy. Supporting the creation of identity infrastructure and improvements to online privacy in the private sector has the potential to make the Internet more secure and convenient for users and consumers but could have unintended consequences if not carefully pursued. There’s a lot at stake. As the Stanford event organizers highlighted, “e-commerce worldwide is estimated at $10 trillion of business online annually.”
Wired’s Ryan Singel highlighted a key issue for the White House plan for online identity, perhaps even the fundamental one in today’s online identity landscape: Facebook.
Philip Kaplan, the outspoken founder of Blippy, AdBrite and Fucked Company, added a Silicon Valley developer voice to event’s panel, arguing that any system has to be simple to implement, so that developers working in their living room making a website can concentrate on building new features, not worrying about security.
The closest thing to that currently is Facebook Connect, which lets you use your Facebook credentials to login you in around the net and on mobile apps..
“I can put in one line of JavaScript and I have a login system,” Kaplan said. “But that doesn’t I’m not going to pay my taxes using Facebook Connect.”
Which is another way of it might be as dangerous for a single company to be the world’s online ID vault as it would for the government to handle that task.
And right now, with Facebook at 600 million users and $50 billion in valuation, that future seems much more likely than a standards-based, interoperative system built by geeks at the behest of the feds.
Whether an online trust framework can be a viable alternative to Facebook’s play to be the identity provider online is a first-order question, and one that deserved examination. Kudos to Singel for putting the event in that context.
Weekend Reading: The most recent version of the NSTIC follows. Look for more reporting, both here or at another outlet, once the final version is released.
National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf
Fireworks begin as the Killers perform on the South Lawn of the White House, July 4, 2010, during the Fourth of July celebration. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Exploring what this year will hold for the intersection of government, technology, citizens and business is a fascinating – and immense – challenge.
That is, however, precisely what I plan on doing, here, at the Gov 2.0 section of O’Reilly Radar, The Huffington Post, ReadWriteWeb, National Journal, Mashable, Forbes and other outlets.
Yesterday, I participated in a discussion on Twitter that touched upon “Gov 2.0,” open government and social media. I include explanations for those terms below. Dozens of people participatedusing the #SMfastfwd hashtag on Twitter or at the #SMFastFWD room at TweetChat.com.
Be forewarned: there’s some jargon below, but then the organizer of the chat specifically asked for explanations. My answers and key considerations raised by several participants for the year ahead follow.
What is government 2.0? Government social software expert Maxine Teller described the concept succinctly: Gov 2.0 equals “leveraging emerging tools, techs & collaboration PRINCIPLES to improve efficiency & effectiveness,” she tweeted. “Today’s tools & tech enable us to return to founding principles: government for, by & of the people.”
That’s useful, since many days it can seem like there are as many definitions for Gov 2.0 as there are people. That’s what happens when a term edges towards becoming a buzzword, particularly anything with a “2.0” added on.
Tim O’Reilly, my publisher, has explained how Gov 2.0 is all about the platform. In many ways, Gov 2.0 could be simply described as putting government in your hands.
As I’ve previously observed in writing about language, government 2.0, jargon and technology, I believe the term should be defined primarily by its utility to helping citizens or agencies solve problems, either for individuals or the commons. Defining it in gauzy paeans evangelizing world-shaking paradigm shifts from the embrace of social media by politicians isn’t helpful on that level.
That’s particularly true when politicians are using platforms to broadcast, in the model of 20th Century, not having iterative conversations that result in more agile government or participatory democracy.
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark put it another way yesterday: “Open government includes much greater gov’t transparency, that is, tell citizens what’s going on,” he tweeted. “Gov 2.0 includes gov’t and citizens working together for better customer service, more accountability.”
That melds well with O’Reilly’s perspective, where government 2.0 is the “idea of the government as platform: how can government design programs to be generative, […] building frameworks that enable people to build new services of their own.”
In a Forbes column in 2009, he’d framed this as “the opportunities inherent in harnessing a highly motivated and diverse population not just to help [politicians] get elected, but to help them do a better job.”
“Citizens are connected like never before and have the skill sets and passion to solve problems affecting them locally as well as nationally. Government information and services can be provided to citizens where and when they need it. Citizens are empowered to spark the innovation that will result in an improved approach to governance.
In this model, government is a convener and an enabler–ultimately, it is a vehicle for coordinating the collective action of citizens.
