This White House’s decision to continue U.S. government participation in the Open Government Partnership was far from certain, given the demonstrated distaste of the Trump administration for international agreements and institutions. In that context, The Trump administration’s commitment to participating … Continue reading
If the American public wants to see meaningful progress on transparency, accountability or ethics in U.S. government, it should call on Congress to act, not the Trump White House. With little fanfare or notice, the United States of America has … Continue reading
This is the week for seeking feedback on open government in the United States. 4 days ago, the White House published a collaborative online document that digitized the notes from an open government workshop held during Sunshine Week in March. Today, Abby Paulson from OpenTheGovernment.org uploaded a final draft of a Model National Action Plan to the Internet, as a .doc. I’ve uploaded it to Scribd and embedded it below for easy browsing. Nelson shared the document over email with people who contributed to the online draft.
Thank you so much for contributing to the civil society model National Action Plan. The Plan has made its way from Google Site to Word doc (attached)! We will share these recommendations with the White House, and I encourage you to share your commitments with any government contacts you have. If you notice any errors made in the transition from web to document, please let me know. If there are any other organizations that should be named as contributors, we will certainly add them as well. The White House’s consultation for their plan will continue throughout the summer, so there are still opportunities to weigh in. Additional recommendations on surveillance transparency and beneficial ownership are in development. We will work to secure meetings with the relevant agencies and officials to discuss these recommendations and make a push for their inclusion in the official government plan. So, expect to hear from us in the coming weeks!
In a followup post, the White House shared a link to a collaborative online document where the notes from an open government workshop held during Sunlight Week were posted online for comment. In doing so, they moves from sticky notes to a wiki.
This is how @opengovpart National Action Plans get made pic.twitter.com/3d9gvmFUOs
— Nathaniel Heller (@Integrilicious) March 17, 2015
What will come of asking the broader public for feedback on the ideas that a workshop of advocates and policy wonks in DC suggested? Stay tuned.
In its search for technology talent, the White House has been recruiting heavily from Google of late, including U.S. chief technology officer Megan Smith. Today, President Barack Obama showed that his administration also likes Facebook, announcing that engineer David Recordon would upgrade the White House’s technology infrastructure. The news was first reported by Yahoo.
“In our continued efforts to serve our citizens better, we’re bringing in top tech leaders to support our teams across the federal government,” said President Obama, in a statement. “Today, I’m pleased to welcome David Recordon as the Director of White House Information Technology. His considerable private sector experience and ability to deploy the latest collaborative and communication technologies will be a great asset to our work on behalf of the American people.”
On the one hand, it’s terrific to see The White House attract top tech talent. Getting David Recordon into public service should be a win for the American people. Based upon a somewhat cryptic hint he posted on Facebook last August, it appeared that he was involved in helping to fix Heathcare.gov and another unnamed important project. The blog post that went up at WhiteHouse.gov confirmed that Recordon was “one of those engineers.” Bringing the best engineers the administration can find into the U.S. Digital Service will help the nation avoid more IT catastrophes, and Recordon, a notable open standard advocate who helped develop OpenID, is clearly one of them. That’s good news.
On the other hand, while being the first “Director of White House Information Technology” is clearly great copy for the tech press, working to “ensure that the technology utilized by the White House is efficient, effective, and secure” sounds more or less what the White House chief information officer should be — and has been – doing for years.
Just look at the responsibilities for the Office of the CIO. Per Federal News Radio, the White House CIO for the past two years, Karen Britton, stepped down in January 2015, without any announced replacement since. Michael Hornsby, the director of engineering and operations within OCIO, served as acting CIO. This all leads me to hypothesize that Recordon has effectively been named the new White House CIO but doesn’t have that title.
Regardless, here’s hoping Recordon’s considerable expertise leads to improvements in an information technology infrastructure that has come a long way since 2009 (read this) but still lags the private sector.
President Obama signed an official presidential memorandum today creating the role and establishing an “Executive Committee for Presidential Information Technology” made up of the “Assistant to the president for Management and Administration, the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council, the Director of the Office of Administration, the Director of the United States Secret Service, and the Director of the White House Military Office.”
