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Cif America

Direct democracy

Barack Obama should go beyond fundraising and use the internet as a tool for government transparency and civic action

I lived in London for almost four years and I miss many parts of Britain's infrastructure. I miss the NHS and British trains (try Amtrak if you don't believe me). I listened to the BBC with wistfulness last week as the country celebrated Ernest Bevan and the NHS's 60th birthday. But when I think of British government, I don't think of a dynamic, internet-powered wired government. That's Barack Obama's turf, right? I think I might be wrong.

At a presentation recently, I was stunned to see shots of members of Parliament actually talking online, to each other and to voters. I had the privilege of hearing Tom Steinberg of mysociety.org, whose organisation uses technology to help citizens actively participate in government, from a site like FixMyStreet, to the No10 petitions website. This was quite stunning to an American audience, since it's built on an open source platform and seemingly unmediated. And in Britain you can try to ask the prime minister questions on YouTube. Granted, there are some exceptions within the American federal system, but Governing 2.0, as it's been dubbed, may be a long time coming. Instead, in the US we like to focus on the campaign.

I think many Americans have the wrong conception of what an online-empowered political system looks like. Many say Obama would never be the Democratic nominee if it were not for the internet. And the statistics are mind-blowing: more than $45m raised online in February 2008 alone. Over a million donors with an average gift of below $100. Apparently, 50% of February's donors gave less than $50, and a third of those donors went on to volunteer by signing up at my.barackobama.com, the candidate's social networking community.

You might think we're so online-empowered here. Yes, my.barackobama.com has millions of users but it's a remarkably directed environment. The ideal outcome would seem to be the creation of many self-organising teams who meet to cheer on Obama. Based on past campaigns, the site will probably shut down on November 5 this year, the day after the presidential election, and those teams will disperse, only to come back in four years' time.

It's fair to say this attitude extends to most American political operations. Internet operations are valuable to campaigns for cash-gathering capabilities (one can turn on the spigot, in effect, by sending out online fundraising solicitations) and cool online programmes make for great process stories in the media. The huge need for cash in American campaigns coupled with what I understand to be sometimes arcane and particular rules about political communication within the federal government means online communities are less valuable when governing is actually happening.

I've written before that Obama is a very well-marketed candidate, and like all good marketing campaigns, this necessitates a short-term, laser-focused approach. Recent articles have questioned whether the campaign values its online community beyond fundraising.

Obama has caught a lot of well-deserved flack recently for his support for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) amendments that the Senate passed on Wednesday. This issue is a hot button for the netroots supporters who were important to Obama's primary success. The Fisa legislation broadly expands executive powers to conduct warrantless wiretaps and grants immunity to the telecom companies that have already participated in illegal wiretaps at the request of the Bush administration. Concerned Obama supporters started a new group on my.barackobama.com to ask the senator to vote against the Fisa revisions. Obama responded, via his blog, appropriately. Obama (or his policy team) wrote: "I intend to run as president of the United States - a White House that takes the constitution seriously, conducts the peoples' business out in the open, welcomes and listens to dissenting views, and asks you to play your part in shaping our country's destiny."

Obama's blog post garnered 2,443 reader comments. It's a start. Obama could be the first president to use the internet as a tool for real civic action, in addition to electioneering. Obama has pledged to use digital technology to open up government to the public and appoint the first White House chief technology officer. But it's a slow road to change in a country addicted to the excitement of campaigning, and sceptical about the realities of governing. Maybe we should take a page from the UK.

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