This is the right way to frame the question of “Government 2.0.” How does government itself become an open platform that allows people inside and outside government to innovate? How do you design a system in which all of the outcomes aren’t specified beforehand, but instead evolve through interactions between the technology provider and its user community?
Open government relates to that but isn’t necessarily grounded in technology, although certain aspects of it under the Obama administration absolutely have been.
As Chris Kemp, NASA’s chief technology officer for IT, put it last year, “The future of open government is allowing seamless conversations to occur between thousands of employees and people … You can’t divorce open government from technology. Technology enables the conversation and supports the conversation. We’re finding that if we don’t stand in the way of that conversation, incredible things can happen.”
If you’ve been tracking the progress of the Open Government Directive since 2009, you know that it required federal agencies to take steps to achieve key milestones in transparency, participation, and collaboration. As 2011 begins, more of those plans are still, for the most part, evolving towards implementation.
The progress of open government in the United States has beeen slowed by bureaucracy, culture, and the context of a White House balancing wars abroad and immense macroeconomic pressures, a populace deeply distrustful of many institutions, and, at the end of 2010, the emergence and disruption presented by the more “radical openness” of Wikileaks.
It was clear back in September that in the United States, open government is still very much in its beta period. It was in that context, that, in December, the White House made a new, ambitious request of the American people: help them to design digital democracy by creating a platform for expert consultation on policy.
In doing so, the architects of initiative embraced the notion government acting as a convener or collaborator, trying to co-create better policy or outcomes. By its nature, such open government platforms are expressed as top down, where officials work to create more participatory, collaborative model of governance.
Gov 2.0, by contrast, is more often conceived as expressly technology driven, founded in the platform principles of Web 2.0, and buoyed by the efforts of citizens and civic entrepreneurs to build “do-it-ourselves” government. Both Gov 2.0 and open government can and do increase transparency.
Consider this detail from a webcast, “What is Gov 2.0?,” which combines open government and Gov 2.0 in action:
“The first person who really put Gov 2.0 on my radar was Carl Malamud. Carl is really the father of this movement in so many ways. Back in 1993, that’s pretty darn early in the history of the World Wide Web, he put the SEC online.He got a small planning grant from the National Science Foundation, which he used to actually license the data, which at that point the SEC was licensing to big companies.
He got some servers from Eric Schmidt, who was the chief technology at Sun. And he basically put all this data he’d gotten from the SEC online, and he operated that for something like two years, and then he donated it to the federal government. Carl’s idea was that it really mattered for the public to have access to SEC data.”
In that moment, citizens in the private sector helped government do something it had trouble accomplishing. That’s still happening today, as evidenced by Malamud’s work on Law.gov and House.Resources.org.
Ben Berkowitz, the founder of SeeClickFix, put it this way yesterday in a tweet: “Don’t just use social web platforms to communicate, restructure government to operate like a social platform.”
To extend that, and reiterate elements of the earlier answer, Gov 2.0 is a frame to rethink how citizens to participate in government using technology. Open government has been around for decades as both a philosophy and a practice.
Awareness of the concept was rebooted under the White House Open Government Initiative and new Gov 2.0 technologies and events, including numerous camps and the O’Reilly conferences in Washington.
Open government also relates to Federal Register 2.0, rules, passage of new legislation, and culture, a key aspect that requires change management that extends far beyond technology:
Social media is a key element of many emerging citizen engagement platforms. These platforms give citizens new voices and provides new channels for government workers and elected officials to to talk with them. Aides for the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, say that he reads Facebook and constituents, as do many of his colleagues in Congress. While Facebook is an imperfect platform for government engagement, with respect to privacy or identity issues, given the hundreds of millions of users and global reach, elected officials have effectively been forced to at least pay attention to what is being said about them there. Some politicians, like former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, are shaping the national media conversation through Facebook and other media channels.
Social media, however, goes far beyond giving politicians or workers new platforms to broadcast, though that has been the approach for many first use cases. In 2011, for instance, Twitter is now home to emergency social data, including earthquake warning systems, crowdsourced weather alerts and other disaster-related information.
That’s why social media and FEMA now mix, among other reasons. Deciding to use these platforms creates complex decisions around terms of service and commercial speech, however, since civic discourse is being hosted by a third party. Those issues won’t go away in 2011.
Enterprise versions of these tools also provide the means for government to government communications, just as they do in businesses. That includes blogs, wikis, social networks, video or new forms of social media. For instance, ediplomacy at the State Department is doing behind firewall is in many ways at least as interesting as external social media use.