According to the memorandum, which is embedded beneath and reproduced in plaintext below (it’s not online at WhiteHouse.gov yet), this committee will “shall advise and make policy recommendations to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and the Director with respect to operational and procurement decisions necessary to achieve secure, seamless, reliable, and integrated information resources and information systems for the President, Vice President, and EOP.”
In other words, these folks will advise the director on how to by, build and run tech for the White House.
Presidential Memorandum White House IT:
[Photo Credit: Brian Solis]
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release March 19, 2015
March 19, 2015
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY
THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND
BUDGET
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR
THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATION
SUBJECT: Establishing the Director of White House
Information Technology and the Executive
Committee for Presidential Information Technology
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution
and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to
improve the information resources and information systems
provided to the President, Vice President, and Executive Office
of the President (EOP), I hereby direct the following:
Section 1. Policy. The purposes of this memorandum are to
ensure that the information resources and information systems
provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP are
efficient, secure, and resilient; establish a model for
Government information technology management efforts; reduce
operating costs through the elimination of duplication and
overlapping services; and accomplish the goal of converging
disparate information resources and information systems for the
EOP.
This memorandum is intended to maintain the President’s
exclusive control of the information resources and information
systems provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP.
High-quality, efficient, interoperable, and safe information
systems and information resources are required in order for the
President to discharge the duties of his office with the support
of those who advise and assist him, and with the additional
assistance of all EOP components. The responsibilities that
this memorandum vests in the Director of White House Information
Technology, as described below, have been performed historically
within the EOP, and it is the intent of this memorandum to
continue this practice.
The Director of White House Information Technology, on
behalf of the President, shall have the primary authority to
establish and coordinate the necessary policies and procedures
for operating and maintaining the information resources and
information systems provided to the President, Vice President,
and EOP. Nothing in this memorandum may be construed to
delegate the ownership, or any rights associated with ownership, 2
of any information resources or information systems, nor of any
record, to any entity outside of the EOP.
Sec. 2. Director of White House Information Technology.
(a) There is hereby established the Director of White House
Information Technology (Director). The Director shall be the
senior officer responsible for the information resources and
information systems provided to the President, Vice President,
and EOP by the Presidential Information Technology Community
(Community). The Director shall:
(i) be designated by the President;
(ii) have the rank and status of a commissioned
officer in the White House Office; and
(iii) have sufficient seniority, education, training,
and expertise to provide the necessary advice,
coordination, and guidance to the Community.
(b) The Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations shall provide
the Director with necessary direction and supervision.
(c) The Director shall ensure the effective use of
information resources and information systems provided to the
President, Vice President, and EOP in order to improve mission
performance, and shall have the appropriate authority to
promulgate all necessary procedures and rules governing these
resources and systems. The Director shall provide policy
coordination and guidance for, and periodically review, all
activities relating to the information resources and information
systems provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP by
the Community, including expenditures for, and procurement of,
information resources and information systems by the Community.
Such activities shall be subject to the Director’s coordination,
guidance, and review in order to ensure consistency with the
Director’s strategy and to strengthen the quality of the
Community’s decisions through integrated analysis, planning,
budgeting, and evaluation processes.
(d) The Director may advise and confer with appropriate
executive departments and agencies, individuals, and other
entities as necessary to perform the Director’s duties under
this memorandum.
Sec. 3. Executive Committee for Presidential Information
Technology. There is hereby established an Executive Committee
for Presidential Information Technology (Committee). The
Committee consists of the following officials or their
designees: the Assistant to the President for Management and
Administration; the Executive Secretary of the National Security
Council; the Director of the Office of Administration; the
Director of the United States Secret Service; and the Director
of the White House Military Office.
Sec. 4. Administration. (a) The President or the Deputy
Chief of Staff for Operations may assign the Director and the
Committee any additional functions necessary to advance the
mission set forth in this memorandum.
(b) The Committee shall advise and make policy
recommendations to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and
the Director with respect to operational and procurement 3
decisions necessary to achieve secure, seamless, reliable, and
integrated information resources and information systems for the
President, Vice President, and EOP. The Director shall update
the Committee on both strategy and execution, as requested,
including collaboration efforts with the Federal Chief
Information Officer, with other government agencies, and by
participating in the Chief Information Officers Council.
