Tue

Jul 8
2008

Tim O'Reilly

Tim O'Reilly

House trying to ban twitter and qik?

John Culberson (R-Tex) is trying to stir up a storm on twitter, saying that new house rules being proposed would ban services such as twitter from being used by members of Congress. He points to this letter from the House franking commission. I don't see where it bans any such thing, but he would be more likely than I am to read between the lines.

I'm put off by the very obvious partisanship of his appeal, pinning it on "the Dems," without a lot of substance. I'd guess that if there is something here, this is very much coming from the old guard of both parties. Clearly, it's brain dead.

I still remember a talk I gave to the House staff in 1993 about the internet. I was taken aside beforehand by some members of the House IT department, who beat around the bush for a while. I asked the point, and was told, "Don't get them too excited, because we're not going to give it to them." We saw where that ended up.

I doubt very much that even the old guard will be able to shut down the increased permeability that new media gives to old institutions.

I'd love to hear more from people who know the ins and outs of current politics and transparency policy than I do. I have some queries out. Will report more as I hear it.

tags: culbertson, house, politics, twitter, web 2.0  | comments: 4   | Sphere It
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Comments: 4

  Mark Murphy [07.08.08 06:30 PM]

TechDirt has more on this here. Apparently the problem is more with the existing rules and regulations -- arguably, Rep. Culberson is not supposed to be Twittering at all under the current rules, yet he's lashing out at another representative who's trying to clear all this up.

  John Culberson [07.08.08 09:17 PM]

If the Ds rule change were in effect today, before I could post this, YOUR website/blog would have to be preapproved as complying with House rules, my post would require a disclaimer that it was "produced by a House office for official purposes," and the CONTENT of my post would have to preapproved by the House Franking Committee as complying with "existing content rules and regulations."

This is a violation of YOUR First Amendment rights and mine, and is an outrageous attempt by House leadership to stifle and control you and me. If Rs were in charge I would be just as outraged - forget the party label - I do not want the federal gov't/House of Representatives certifying your website or the content of my posts. I am writing this post personally, in my official capacity, so it would fall precisely under their new rule and you and I would both be in violation unless we subjected ourselves and our words to their prior approval/editing.

I am always the first to admit I am wrong when I can be shown I am in error. I am an attorney and I know what the letter says and what they mean with it. The people implementing this new rule may be benevolent and have noble purposes, but that is irrelevant. This violates the First Amendment.

  orcmid [07.09.08 07:57 AM]

There are two problems quite evident here.

1. How do we know this is the John Culberson who is the Congressman from a CD in Texas?

2. If it is that John Culberson, why is he debating *existing* and long-standing House Rules with us? Since the House determines its own rules, and the Constitution says so, why is this a public issue (other than maybe to warm up the disinformation machine for later this year, a trial run perhaps?)

Point (1) is part of the reason there are the rules there are and others have been blogging about that. I also don't understand how this is read into the letter. The letter does not propose tightening existing rules, it does not mention Twitter (or commenting on blogs such as the one right here) and I am not at all sure that John Culberson's First Ammendment rights are in question.

Point (2) can be dealt with by Culberson's constituency, I suppose, as well as whatever House leadership does about stuff like this. The important issue seems to be whether the comment here (if actually from the Congressman in question) is a communication in the Congressman's official capacity. I think not.

If the poster wants to scare us about intrusions on our constitutional protections, maybe we should be talking about The Patriot Act, FISA warrants, and the suspension of habeas corpus?

  Carl Malamud [07.09.08 09:43 AM]

Tim -

I've been a fairly close observer of the Franking Commission process as it directly impacts my groups ability to get congressional comittee video released by the House Broadcasting Studio. (If members can't post on YouTube, then committees can't either since they are made up of members.)

I must respectfully disagree with Congressman Culberson on his interpretation of the new Franking Commission rules. I see no indication that they would, if adopted by the Committee on House Administration, prohibit services such as Twitter and they certainly don't require prior approval of content.

Where I must agree with Congressman Culberson is that one aspect of the proposed rules are an issue, which is the requirement that members only post on sites on a pre-approved list. That is fine for services run by companies with a large Washington, DC staff who have the resources to get "Certified," but it discriminates against the open source and web 2.0 ecosystem and ties the hands of a Congressman who wants to work with those kinds of web sites.

I communicated my views on the matter in a letter to Congressman Brady, the Chairman of the Committee on House Administration. Chairman Brady has been one of the leaders in placing congressional video on the Internet in high-resolution formats and his staff is very knowledgeable on these issues.

Link to my letter: [ scribd | pdf ]

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