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Welcome to the CIVICS.com weblog. This site hosts the MIT E-Commerce Architecture Program civic forum series and the MIT Smart Cities Identity Management online discussion project. Please check back at this site later for more content.

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  • CIVICS Open Government and Information Society (COGIS)
  • introduction
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  • Welcome and Introduction

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Recent Posts

  • Statement on the Role of States in the Information Society and Open Government
  • National Thought-Leader Andy Updegrove Calls for Obama Team to Use Open Architectures
  • The "Open Government Data Principles" and the Obama Transition Team
  • Overview of Topics, Resources and Categories for CIVICS.com
  • Open Architecture for Open Government
  • Interesting post from Mark Dixon, of SUN, regarding the MIT and eCitizen Foundation's work on Identity
  • Open Government Without "Tyranny of the Mob"
  • US Intel: Future is "Multi-Polar" - We is the New Me
  • Examples of Information Age Bylaws for Governance and Organizational Controls
  • Identity Keynote Presentation to OECD Conference

This historical document of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was one of several occasional policy papers and statements made public by the state while I was on their team. It is relevant again today, in light of the coming era of "open government" touted by the incoming Obama team, as the country starts to sort out the relative roles and positions of local, state and federal agencies in the open, citizen-centered online experience of the short term future...

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ONLINE GOVERNMENT AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE:
The Proper Role of State Government
Friday, April 4, 1997

THE STATE GOVERNMENT AS INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE MAKER

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is Lowering Costs and Increasing Service Quality to the Customer Through such efforts as the Online Government Task Force and the Public Access Architecture Group. We are Leveraging our Wide Area Network and the Internet as business tools.

There are over 40 distinct projects planned or underway in the Commonwealth that involve conducting business transactions over the Internet or Intranet as a key program component. From licensing to grant applications, the direction of state governments across the country is toward online communications. For example, today, any citizen can go to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts web site and renew her vehicle registration, pay a citation, even order a vanity license plate - all with a confidential encrypted session to protect the credit card payment information. This trend among state governments has been confirmed by a recent NASIRE survey.

For networks to be made into truly useful business tools, a broader more readily available information infrastructure must be created. State governments, again, serve an important role. For instance, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Information Technology Division is now in the process of two important information infrastructure projects. One initiative would leverage federal Universal Access money and state money with local contributions to lay a high capacity network architecture to every municipality or school district in Massachusetts. We are currently accepting proposals from vendors who seek to enable this statewide network. The other initiative involves leasing state government real property at relatively high altitudes to wireless communications companies for the placement of communications towers. The resulting wireless communications coverage will also strengthen the information infrastructure of this state and the lease money can be applied to still more information technology projects.

In addition to the physical infrastructure, many sets of transactions have information security needs as well. Authentication, privacy, message integrity, audit trails and other requirements are common - especially for business applications. There are a number of technologies that can accommodate some or all of these requirements, however, several states are exploring public key cryptography as a potential solution. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has implemented a "first of its kind" pilot project utilizing public key cryptography and digital certificates to enable banks to file documents over our web site with the Division of Banks. As the Commonwealth and other states begin to lay a public key infrastructure, we are exploring another important component to the general information infrastructure which will support secure electronic commerce.

THE STATE GOVERNMENT AS MARKET MAKER

In the case of the high capacity statewide network procurement, the aggregation of demand is having the effect of accelerating service offerings be vendors that would otherwise have been rolled out over a longer period of time. In some cases, services are being offered in response to the initiative that would not have been offered under ordinary, uncoordinated purchase conditions. State governments are large information technology consumers. State governments, in their respective geographic jurisdictions, are influential market players.

As a taxpayer funded enterprise, State Governments have a duty to use market power to leverage the most economical deals available. However, there lies a deeper public good than merely muscling vendors to provide products and services at the least cost feasible. It is widely recognized that the emergence of ubiquitous and secure electronic commerce is in the public interest. It is beyond the power of any given State Government to enable such a system, not least because the medium is multi-jurisdictional by nature. Furthermore, working in isolation, State Governments run the risk developing requirements and practices that conflict with each other and thereby impede the natural evolution of private sector electronic commerce. By contrast, working in concert, State Governments have the combined policy and purchase power to catalyze the emergence of a robust private sector market for online secure transactional products, services and business systems.