Smarter, leaner, more transparent, accountable, efficient and agile government, with data-driven policy. I’m sharing the stories of innovators.
Open government will move more from theory to practice in 2011.
Certain policies, like net neutrality, will test open government goals in 2011.
In 2011, the growth of edemocracy platforms *abroad* will be fascinating.
The themes that made 2010 a huge year for Gov 2.0 will continue to matter:
Wikileaks will impact open government in the United States in 2011, as t affects “need to know” vs. “need to share.”
There will be both positive and negative outcomes from that emergence.
Gov 2.0 advocate and San Francisco public servant Adriel Hampton identified a key issue here: “Education. Negative perception of gov still huge, citizens unaware of gov 2. efforts, excited when informed,” he tweeted.
Privacy and identity will be a huge issue for Gov 2.0 and open government in 2011. Follow the FTC Do No Track debate for more there.
There will be significant challenges around open government data, given the role controlling costs will play in 2011.
Another point made about accepting failures came from Newmark: “lots of Gov 2.0 open gov challenges, including normal big organizational inertia. Also, failure is stigmatized.” A more agile government would require tolerating mistakes and iterating faster based upon the lessons learned.
Government social media consultant Maxine Teller raised another angle: “Challenge is: what incentive do existing gov leaders have to embrace collaborative principles. Current system=self-perpetuating,” she tweeted. “Too much focus has been on citizen engagement. Need more on enterprise 2.0 — INSIDE government.” That goes back to the work at the State Department referenced earlier.For context on that challenge, read MIT professor Andrew Mcafee‘s piece on Gov 2.0 vs the beast of bureaucracy.
A final consideration is an open question: will open government be able to tap into the “civic surplus” to solve big problems. That’s Clay Shirky‘s “cognitive surplus,” applied to citizens and government. For open government to succeed, conveners need to get citizens to participate. That won’t be easy, with historic frustration and lack of trust in institutions in many parts of the country.
For me, that’s easy: That Gov2.0 equals = social media. Many members of the media, marketers or consultants have further entrenched that perception, which is not true for Web 2.0 either.
There’s also a misperception that Gov 2.0 is all about D.C., or the White House. The state and local stories of Gov 2.0 are absolutely fascinating, as are international stories.
The public should know about Challenge.gov and the potential for everyone to work on huge issues using crowdsourcing and open government.
The conversation pulled in many informed voices but clearly showed the need to extend much further to resonate with the public. We “need to mainstream the discussion by focusing on impact of Gov 2.0 concepts on agency, community missions,” tweeted Teller.
The “sweeping Gov 2.0 concept isn’t newsworthy,” tweeted Teller. We “need to show RESULTS and impact of Gov 2.0 principles on gov MISSIONS.”
It’s substantially hard to argue with that assessment, although some tech news outlets have covered it. That’s why the Veterans Administration’s Blue Button is a genuinely big deal. Newsworthy, real impact.
So here’s my goal for 2011: explain what Gov 2.0 means for citizens, how it’s impacting agencies, communities, relates to mission and outcomes, and do so in outlets that extend awareness beyond Twitter or blogs. The good news is that other outlets are waking up, as legislation and initiatives move through Congress and pilots: the Washington Post covered the COMPETES Act and Challenge.gov recently.
From my National Journal article today on the GOP transition in the House:
Today is the first day of the 112th Congress of the United States of America. One way that the incoming Republican majority will embrace innovation and transparency in the legislative process will be increased use of video and new media. As Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote at ReadWriteWeb, commenting on CNN’s report yesterday, Facebook will livestream the opening day of Congress.
In a post on Speaker.gov, the incoming speaker invited people to visit the “Pledge to America” Facebook page to view the transition to a GOP-controlled House and comment on the feed.
Key detail: you don’t have to be on Facebook to watch. You can see it right here. As Nick Schaper, the speaker’s director of new media, explained, the speaker’s staff is using the LiveStream.com plugin, available on Facebook, with the standard House of Representatives floor feed available on Capitol Hill to put the feed online. Notably, that also means that citizens and other interested parties don’t have to join Facebook, log in or “Like” the page to watch the transition. The feed at Livestream.com/SpeakerBoehner is available on the open Web and can be embedded on any blog or article.
Livestream.com and Facebook won’t be the only options used by the new speaker’s office either, according to Schaper. When asked whether the speaker would use Current.tv or UStream or YouTube, Schaper said that “we’ve never limited ourselves or worked exclusively with any technology partners on efforts such as this. We’ve used all of the above and I look forward to finding more new tools that can help our members more efficiently connect with those they represent.”
