Ask The President

So Obama promised us open government, right?

Well, The Nation and other media outlets (but really, The Nation is the only one that matters, right?) have teamed up to bring us a site that will, we hope, generate citizen questions to be asked of President Obama at his press conferences.

Ari Melber at the Nation writes:

We are calling on Obama to start a new tradition to open up the White House: invite new and independent voices into the East Room by pledging to take a citizen-generated question at every prime-time press conference.

I wrote a few weeks ago about the way people were using the Internet to organize and push for their own priorities in the wake of Obama's election. The Obama campaign trained a whole bunch of people in skills they'd never had before--not just old-fashioned boots-on-the-ground organizing, but using the Web and social networking tools to find like-minded folks and pull together networks.

While the Ask The President site isn't perfect (multiple duplicate questions could create problems for accurate voting tallies) its interface is extremely simple. All you have to do is click a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, you can search for questions on a topic you want (and I recommend you do so before submitting--there are hundreds of questions already). The site even has video questions, though this actually makes the process slower.

Still, if Obama would actually commit to taking citizen questions, this would not only be a major step forward for open government, but it would be a check on the gatekeepers at the mainstream media. Certain questions simply never make it through the gates to be asked, even though they may have significant popular support.

Obama's already shown himself willing to attend town hall meetings that at least appear less stage-managed than Bush's, but taking regular questions from citizens would be a great step, and this site has taken away one more excuse why not. It's being promoted on Twitter and elsewhere, and you can even follow @AskThePresident on Twitter.

The way the site is designed, it can privilege questions that have outside promotion, so I'll do my part on that level, too. Since they're embeddable, here's my recommendations for promotion:

Morning in America

For real this time.

*Closing Gitmo and foreign prisons.

*Pay freeze for staffers making over $100,000 a year. (It's not quite a maximum wage, but it's a significant symbolic move.)

*Same article, new rules for administration officials becoming lobbyists.

*Open government and presumption in favor of Freedom of Information Acts.

And that's the first day.

My Obama Email

I love still getting regular emails from what's now the transition team. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, Obama's going to keep his promise of open government.

Today's made me especially happy. It outlined what they're calling the "Seat at the Table" transparency policy. Here's the memo included in the email:

As an extension of the unprecedented ethics guidelines already in place for the Obama-Biden Transition Project, we take another significant step towards transparency of our efforts for the American people. Every day, we meet with organizations who present ideas for the Transition and the Administration, both orally and in writing. We want to ensure that we give the American people a "seat at the table" and that we receive the benefit of their feedback.

Accordingly, any documents from official meetings with outside organizations will be posted on our website for people to review and comment on. In addition to presenting ideas as individuals at www.change.gov, the American people deserve a "seat at the table" as we receive input from organizations and make decisions. In the interest of protecting the personal privacy of individuals, this policy does not apply to personnel matters and hiring recommendations.

Scope:
The following information will be posted on our website:
1. Documents: All policy documents1 and written policy recommendations from official meetings2 with outside organizations.
2. Meetings: The date and organizations represented at official meetings in the Transition headquarters or agency offices, with any documents presented as noted above.

This scope is a floor, not a ceiling, and all staff are strongly encouraged to include additional materials. Such materials could include documents (recommendations, press releases, etc.) presented in smaller meetings or materials or made public by the outside organization without a connection to an official meeting.

If you have any questions as to whether documents should be included, please email [REDACTED].

Process:
Prior to an official meeting with an outside organization or organizations, Obama-Biden Transition Project staff members will inform attendees that any documents provided will be posted on our "Seat at the Table" website found at www.change.gov. Suggested language for email invitations is: "By presenting or submitting any document at a meeting with the Obama-Biden Transition Project, you agree to allow the document to be made public and posted on www.change.gov." At the completion of each meeting or upon receipt of such documents, Transition staff will provide the documents to [REDACTED] with the date of the meeting, a list of the organizations in attendance, and the topic of the meeting.

There's video here, and the section on the website is here.

You can leave comments at the site.

While that doesn't mean that anyone's actually going to read the comments, it's stuff like this that really impresses me. This administration actually appears to mean what it says about this policy, and plans on continuing talking to Americans like they're grownups.