To this end, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been an active partner with NASIRE in an exciting project involving several states and private sector partners. The public and private sector participants are working together to identify or develop business and technical electronic commerce practices. The private sector is clearly going to be the source of the most efficient and desirable electronic commerce solutions. However, State Governments can play a useful mediating role in the development of rational and harmonized cross-boarder online commercial systems by coordinating requirements for things like online registrations, filings, applications, payments and other transactions. A guiding philosophy behind Commonwealth of Massachusetts information technology policy is the belief that private citizens and business' should be able to use the same systems for online transactions with the state that they use for private electronic commercial transactions. State governments, working with private sector partners and others, are in the process of reaching agreements and understandings to realize this goal.

THE STATE GOVERNMENT AS LAW MAKER

Important though it may be, perhaps too much emphasis has been paid to the role of Government as law maker. An initial, and probably counterproductive, assumption is often made that the lack of a comprehensive statutory and regulatory framework is holding back electronic commerce. The Administration of Governor William Weld has found consistently over the past six years that restraining the government impulse to regulate private enterprise results in more, not less, economic activity. The Weld Administration has just concluded an unprecedented phaseout of antiquated or overly burdensome regulation throughout every corner of the state bureaucracy. Particularly in an area as dynamic and fast growing as the information technology economy, government at all levels must temper the regulatory urge with a healthy respect for the power of markets to develop the least costly, highest quality most efficient technical, business and contractual solutions. Government remains, of course, a player in the online market by virtue of consumer power and transactional standards setting. The most effective use of government law making power in support of electronic commerce would probably be a nice, big, targeted tax cut. Governor Bill Weld has pledged his best efforts to fight for cyberspace as a tax free zone at the state and federal levels.

Due to the vast array of existing laws and regulations drafted for the industrial age, several so-called "quill pen laws" remain on the books and have the effect of hampering the transition to online transactions. Laws requiring documents to be "written on paper" and "signed in ink"

have the effect of creating legal obstacles to online commerce. All
levels of government have an obligation to reform such laws under their
jurisdiction. At the last meeting of this Committee in New Orleans, you
were introduced to the draft Massachusetts Electronic Records and
Signature Act of 1997. This statute would ensure the legal sufficiency
of electronic signature and records in transactions with the state,
private sector transactions and under the rules of evidence in a court
of law. The approach is high level, technology-neutral and
non-regulatory. The hope is that all jurisdictions will adopt this type
of legislation to create a stable, predicable legal infrastructure to
support electronic commerce and online government. Earlier this week,
the Commonwealth's Information Technology Division was asked to testify
before the Rhode Island legislature on a bill substantially similar to
the Massachusetts draft. Other jurisdictions are also pursuing this
legislative course. I would request the feedback of this esteemed
committee on the current draft Massachusetts legislation.


THE STATE GOVERNMENT AS POLICY MAKER



The decisions made within State Governments relating to information
technology have profound impact within and beyond their boarders.
Issues relating to the creation of Information Infrastructures, effects
on the market and the promulgation of legally binding requirements are
all fundamental to the evolution of electronic commerce and online
government. States truly are the laboratories of experimentation.
States, by virtue of their size and heritage, are in a good position to
move relatively quickly and also to wield significant influence,
especially when working together. States are also closer to the
citizenry and constituent business communities that national and
international bodies that seek to map the future of electronic
commerce. As such, states are a remarkably responsive, accountable and
dynamic layer of government. These qualities are among the strongest
virtues to be sought in the public sector as our nation and the world
transitions to the digital age. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is
working hard to meet the challenge of devising responsible, thoughtful
and proactive policy.


For more information on the technical, legal, business practice and
policy initiatives underway at the Information Technology Division,
please visit the web site of our General Counsel's Office, at:
http://www.state.ma.us/itd/legal.


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Copyright 1997, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. All rights reserved.