(c) The Secretary of Defense shall designate or appoint a
White House Technology Liaison for the White House
Communications Agency and the Secretary of Homeland Security
shall designate or appoint a White House Technology Liaison for
the United States Secret Service. Any entity that becomes a
part of the Community after the issuance of this memorandum
shall designate or appoint a White House Technology Liaison for
that entity. The designation or appointment of a White House
Technology Liaison is subject to the review of, and shall be
made in consultation with, the President or his designee. The
Chief Information Officer of the Office of Administration and
the Chief Information Officer of the National Security Council,
and their successors in function, are designated as White House
Technology Liaisons for their respective components. In
coordination with the Director, the White House Technology
Liaisons shall ensure that the day-to-day operation of and
long-term strategy for information resources and information
systems provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP are
interoperable and effectively function as a single, modern, and
high-quality enterprise that reduces duplication, inefficiency,
and waste.
(d) The President or his designee shall retain the
authority to specify the application of operating policies and
procedures, including security measures, which are used in the
construction, operation, and maintenance of any information
resources or information system provided to the President, Vice
President, and EOP.
(e) Presidential Information Technology Community entities
shall:
(i) assist and provide information to the Deputy
Chief of Staff for Operations and the Director,
consistent with applicable law, as may be necessary to
implement this memorandum; and
(ii) as soon as practicable after the issuance of
this memorandum, enter into any memoranda of
understanding as necessary to give effect to the
provisions of this memorandum.
(f) As soon as practicable after the issuance of this
memorandum, EOP components shall take all necessary steps,
either individually or collectively, to ensure the proper
creation, storage, and transmission of EOP information on any
information systems and information resources provided to the
President, Vice President, and EOP.
Sec. 5. Definitions. As used in this memorandum:
(a) “Information resources,” “information systems,”
and “information technology” have the meanings assigned by
section 3502 of title 44, United States Code.4
(b) “Presidential Information Technology Community” means
the entities that provide information resources and information
systems to the President, Vice President, and EOP, including:
(i) the National Security Council;
(ii) the Office of Administration;
(iii) the United States Secret Service;
(iv) the White House Military Office; and
(v) the White House Communications Agency.
(c) “Executive Office of the President” means:
(i) each component of the EOP as is or may
hereafter be established;
(ii) any successor in function to an EOP component
that has been abolished and of which the function is
retained in the EOP; and
(iii) the President’s Commission on White House
Fellowships, the President’s Intelligence Advisory
Board, the Residence of the Vice President, and such
other entities as the President from time to time may
determine.
Sec. 6. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this
memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive
department, agency, entity, office, or the head
thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget relating to budgetary,
administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with
applicable law and appropriate protections for privacy and civil
liberties, and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not,
create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the
United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its
officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
BARACK OBAMA
# # #
A .gov website that uses HTTPS encryption by default for its visitors is a superb example of “privacy by design.” On March 6th, the Federal Trade Commission enabled encryption for FTC.gov. When I visited whitehouse.gov tonight, I found that the White House digital team had flipped the site for what’s likely the most prominent government website in the world. The White House Web team confirmed the change just after midnight.
The @Whitehouse is taking steps to improve your privacy. Starting today we use HTTPS by default: https://t.co/V14GDg1Ne1
— WH.gov (@WHWeb) March 11, 2015
According to Leigh Heyman, director of new media technologies at the White House, over the next few days, the team be migrating other domains, like the bare domain name, whitehouse.gov, and m.whitehouse.gov, over to HTTPS as well, joining http://www.whitehouse.gov.
“Americans care about their privacy, and that’s what the White House’s move to HTTPS by default is about,” said Eric Mill, an open government software engineer at 18F. “The White House’s use of HTTPS protects visitors’ personal information and browsing activity when they connect to whitehouse.gov across the vast, unpredictable network of computers that is the internet.”