UPDATE: Notably, the new speaker’s remarks were livetweeted in sync with his speech by the new @SpeakerBoehner account on Twitter. It’s safe to say that, at least at this moment, Boehner was not tweeting himself.
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For more on social media, transparency and the 112 Congress, click on over the full article at National Journal.
The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules for regulating Internet access at a hearing today in Washington. After FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn said yesterday they will not stand in the way of Chairman Julius Genachowski’s modified order, it paved the way for a 3-2 vote to approve new rules of the road for the Internet. The tech policy reporters at Politico made the following assessment of the rules in their excellent Morning Tech newsletter this morning and got it about right.
1) Transparency for both wireline and wireless services, requiring disclosure to consumers, content and device providers,
2) Wireline providers are prohibited from blocking any lawful content, apps, services or devices; wireless providers, from blocking websites and competing telephony services, 3) Wireline providers are prohibited from unreasonably discriminating against any traffic (but no such rule for wireless). Paid prioritization is not explicitly banned, though any such regime would likely raise red flags for the commission under the “no unreasonable discrimination” test. That will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Below are key excerpts from the report and order the FCC voted on yesterday. (The full order still hasn’t been released to the public; more on that later in this post.)
Rule 1: Transparency
A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service shall publicly disclose accurate information regarding the network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of its broadband Internet access services sufficient for consumers to make informed choices regarding use of such services and for content, application, service, and device providers to develop, market, and maintain Internet offerings.
Rule 2: No Blocking
A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.
A person engaged in the provision of mobile broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block consumers from accessing lawful websites, subject to reasonable network management; nor shall such person block applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services, subject to reasonable network
Rule 3: No Unreasonable Discrimination
A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer’s broadband Internet access service. Reasonable network management shall not constitute unreasonable discrimination.
Wired’s Sam Gustin may have the best one sentence summary of what the FCC compromise will mean:
The three new rules, which will go into effect early next year, force ISPs to be transparent about how they handle network congestion, prohibit them from blocking traffic such as Skype on wired networks, and outlaw “unreasonable” discrimination on those networks, meaning they can’t put a competing online video service in the slow lane to benefit their own video services.
As Politico reported, these are widely regarded as the first enforceable net neutrality rules. The compromise they have produced widespread reaction on both sides of the issue. As Brian Stelter reported for the New York Times, the new FCC net neutrality rules are going down well with anyone interested in the issue.
The debate over the rules, intended to preserve open access to the Internet, seems to have resulted in a classic Washington solution — the kind that pleases no one on either side of the issue. Verizon and other service providers would prefer no government involvement. Public interest advocates think the rules stop far short of ensuring free speech. Some Republicans believe the rules are another instance of government overreach.
Nancy Scola posted a typically thoughtful analysis of what the FCC did to net neutrality today. The whole thing is worth reading but there are two key grafs:
…for sure, some of the provisions in this proposal do seem designed to be responsive to industry worries that don’t seem to have actually been justified in the record. But looking at this whole debate, it starts to look much bigger than Genachowski, and much like we’ve reached the point to where any sort of meaningful incursion onto the corporate right to influence and even dominate the Internet would seem like a downright radical act of political bravery. That’s a reality of the U.S. communications landscape, circa 2010. That we’re debating just how powerful a say telecom company’s should have over how the Internet works is a sign of how the Internet has, as a medium, shifted since its earlier days.
Writing for Wired in 2005, Kevin Kelly recalled how one of the early debates in the Internet’s evolution was whether or not to allow any sort of commerce at all on the activity layer of the Internet. (That is, e-commerce websites and the like.) “It’s hard to believe now,” writes Kelly, “but until 1991, commercial enterprise on the Internet was strictly prohibited.” The idea that the Internet should be so pure probably seems laughable to many of us now. Watching the net neutrality process unfold at the FCC and on Capitol Hill over the last many months has made clear that the reality is that, very quickly, corporate interests have acquired such a level of influence over the evolution of the Internet where the debate can sometimes seem to be far more concerned with their interests than the public interest.
The Center for Democracy & Technology released the following statement in response to the Federal Communications Commission vote to approve a set of “rules of the road” for preserving the open nature of the Internet.