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I (finally) read the most recent edition of the October – November edition of "Standards Today (Vol VII No 4) called: A Standards Agenda For The Obama Administration. The entire document is amazing and I recommend it, but one particular part is especially relevant to the focus on Open Architectures by CIVICS.com - it is his fifth of ten recommendations to the incoming Obama tech team:

Recognize the existence of "Civil ICT Standards:" Today, freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom to interact with government are each increasingly being exercised on line rather than in person, converting our hard-won traditional civil rights into virtual "civil ICT rights." Only by deploying appropriate technical standards can governments ensure that any citizen, using any technology and software, and regardless of physical disabilities, can continue to enjoy these freedoms. Such "civil ICT standards" are the equivalent of a bill of ICT rights, and should therefore be developed in open, transparent processes that guarantee vendor neutrality, minimum cost to implement, and maximum utility. Adoption of such standards at all government Web sites will be essential for the success of the administration's goal to provide transparent government.

The eCitizen Foundation is working now to foster a dialog among all the relevant stakeholders for Open Government - but public sector agencies, the relevant open standards groups, the relevant vendors and web-service providers, academia, the individual citizen and consumer and other stakeholders, at the upcoming "OpenGov Workshop" hosted by MIT. It is hoped that eventually, a national dialog will occur about the nation's information infrastructure and the fundamental rights of people who are - in effect - working, learning, playing and living in and through that infrastructure. CIVICS.com and our partners have a special focus on the role of individual identity and individual autonomy as part of the next generation's online, public civic infrastructure .

This dedication to national dialog about online public civic infrastructure is the fundamental driver behind the call for an Identity Bill of Rights and our corresponding YouTube video and the general call for appropriate public and consumer friendly processes and licensing for creating "Open Architectures" that I recently made to the standards group, OASIS (see attachment). letter-to-oasis-pdf. (Incidentally, despite the poor formatting and grammar of this off-the-cuff e-mail, I got a lot of very positive private feedback from OASIS members and open standards thought leaders who seemed to agree we need, in Andy's words "Standards Standards" to assure open, fair and appropriate processes for making the open standards and architectures of our emerging Open Government public, civic infrastrucutre).

Eventually, it will be necessary to have Open Architectures for each major cluster of online activity, for example: Public Civic Architecture, eCommerce and Entertainment, Health and Wellness, Education and Library, Banking and Finance, etc. In principal, each "Open Architecture" would comply with all relevant, applicable legal, business and technical requirements of the Stakeholders who rely upon the transactions conducted through the Open Architectures - so for example the Health and Wellness Open Architecture would be the result of a formal process and publication of particular body - like except with broader scope and stakeholders along the lines of the cross-boundary convening potential of a regional non-profit like MHDC).

Another interesting aspect of Andy Updegrove's article - notice the use of "ICT" - a well understood concept globally and reflected in tech, business and legal circles of the EU, the UN and many international bodies and other nations. ICT is seldom used in the US, and is another example of how soon the US will again become a part of a global dialog on use of technology, science and innovation.

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This excellent three-point description of what Open Government means in terms of the legal, technical and business requirements for data in the context of the transition team for President-elect Obama is the result of a team effort led by Professor Larry Lessig currently of Stanford Law School and soon to return to Harvard.

The principles, available at Professor Lessigs blog, apply to the Obama transition team thusly:

1. No Legal Barrier to Sharing
2. No Technological Barrier to Sharing
3. Free Competition

A deeper treatment is available at: OpenGovData's wiki.

Below is a video overview by Professor Lessig of what it means to have such principles, and how as with principles defining Open Source it is now possible to evaluate whether a given government activity does or does not qualify as compliant with Open Government Data Principles.

And so, with this excellent contribution to the dialogs around Open Government of the immediate future, we start to see the making of a more mature legal and business approach to perhaps certifications, legal agreements, technology standards and open architectures to enable an open market for online, public, civic infrastructures for eCitizens.

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This page is a work in progress, eventually to be integrated with meta tags, sync-points and advanced analytic techniques.