If you’re unfamiliar with HTTPS, it’s a way of encrypting the way you connect to a Web server online. Specifically, HTTPS refers to layering the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) on top of the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS). What that means in practice is that your requests to the Web server and the pages results from it are encrypted and decrypted. Why does that matter? Consider, for instance, if someone is looking up sensitive health information online and visits a government website without HTTPS that also has data collection.
“Use of https is generally considered to be good practice, however, as opposed to unencrypted, regular http, although it adds a small amount of extra processing and delay to do the encryption,” commented Eugene Spafford, a Purdue University computer science professor and founder and executive director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security.
“HTTPS primarily provides three things: greater authentication, stream privacy, and message integrity. A quick look at the site doesn’t reveal (to me) anything that would likely require privacy or heightened message integrity. The most immediate consequence is that parties connecting to the website can have increased confidence of the site’s authenticity because a signed certificate will be employed. Of course, most people don’t actually verify certificates and their roots (cf. Superfish), so this isn’t an ironclad identification.”
“This immediately creates a strong baseline of privacy and security for anyone in the world, American or otherwise, who visits the White House website — whether to read their blog, learn more about the President, download official policies, or anything else inside whitehouse.gov,” said Mill.
“At a basic level, what a person sees and does on whitehouse.gov should be between them and the White House. When someone reads official policies published on whitehouse.gov, they should be confident that policy is real and authentic. The White House’s use of HTTPS by default means those promises just got a lot stronger.”
Appears that https://t.co/r3sBUG5BWy has moved to HTTPS by default @whitehouse @whweb pic.twitter.com/Vg9eNIjG8E — ashkan soltani (@ashk4n) March 11, 2015
Ashkan Soltani, the FTC’s chief technologist, explained why that federal agency shifted at the Tech@FTC blog:
As a quick primer, HTTPS encryption secures your communications while in transit with websites so that only you and the website are able to view the content. The lock icon now appearing in your browser represents that the communication is encrypted and eavesdroppers are unable to look in. At this time, secure browsing is generally not a requirement for federal websites, but it is considered an industry best practice. Transit encryption is an important safeguard against eavesdroppers and has been the subject of previous investigations where we alleged companies failed to live up to their security promises when collecting personal information. It’s an important step when websites or apps collect personal information, and is a great best practice even if they don’t.
The White House moving to HTTPS is part of a larger move to lead by example in promoting privacy and security best practices, related Soltani, over email.
“I believe we’ll see a slow shift over the next few years of websites and services moving to HTTPS by default,” he said, “something a number of standards bodies including ISOC, IETF, and IAB have also called for.”
Along with FTC.gov, Mill highlighted the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), the independent agency charged with balancing the rights of American citizens against the security steps taken in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, to HTTPS.
They’re far from alone: “Last month, 18F worked with 19 other .gov domains to go the distance to ensure browsers would always connect to them over HTTPS,” said Mill.
“Tt’s important to understand that what’s happening now in the federal government is what the broader internet has been working on for a while: making privacy the default.
The standards bodies that guide the internet’s development are recommending that the internet be encrypted by default, instructing their working groups to prioritize encryption in new protocol development, and declaring a more secure future for the web. The fastest versions of HTTP today already require encryption in major browsers, and it’s becoming easier to imagine a future where web browsers proactively warn users about unencrypted websites.
This is also why every .gov that 18F builds with its partner agencies uses HTTPS, full stop. We work hard to demonstrate that HTTPS can be fast, inexpensive, and easy. It’s a better future, and a practical one.”
The kind of privacy and security the White House is offering its visitors is what we should come to expect from the entire web, not just websites someone thinks are “sensitive”. All Web browsing is sensitive, and the White House’s leadership here reinforces that.”
It looks like Chris Soghoian, the principal technologist at the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project in the American Civil Liberties Union, is going to have a good day tomorrow.
This year, I’m hoping the @WhiteHouse will finally lead by example by turning on HTTPS encryption by default. CC @AMacOSTP @smithmegan.
— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) January 1, 2015
While the Obama administration has taken its lumps on digital privacy after revelations of bulk surveillance of the Internet backbone by the National Security Agency, this is undeniably an important step towards securing the traffic of millions of people who visit whitehouse.gov every month.
