FC: Can technology expose miscreant government officials?

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Thu May 30 2002 - 22:09:14 PDT

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    Subject: Could Technology have caught Gov. Davis?
    Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 09:40:26 -0700
    From: "Sonia Arrison" <SArrisonat_private>
    To: <declanat_private>
    
    Declan,
    
    Your Politech list might be interested in this piece on the California 
    Governor's messy Oracle scandal and how technology might help to catch 
    these types of improper actions by politicians in the future.
    
    Best,
    Sonia
    
    http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-053002A
    
    Making Gray Davis Accountable
    By Sonia Arrison
    California's Governor Gray Davis is in hot water over his acceptance of 
    $25,000 from Oracle Corporation following the state's no-bid $95 million 
    dollar e-government deal with the company. And while the governor probably 
    wishes he had never heard of e-government, Americans want more of it in the 
    form of e-accountability.
    
    E-government -- using technology to make government more efficient -- has 
    received a lot of lip service over the past couple of years. Homeland 
    security director Tom Ridge says he's "convinced e-government will change 
    society" and Senator Joseph Lieberman is known to wax poetic about 
    e-government's "transformative potential."
    
    Given these comments, one might be excused for thinking that the "dot-gov 
    revolution" -- the next American Revolution as some 
    <http://www.netcaucus.org/books/egov2001/pdf/Bluecove.pdf> have called it 
    -- will be some sort of magic event that will usher in a new era of 
    responsible government. But as the California government's Oracle debacle 
    clearly shows, giving a bunch of overpriced computer systems to 
    uninterested government bureaucrats does not guarantee increased efficiency 
    or responsibility.
    
    
    [...]
    
    
    
    
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