The free, public online resources by or in collaboration with CIVICS.com include:


  • The CIVICS.com Open Government and Information Society (COGIS) public library

  • The BigDialog.Org Initiative to "Ask President-elect Obama" an Online Question

  • The MIT eCitizen Architecture Program

  • The eCitizen Foundation's "IdentityEmbassy" project


  • The CIVICS.com online presence, video studios and partners network also powers a number of off-shoot new media holdings, including:

    • The New Groove Review

    • PublicIntellect.Com [Coming Soon]

    • OnlineYogi.Com [new site offline, see demo of next generation communities of wellness online]


    Thanks,
    - Dazza Greenwood

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    Open Architectures and Open Government - This is the category for posts generally related to public sector, public interests and civic related topics related to or arising out of the transition from an industrial civilization to an information society with a digital economy and networked culture. It is assumed that some level of openness and interoperability between many information architectures will be needed as a kind of "civic online infrastructure" to support Open Government and that such infrastructures will serve as the ancient Roman roads, aqueducts and public spaces to enable and support commerce, education, culture and innovation by cross-boundary framing and bridging. You will find here posts and content related to the Open Government Workshop at MIT, the Open Government projects, standards and other work of the eCitizen Foundation, Inc and the MIT eCitizen Architecture Program, content and commentary related to the consulting, testimony, publications and commentary by CIVICS.com on Open Government and historical materials on eGovermment, eCommerce, PKI, Online Identity, Authentication, Risk Modeling, Information Architecture, online community governance models, privacy, industry cases and information security generally..

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    Just notice this wonderful post by Mark Dixon of SUN regarding our efforts at the MIT Media Lab project with the eCitizen Foundation to "figure out" identity: http://blogs.sun.com/identity/entry/identity_driving_the_future

    Thanks for the mention, Mark!

    - Dazza, CIVICS.com

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    Ken Yarmosh, at TechnoSight.Com has made an interesting observation regarding Open Government.  It risks being overrun by barbarians at the gates (or the firewalls).  Here is the relevant quote from http://www.technosight.com/changing-changegov/

    President-elect Obama not only faces tremendous known challenges in America, he embarks on a new journey as the first YouTube President. The ideas of Change.gov will likely soon become the realities of WhiteHouse.gov. With all the benefits of the Web, the Obama administration must have a strategy for balancing how to hear the voices of Americans through his “open government” initiative without being overrun by the tyranny of the mob.

    This commentator astutely observes that the “tyranny of the mob” is an important danger of mass-participation technologies.  The BigDialog.Org architecture for large-scale, due process, fairness, review and recourse is specifically designed to create web 2.0-friendly, self-moderating frameworks, filters and flows.  CIVICS.com is interested in hearing more commentary on the practical and theoretical dangers associated with mass-participation, with a focus on ways the business, legal and technology layers of integrated architectures can be selected, sculpted and set to resolve the issues.

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    [caption id="attachment_86" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="VOA - "We is the New Me""]VOA - "We is the New Me"[/caption]US Intel Community predicts a multi-polar global power scenario of the near future, setting the stage for online, cross-boundary, alliance-based networks of communications, entertainment, education, contracted services, sales of goods, etc. Every serious interaction and transaction within and throughout society will be conducted electronically and will flow through networks that are connected to a new, global voluntary, co-governed and internally open, public, accessible infrastructures. Online Public Civic Infrastructure: identity services, market forums (w/insurance/finance) dispute resolution and recourse, user service and channels for feedback and participation in guiding services and features. A multi-polar world will not only benefit from, but will require in fact and in law such cross-boundary channels and multilaterally scoped frameworks to support open transactional environments within and between all parties. Future models are Federation, not N. Korea. The future is about interconnection, not isolation. The future is happening now.

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    The following links to bylaws serve to identify and demonstrate various relevant aspects of corporate governance in the information age.

    TECHCOLLECTIVE COOPERATIVE, INCORPORATED
    These bylaws show how to align voting membership with all aspects of governance, decision making and organizational control, in the form of a customary "cooperative" that is member and worker owned and run. The bylaws also provide a useful model for dealing with "dividends" back to members based on revenue from sales or services provided by the organization, so that to some extent monies above the budget needed for the organization can be shared back with it's members in return for their participation and work. There are many other relevant provisions in these bylaws as well.

    The Lectlaw Library Non-Prof Bylaws Example
    Cached here.
    Among other things, this copy illustrates the basic provisions ordinarily expected in a non-profit generic set of bylaws, e.g. "membership" "voting" "amendments" etc.

    The ICANN bylaws
    This set of bylaws demonstrates some of the special issues arising out of international governance for heavily networked systems.