Now that the White House is leading by example, hopefully other federal, state and local government entities will also adopt the standard.
“Everyone should want a simple feeling of privacy as they use the web, and confidence that they’re at the real and exact website they meant to visit,” said Mill. “While not everyone is highly attuned to watching for that padlock in their browser, the more websites that add it — especially high profile ones like the White House — the more that people can depend on that promise being met.”
All of our hats go off to the @WhiteHouse, who just moved https://t.co/nB5fFgt4fR to HTTPS by default! pic.twitter.com/yXv6IJKuTL
— 18F (@18F) March 11, 2015
President Barack Obama shared the news that he would address the nation tomorrow night regarding an executive actions he would take on immigration on Facebook before embedding the video on The White House blog and tweeting a link to it.
Even in late 2014, when the use of social media has become part of the warp and weft of American society and political discourse, seeing the president “go direct” to the people online, not through media, on an issue of this magnitude is worth noting. Over the past year, the Committee to Protect Journalists have hammered the Obama administration on transparency and White House photographers have criticized restrictions on access. Even tough critics of the administration’s record on access for photos or transparency, however, acknowledge the role social media and the Internet has now taken on in getting the words of the president out to the people he serves.
On that count, the fact that the “big four” broadcast TV networks in the U.S., CBS, Fox, NBC and ABC, are not airing the speech is noteworthy, as is that fact that Telemundo and Univision will carry it live.
People that want to listen over the Internet will be able to do so at whitehouse.gov/live or radio.
For more on the news, read the Washington Post’s report on the context that surrounds the executive action and a short history from the past 70 years of actions other presidents have taken on immigration, all of which should be considered in the context of the time, Congress and their longterm efficacy.
According to a post on the White House blog, 17 million tax transcripts have been downloaded over the Internet since the feature launched in January 2014. The interesting outcome is that, according to the post, offline requests are down by 40%.
There was no clear return on the investment provided on what providing this online service saved taxpayers, but if we assume there are processing costs involved with sending transcripts through the mail and that, once online, the Internet service scales, that’s a good result, as is enabling instant electronic access to something that used to take 5-10 business days to arrive in print form.
Of note: it looks like Americans can expect more online services from the IRS in the near future, according to the the authors of the White House blog post, U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer Nick Sinai and Rajive Mathur, director of Online Services at the Internal Revenue Service:
“Building on the initial success of Get Transcript, there are more exciting improvements to IRS services in the pipeline. For instance, millions of taxpayers contact the IRS every year to ask about their tax status, whether their filing was received, if their refund was processed, or if their payment posted. In the future, taxpayers will be able to answer these types of questions independently by signing in to a mobile-friendly, personalized online account to conduct transactions and see all of their tax information in one place. Users will be able to view account history and balance, make payments or see payment status, or even authorize their tax preparer to view or make changes to their tax return. This will also include the ability to download personal tax information in an easy to use and machine-readable format so that taxpayers can share with trusted recipients if desired.”
Promising. I hope that the leadership of the IRS explores how the agency could act as a platform to enable more, much-needed innovation around personal data access and digital services in the years to come, enabling a modern ecosystem of tax software based on a standardized application programming interface.
Improving online self-service could have an enormous impact upon every single American taxpayer, from saving tax dollars on the government side to saving time and gray hairs year round in offices and kitchen tables. Per Sinai and Mathur, the IRS currently receives over 80 million phone calls per year, sends out almost 200 million paper notices every year, receives over 50 million unique visitors to its website each month during filing season.
More context and FAQ on how to download your tax transcript here.
As a candidate, Senator Barack Obama said on November 14, 2007 that “I will take a back seat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality, because once providers start to privilege some applications or websites over others, then the smaller voices get squeezed out and we all lose. The Internet is perhaps the most open network in history, and we have to keep it that way.” Over the past six years, however, his voice has often been missing from the debate over how the providers of broadband Internet service should be regulated. This morning, however, President, Barack Obama came out much more strongly in favor of net neutrality.
In his statement (video embedded above, text linked) the president outlined 4 “bright line rules” that he wants the Federal Communications Commission to adopt for how consumer broadband Internet providers should behave (no blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization, more transparency) and a rationale for how they should be regulated.
