Legislating with bloggers in mind
Senator John Cornyn of Texas (along with Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont) has introduced legislation to overhaul the U.S. Freedom of Information Act in order to improve the public's access to information about the federal government. Mark Tapscott of the Heritage Foundation says that Senator Cornyn and his staff had bloggers in mind while drafting the legislation. Indeed, when he introduced his proposal on the Senate floor, Cornyn mentioned blogs:
It’s only natural that government leaders want recognition for their successes, but not their failures. But we as a healthy democracy need to know the good, the bad and the ugly. The news media is of course the main way people get information about government. The media pushes government entities, and elected officials and bureaucrats and agencies to release information that the people have a right to know, occasionally exposing waste, fraud and abuse. And hopefully, more often than that, letting the American people know what a good job their public officials are doing. But we’ve also seen in recent years the expansion of other outlets for sharing information outside of the mainstream media – to online communities, discussion groups, and blogs.
Tapscott envisages a blogosphere that watches over the federal government in something like they way it watches over the MSM. Senator Cornyn seems to share that vision. Passing the Cornyn-Leahy proposal is a necessary first step to bringing this about.