    Complex Systems Society bylaws.
    These bylaws, among other interesting things, show the use of numeric "values" as a convenience and mechanism for establishing the processes of governance in a potentially machinable method. For example, this is the provision addressing:

    (i) In the first year of the Society the Council will consist of at most X members. In the second year there will be at most 2X members of the Council. X = 29.

    Notice that by simply amending the value that X equals, the decision makers of this organization can change the rules of governance. Similarly, it is anticipated that the eCitizen Foundation can eventually provide an appropriate mechanisms through "governance filters" based BigDialogs for such organizations to use online processes for changing the numeric values governing filter thresholds for identifying abuse, the needed majority for decision on certain matters or other more complex aspects of decision processes, sequences or even selecting identified templates for kinds of dialogs (petition, referendum, brain-storming, agenda setting, nominations committee, voting on options, etc).

    Bylaws of the San Francisco Bay Area Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction.
    This is a good example of the use of bylaws to govern a group that is not, itself, fully autonomous. In this case, the bylaws govern a chapter of the ACM. The group exists to "support, within the San Francisco Bay Area and surrounding areas, activities complementary to SIGCHI, the ACM, and the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the ACM." and it is legally likely considered an entity under the auspices of the broader group it is part of. Similarly, the NACHA non-profit creates "emancipated councils" like the EBT Council (see here for "Operating Rules" multilateral, describing the rights, obligations and relationships of the parties to this community) to effectuate particular activities and governance related to that sub-group. It is like a corporation within a corporation, and the rights of the NACHA board to intervene in the operations and decision of the council is proportionally limited to reflect the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the council.

    Bylaws of the Open Source Initiative

    Section 4. RESTRICTION ON INTERESTED PERSONS AS DIRECTORS. No more than forty-nine percent (49%) of the persons serving on the board may be interested persons. An interested person is (a) any person compensated by the corporation for services rendered to it within the previous 12 months, whether as a full-time or part-time employee, independent contractor, or otherwise, excluding any reasonable compensation paid to a director as a director; and (b) any brother, sister, ancestor, descendant, spouse, brother-in-law, sister-inlaw, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, mother-in-law, or father-in-law of such person. However, any violation of the provisions of this paragraph shall not affect the validity or enforceability of any transaction entered into by the corporation.

    This is an example of ways to permit stakeholders, such as a vendor who has a stake in managing part of the interactions or transactions of the non-profit, to also have a say over the decisions made. However, the provision above attempts to prevent the self-serving and potentially ill-conceived incentives of self-interested parties from ever achieving a majority vote by itself, as evidenced by the limit of no more than 49% self-interested person from serving on the Board.

    WikiMedia Foundation Bylaws

    Notice this provision creating a mechanism for a "community selected" member of the governance team.

    (C) Community-selected Trustees. In July 2008, one community-selected Trustee will be approved through community voting for a one-year term ending in July 2009. Beginning at the end of this Trustee's term in July 2009, three Trustees will be selected from candidates approved through community voting. The Board of Trustees shall determine the dates, rules and regulation of the voting procedures, which, beginning in 2009, shall take place in odd-numbered years. The Board shall determine who is qualified to vote for community-selected Trustees. The Board will approve candidates who receive the most votes, subject to Subsection (A), supra. and other provisions of these Bylaws. In the event that a candidate is selected who does not meet the requirements of Subsection (A) or other requirements of these Bylaws, or of applicable state or federal law, the Board will (i) not approve the selected candidate, (ii) declare a vacancy on the Board, and (iii) appoint the candidate receiving the next most votes to fill the resulting vacancy, subject to this section and to Section 6 below. Community-selected Trustees must resign from any chapter-board, governance, chapter-paid, or Foundation-paid position for the duration of their terms as Trustees, but may continue to serve chapters in informal or advisory capacities. Trustees selected by the community under this subsection shall serve two-year terms.

    Elsewhere in the bylaws the Foundation reserves to the Board the duty of defining the "community", including who is in and who is out.

    Bylaws of the Creative Commons Corporation (Massachusetts Chapter 180 Non-Profit, like the eCitizen Foundation, Inc).

    These bylaws are an excellent example of simple, direct and narrowly drawn governance structures. There are no members, and the directors are set to the number of the people whom they envision personally fulfilling the roles.

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    This was a keynote presentation to an international working group convened by the OECD

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