It’s time to keep the internet open and free. Read President Obama’s plan → http://t.co/3y3YLQD6MB #NetNeutrality pic.twitter.com/ifCoS1ty8j
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 10, 2014
On that count, the biggest news comes further down in President Obama’s statement: “…the time has come for the FCC to recognize that broadband service is of the same importance and must carry the same obligations as so many of the other vital services do. To do that, I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services.”
That position is unquestionably a big win for activists, who are thrilled about the news this morning. If you’re unclear about what “forbearance” means, beyond the dictionary meaning of “holding back,” here’s a good article by Nancy Scola and and here’s a much longer post, by Harold Feld, which has more on the topic, and why it’s contentious among telecom lawyers and policy wonks. Should this plan actually make into Open Internet rules and be voted in, how forbearance is handled what Stacey Higgenbotham suggested watching in her excellent analysis of this net neutrality proposal.” They have the patience and lobbying muscle to ensure that in the process of forbearing them from certain practices that are irrelevant for a broadband era, they can get concessions that may make Title II less onerous for them,” she wrote.
Forbearing from rate regulation, or artificially controlling the price for a set level of service, would address one of the most significant objections to Title II that have been raised by American telecommunications companies. Other countries, like Argentina, are going a different route.
Imagining US reaction to bill declaring Internet a public service http://t.co/AjvIkC2O6x’t-seeks-new-era-for-telecoms pic.twitter.com/dwLKVEGb8Z
— Alex Howard (@digiphile) October 30, 2014
That didn’t stop Verizon from warning that reclassification under Title II would cause “great harm to an open Internet, competition and innovation. The National Cable and Telecommunications Agency released a statement that (former FCC chairman) CEO Michael Powell was “stunned” by the president’s statement on net neutrality and that the matter belongs in Congress.
“There is no substantive justification for this overreach, and no acknowledgment that it is unlawful to prohibit paid prioritization under Title II,” he said. “We will fight vigorously against efforts to impose this backwards policy.”
In a tweeted statement that was subsequently posted to Comcast’s blog, David L. Cohen, an executive vice president at Comcast Corporation, similarly said that President Obama’s policy stance would “jeopardize this engine for job creation and investment as well as the innovation cycle that the Internet has generated” and suggested that reclassification this was a matter for Congress to decide:
To attempt to impose a full-blown Title II regime now, when the classification of cable broadband has always been as an information service, would reverse nearly a decade of precedent, including findings by the Supreme Court that this classification was proper. This would be a radical reversal that would harm investment and innovation, as today’s immediate stock market reaction demonstrates. And such a radical reversal of consistent contrary precedent should be taken up by the Congress.
The other key detail in the policy position on net neutrality the White House published today was picked up over at the Verge: President Obama asked the FCC to apply these rules to mobile broadband internet providers as well. In his statement, he said that “the rules also have to reflect the way people use the Internet today, which increasingly means on a mobile device. I believe the FCC should make these rules fully applicable to mobile broadband as well, while recognizing the special challenges that come with managing wireless networks.”
As the president also noted, that “the FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone,” but there’s no question that the President of the United States has put his thumb on the scale here, finally, and that it will put some pressure on the two Democratic commissioners, along with the man he nominated to lead the FCC, chairman Tom Wheeler.
Ball is still in the FCC’s court on #NetNeutrality. They aren’t required to follow the President’s approach. But it will be tough not to.
— Kevin Werbach (@kwerb) November 10, 2014
Here’s the statement released by Wheeler this morning, in response to the President’s position:
The President’s statement is an important and welcome addition to the record of the Open Internet proceeding. Like the President, I believe that the Internet must remain an open platform for free expression, innovation, and economic growth. We both oppose Internet fast lanes. The Internet must not advantage some to the detriment of others. We cannot allow broadband networks to cut special deals to prioritize Internet traffic and harm consumers, competition and innovation.
As an independent regulatory agency we will incorporate the President’s submission into the record of the Open Internet proceeding. We welcome comment on it and how it proposes to use Title II of the Communications Act.