“The Commission took a vital first step today by voting to adopt rules designed to sustain the open nature of the Internet,” said CDT President Leslie Harris. “The Internet is and should remain a place where innovators and upstarts can experiment and thrive, without needing to seek permission or approval from established network operators,” she said. “Today, after a long debate, the FCC affirms that it can and will play a crucial role in protecting that open environment.”
“This is a big day, but the true test of these rules will depend on how they are implemented and interpreted over time,” said CDT Senior Policy Counsel David Sohn. “It appears the rules will leave a number of important open questions, including how the FCC will approach openness for wireless. Ultimately, the kind of Internet users get should not depend on whether they happen to access it via a wireline or wireless connection.”
“To be sure, there is more to be done,” Harris said. “But this is how we make progress on policy, one step at a time, each step building on the one before it. This isn’t the end of the Internet neutrality debate, it’s just the end of the beginning.”
The Washington Post’s Cecilia Kang, who reported live all day on the FCC’s new neutrality rules, went on the PBS News Hour to talk about the new rules tonight:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/js/pap/embed.js?news01s466fq100b
The FCC’s press release follows. Look for the tech journalism community to be teasing more details from this over the coming days, including mentions of Android and how the FCC will handle the app stores
FCC Press Release 12-12-2010 Open Internet http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf
The meeting was livestreamed at FCC.gov/live. An archive of the liveblog on this post embedded below; the FCC itself liveblogged the meeting at Blog.OpenInternet.gov.
Before the hearing, another writer approached me for my thoughts on how transparency played into today’s hearing. Amy Gahran considered why the FCC ‘net neutrality’ rule was still secret at CNN.com today. While she included most of my statement, here’s the full version:
Chairman Genachowski made a commitment to a more open, transparent and data-driven F.C.C. under President Obama’s Open Government Directive. In many respects, in its first year of open government, the agency made commendable progress, with strides towards taking public comment through e-rulemaking at OpenInternet.gov, Broadband.gov and Reboot.FCC.gov. The sites were deployed by an able new media team that has used online communications in unprecedented ways. The chairman and his managing director, Steven Van Roeckel, both deserve credit for their plans to reboot FCC.gov as a platform for government including the use of APIs and open source technologies like Drupal.
That said, when it comes to the question of whether the public has a right to see the net neutrality proposal before the commissioners vote upon it, however, the agency has fallen short of its transparency pledge. I have not found a legal precedent that explicitly gives the agency authority to keep the text of a proposed rule secret until it is voted upon by the Commission. While it is true that conversely the F.C.C. does not appear to be under no legal obligation to do so, given that the members of the commission presumably had to negotiate on the details of the final rules for vote, the decision not to share a version publicly may have made such discussion more flexible. That said, the choice not to post the proposed rules online before the vote is an example less government transparency in the creation of important regulation, not more.
UPDATE: Ryan Singel obtained and posted the following snippets of what looks like the new open Internet rules, below:
Net Neutrality Order Snippets http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf
UPDATE: The New York Times Brian Stelter obtained a copy of FCC Chairman Genachowski’s remarks. They are embedded below. His initial coverage of the FCC net neutrality rules remains some of the best online.
Net neutrality statement by Julius Genachowski, the FCC chair, on Dec. 21, 2010 http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf
UPDATE: Here are all five prepared statements from the FCC commissioners, as posted on FCC.gov as PDFs.
UPDATE: The FCC released the full version of the new open Internet rules online on the Friday before Christmas.
This week, I was proud to be one of two speakers for a session on social media and government at the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL) conference in Washington, D.C. I delivered an adapted version of the talk on social media and government I gave the Social Security Administration’s Open Government Awareness Day earlier this year, focusing on the elements that would be of greatest interest to a group of lawyers, regulators and academics. The presentation is embedded below:
The speaker that followed me, however, was able to share a fascinating view of what social media looks like from inside of government, specifically in the District of Columbia. Alysoun McLaughlin, the public affairs manager for the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics. Here’s her bio, from the COGEL session description:
She joined the District last year, just in time to implement a long list of reforms for the 2010 election including new voting equipment, early voting and same-day registration. Prior to becoming an election official, she was a project manager for Election Initiatives at the Pew Center on the States. She previously spent a decade as a Washington lobbyist, focusing on election issues for the National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Association of Counties. She is here today to share her experience with social media during the 2010 election.
And share she did. Over the course of half an hour, she talked about Facebook, Twitter, local media, citizen engagement and much more. I captured most of her presentation on my iPhone (sorry about the unsteady hand) and have embedded her presentation, “To Tweet or not to Tweet: Engaging the Public through Social Media,” below.
