A few weeks ago I mentioned tool proposals for a “Web 2.0 government” with a suggestion brought up by a Slashdot commentator to introduce wikis for pending legislation and an issue tracker for exisiting one. Now, Tim O’Reilly proposes Barack Obama’s new government should introduce revision control for change.gov, the website of the Obama-Biden transition team. O’Reilly notes: “[W]hen public documents can be changed without notice, it’s essential for the public to be able to see what changed, and why”, and continues by envisioning a broader use for revision control in a future transparent government:
The real holy grail, of course, would be to provide revision control on all government regulations, and eventually, on legislation. This would no doubt be fought tooth and nail by lobbyists who don’t want their fingerprints on the final result, but that’s precisely why it would be such a breakthrough. And that’s also why I suggest that the Obama team start with change.gov: demonstrate that the system works, that it has enormous benefits in transparency, and work from there.
If this sort of a versioning system would be properly introduced on legislation level, it would surely make it easier to track changes and see which interest groups have had their say and used their influence on which revisions (at least officially). Also, pending changes could easily be viewed and commented by any member of the public. Plainly this would be good for transparency and democracy on the whole.