In January, a federal court struck down rules that prevented Internet Service Providers from blocking and discriminating against online content. In May, the Commission sought comment on how to best reinstate these rules to protect consumers and innovators online while remaining within the parameters of the legal roadmap the court established. The goal was simple: to reach the outcomes sought by the 2010 rules. We sought comment on using Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, as discussed by the court to protect what the court described as the “virtuous circle” of innovation that fosters broadband deployment and protects consumers.
The purpose of the Commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposal was to elicit comments. In the past several months, we’ve heard from millions of Americans from across the country. From the beginning I have pledged to finally bring to an end the years-long quest for rules that are upheld in court. In May we sought comment on both Section 706 and Title II and I promised that in this process all options would be on the table in order to identify the best legal approach to keeping the Internet open. That includes both the Section 706 option and the Title II reclassification. Recently, the Commission staff began exploring “hybrid” approaches, proposed by some members of Congress and leading advocates of net neutrality, which would combine the use of both Title II and Section 706.
The more deeply we examined the issues around the various legal options, the more it has become plain that there is more work to do. The reclassification and hybrid approaches before us raise substantive legal questions. We found we would need more time to examine these to ensure that whatever approach is taken, it can withstand any legal challenges it may face. For instance, whether in the context of a hybrid or reclassification approach, Title II brings with it policy issues that run the gamut from privacy to universal service to the ability of federal agencies to protect consumers, as well as legal issues ranging from the ability of Title II to cover mobile services to the concept of applying forbearance on services under Title II.
I am grateful for the input of the President and look forward to continuing to receive input from all stakeholders, including the public, members of Congress of both parties, including the leadership of the Senate and House committees, and my fellow commissioners. Ten years have passed since the Commission started down the road towards enforceable Open Internet rules. We must take the time to get the job done correctly, once and for all, in order to successfully protect consumers and innovators online.
Whether this very public position by the White House leads the FCC to act any differently will be open to debate over the next month, as the deadline to get rules made and circulated to the commissioners before the last open meeting on December 11th grows near. It certainly gives them more political cover.
If the FCC does reclassify, expect the incoming 114th Congress and Republican majority to seek to shape that regulatory choice, perhaps by legislation, and that regulatory wrangling over net neutrality to end up in the courts. Again. (Conservatives concerned about the impact of applying Title II to the Internet may find this post by James Heaney of considerable interest.) Speaker of the House John Boehner was unequivocal in a statement released in response to President Obama’s position, asserting that “net neutrality hurts private-sector job creation“:
“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that the Obama administration continues to disregard the people’s will and push for more mandates on our economy. An open, vibrant Internet is essential to a growing economy, and net neutrality is a textbook example of the kind of Washington regulations that destroy innovation and entrepreneurship. Federal bureaucrats should not be in the business of regulating the Internet – not now, not ever. In the new Congress, Republicans will continue our efforts to stop this misguided scheme to regulate the Internet, and we’ll work to encourage private-sector job creation, starting with many of the House-passed jobs bills that the outgoing Senate majority ignored.”
Evidence for the Speaker’s assertion regarding the impact of net neutrality laws on jobs is scant, as Carl Brooks, an IT analyst with 451 Research, noted: “Connection markets are robust and competitive in [the European Union] for business; for consumers, prices are dramatically lower.” (The European Parliament enacted a strong net neutrality law earlier this year.) “Net neutrality in the EU is explicit policy to encourage competition [and] benefit consumers on the backs of state telecom,” he went on.
Regardless of the political outcome in Congress, close observers of the FCC expect the rules to be delayed until 2015. What the American people get for a holiday present online is — reclassification or some form of tiered services — remains, for now, something only St. Nick knows.
This post has been updated with more statements, links, media and analysis.
United States chief technology officer Todd Park will be moving to California at the end of August, just in time to take his kids to the first day of school. He’ll be shifting from his current position in the Office of Science and Technology a Policy to a new role in the White House, recruiting technologists to join public service. The move was first reported in Fortune Magazine and then Reuters, among other outlets. Update: On August 28th, the White House confirmed that Park would continue serving in the administration in a new role in blog post on WhiteHouse.gov.
