As Mashable reports, the White House is looking for someone to archive their social network materials. I considered actually developing a proposal, but the proposal is due in two weeks, and then they want “off the shelf” implementation in 30 days. I suspect this means they have a product in mind, and I’d be interested to know what it is.
Far more interesting to me, however, is whether they will make these archives immediately available to the public, as well as to the National Archives, etc. If not, they should. There’s no good reason not to. But that doesn’t mean they will.
More to the point, if not, we should. So, assuming I don’t answer the RFQ from the White House–and given my schedule right now, that’s a good assumption–does someone want to help cobble together an archiving system for the White House site, Twitter feed, Facebook page, etc.? They are looking for comments as well, but I would want to go further, and look for re-tweets, in-links, and the like. It’s a non-trivial effort, but the system could have good research and commercial uses beyond the White House.
3 Comments
Apparently they’re already collecting personal data on “social networks”:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/16/obama-wh-collects-web-users-data/
http://www.jbs.org/freedom-campaign/5204
got a great project for you to look at in new jersey. sent u 2 emails. may have a very active participant who would allow interactive communications in government in a very interesting way. she’s got to first get the position but i think it will happen. it would be very grass roots..etc..would love to see how ordinary people use networks to make government and laws work.
the idea is people should choose what they want stored on a government web site. if i have a public opinion, i should have control of over how my opinion is stored>. if i have an opnion or complaint or even idea, i would am a responsible citizen. i, and many other citizens want to have a voice but would like to have control over how it is stored, edited, and ability to answer for myself if misinterpreted. it is a matter of consent to store but if the do store, i wish for them to take it seriously cause i want my governent to listen and to see me as an equal to all others. randome storage of information with no purpose is not to our freedom”s benefit.
same goes with how laws are written or enforced. people should learn the law and love the law and understand how to obey the laws. people should be able to comment and have as much influence as special interests when it comes to law writing and understand who benefits with clauses and who is pulling strings for each line: this is where the storage of info the web page is problematic: they are storing the silly and mundane: if one stores the all things should be stored equally: the lobbist who influence the whitehouse should have their emails and gps going abouts with whom they interact with toward changing or influencing laws.
the same weight to jokes and jests of freedom of speech is given to storing data from social networks, so should the ability to understand how lines and loopholes come into being or proposal. thats more legistilative than executive but the lines are blurred with enforcement and carring out policy.