If you want an excellent, practical perspective of the local government side of social media, these are worth watching. A couple of key takeaways from her presentation:
Part 1: Introductions
Part 2: Reflections on Twitter and Facebook
Part 3: Twitter and the 2010 DC Election
Part 4: Who follows @DCBOEE
Part 5: Listening and using social media in government
Tomorrow, December 8, is the one year anniversary of the White House Open Government Directive, which which required federal agencies to take steps to achieve key milestones in transparency, participation, and collaboration. At 2:00 PM EST, the first United States chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra, will join OMB chief information officer Vivek Kundra and Cass Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, in a live web chat at WhiteHouse.gov/live. Video of the webcast is embedded below:
The @OpenGov account and White House solicited questions through an online form tool at WhiteHouse.gov and through the White House Facebook page. The chat itself will be hosted using the White House Live Facebook app and streamed live online through WhiteHouse.gov/live or, presumably, the White House iPhone app. Watch for whether any three of the White House officials answer questions on Wikileaks and open government. (UPDATE: They didn’t.) President Obama’s press conference on a tax deal with the GOP superseded the original chat on Tuesday, which the @WhiteHouseOSTP account confirmed.
I’ll be liveblogging the chat here using CoverItLive, embedded below:
White House Open Government Live Chat
The Sunlight Foundation released the following statement on the one year anniversary of the open government directive:
“In its first year, the Open Government Directive made government transparency a priority and encouraged federal agencies to put important information online. While more government information is now available online, the Directive’s limitations have also become clearer. Simply put, the president’s commitment to transparency is not yet living up to its full potential. The Open Government Directive is a great starting point, but the hard work that is needed to create a truly open government is still ahead of us.
“Agencies such as the Department of Labor, Health and Human Services and NASA have led the way in releasing data, and the working groups created among key staff have brought about real cultural change within agencies. But all of these initiatives need a steady hand and a clear commitment from the White House to mature into permanent, reliable, effective policies that result in meaningful data online.
“More concentrated work is needed to move beyond the easy wins. The administration has to give stronger direction and urge the agencies to move forward if the promise of an open government is to be realized.”
Sunlight’s recommendations for a more open government are available online at http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/agenda/.
John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation is also liveblogging.
For more context on White House open government innovation, review the following pieces:
The open government community will likely be discussing the chat on Twitter. Embedded below is a curated list of open government accounts:
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Yesterday, the FTC online privacy report endorsed a “do not track” mechanism for Web browsers. This morning, the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection in the United States House of Representatives will hold a hearing on “Do-Not-Track” legislation. The hearing will e”xamine the feasibility of establishing a mechanism that provides Internet users a simple and universal method to opt-out from having their online activity tracked by data-gathering firms (a.k.a. a ‘Do Not Track List’).”
A livestream of the hearing is available, along with testimony:
The subcommittee has posted a memo that sets the stage for the hearing, which is embedded below. Notably, the document heavily references the Wall Street Journal’s excellent “What Do They Know?” series on digital privacy.
In the Internet age, each keystroke or click of a mouse can betray the most mundane or even sensitive details of our lives, and those details are being collected and packaged into profiles by a data-gathering industry with an increasing hunger for information that can be sold and used to target consumers based on their tastes, needs, and even perceived desirability. Many Americans don’t know that the details of their online lives are being gobbled up and used in this way, much less how to stop it in the event that such collection offends their expectations of privacy.
This summer, the Wall Street Journal began reporting about the online gathering of information about Internet users in an ongoing investigative series called “What They Know.” For its first piece, the Journal uncovered the extent to which Internet users’ activity is being tracked. The Journal found that visiting the top 50 most popular websites in the U.S. resulted in the placement on a single test computer of 2,224 files by 131 companies that track Internet users’ activity across the Internet. In addition, not only is tracking of Internet users pervasive, but it has become more invasive through the use by some in the tracking industry of more sophisticated technologies that can keep tabs on an Internet users activity on a website (rather than collecting just the fact that the website was visited) and some can even re-spawn themselves if an Internet user tries to delete them.
If you haven’t read the series, take some time over the weekend or holiday. And if you’re interested in what the federal government is considering in the context of digital privacy, tune in to the livestream and follow the #DNTrack hashtag on Twitter for the live backchannel.
http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js //
DNTrack House Briefing memo.12.01 http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf
E Pluribus Unum 