“From launching the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, to opening up troves of government data to the public, to helping spearhead the successful turnaround of HealthCare.gov, Todd has been, and will continue to be, a key member of my Administration,” said President Barack Obama, in a statement. “I thank Todd for his service as my Chief Technology Officer, and look forward to his continuing to help us deploy the best people and ideas from the tech community in service of the American people.”
“I’m deeply grateful for Todd’s tireless efforts as U.S. Chief Technology Officer to improve the way government works and to generate better outcomes for the American people,” added White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director and Assistant to the President John Holdren. “We will miss him at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, but we’re fortunate Todd will continue to apply his considerable talents to the Obama Administration’s ongoing efforts to bring the country’s best technologists into the Federal Government.”
It will be interesting to see how Park approaches recruiting the nation’s technologists to serve in the new U.S. Digital Service and federal agencies in the coming months.
“It continues to be the greatest honor of my life to serve the President and the country that I love so very much,” stated Park, in the blog post. “I look forward to doing everything I can in my new role to help bring more and more of the best talent and best ideas from Silicon Valley and across the nation into government.”
For a wonderfully deep dive into what’s next for him, read Steven Levy’s masterfully reported feature (his last for Wired) on how Park is not done rebooting government just yet:
Park wants to move government IT into the open source, cloud-based, rapid-iteration environment that is second nature to the crowd considering his pitch tonight. The president has given reformers like him leave, he told them, “to blow everything the fuck up and make it radically better.” This means taking on big-pocketed federal contractors, risk-averse bureaucrats, and politicians who may rail at overruns but thrive on contributions from those benefiting from the waste. It also will require streamlined regulations from both the executive and legislative branches. But instead of picking fights, Park wants to win by showing potential foes the undeniable superiority of a modern approach. He needs these coders to make it happen, to form what he calls a Star Wars-style Rebel Alliance, a network of digital special forces teams. He can’t lure them with stock options, but he does offer a compelling opportunity: a chance to serve their country and improve the lives of millions of their fellow citizens.
“We’re looking for the best people on the planet,” he said. “We have a window of opportunity—right the fuck now—within this government, under this president, to make a huge difference.
“Drop everything,” he told them, “and help the United States of America!”
The next US CTO will have big shoes to fill: Park has played key roles advising the president on policy, opening up government data and guiding the Presidential Innovation Fellows program and, when the president asked, rescuing Healthcare.gov, the federal online marketplace for health insurance. While it’s not clear who will replace Park yet, sources have confirmed to me that there will be another U.S. CTO in this administration. What isn’t clear is what role he (or she) might play, a question that Nancy Scola explored at The Switch for the Washington Post this week:
There’s a growing shift away from the idea, implicit in Obama’s pledge to create the U.S. CTO post back in 2007, that one person could alone do much of the work of fixing how the United States government thinks about IT. Call it the “great man” or “great woman” theory of civic innovation, perhaps, and it’s on the way out. The new U.S. Digital Service, the pod of technologists called 18F housed at the General Services Administration, the White House’s Presidential Innovation Fellows, even Park’s new outreach role in Silicon Valley — all are premised on the idea that the U.S. needs to recruit, identify, organize, and deploy simply more smart people who get technology.
An additional role for the third US CTO will be an example of the Obama administration’s commitment to more diverse approach to recruiting White House tech staffers in the second term. The men to hold the office were both the sons of immigrants: Aneesh Chopra is of Indian descent, and Park of Korean. As Colby Hochmuth reported for Federal Computer Week, the White House of Office and Science and Technology Policy achieved near-gender parity under Park.
If, as reported by Bloomberg News, Google X VP Megan Smith were to be chosen as the new US CTO, her inclusion as an openly gay woman, the first to hold the post, and the application of her considerable technological acumen to working on the nation’s toughest challenges would be an important part of Park’s legacy.
Update: On September 4th, the White House confirmed that Smith would be the next US CTO and former Twitter general counsel Alex Macgillvray would be a deputy US CTO.
[PHOTO CREDIT: Pete Souza]
This post has been updated with additional links, statements and analysis.
E Pluribus Unum 