CA online legislative database access

Letter writers needed ASAP! This is the bill that will open up
legislative databases to the masses and serve as a model for other
states and even the country!

cypherfolks, do you have any idea what these efforts are the faint
glimmers of? Imagine a future society where *anyone* can propose laws,
not just the elite few called Legislators and identified in an
exceedingly time-consuming, tedious, and troublesome process. Imagine
that everyone has complete access and full understanding of all the
laws that affect one's life, and the ability to propose and *pass*
superior modifications. It would be a sort of Legislative Free
Enterprise, a competition in the marketplace of laws such that superior
ones would prosper and inferior, archaic, and absurd laws would be
rooted out and expunged by the citizenry itself, in a very dynamic,
interactive, and responsive process! Far from this bureacratic
nightmare we lumber in daily! Write that small letter to set in motion
this grandiose cyberspatial karma!

------- Forwarded Message

>Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 17:14:01 -0500
>Newsgroups: austin.eff
>From: jwarren@well.sf.ca.us (Jim Warren)
>Subject: UPDATE #21-AB1624: *ACTION ALERT*: END-GAME APPROACHING (& misc notes)
>
>[MODERATOR'S NOTE: This is a California bill, but its outcome could set
>a precedent which would help or hurt similar efforts in other states,
>including Texas.  If you've got friends in California, you might want
>to pass this along to them.  -- Prentiss Riddle, riddle@tic.com]
>
>August 9, 1993
>
>*** PLEASE WRITE, NOW!***      PLEASE, DON'T STOP NOW!
>
>  Assembly Bill 1624, mandating online public access to public legislative 
>information via the public networks (i.e., the Internet and all the nets 
>connected to it - including wherever you are receiving this msg), will either 
>pass the Legislature by Sept. 10th, or will die - and we have to re-fight the 
>whole battle, year after year.
>  LETTERS & FAXES ARE *NEEDED*!.  THEY *WILL* DETERMINE THE OUTCOME.
>
>REMAINING 1993 LEGISLATION SCHEDULE
>  Jul 16th, the Legislature went into remission - uh, recess.
>  Aug 16th, the Legislature reconvenes to diddle remaining 1993 business.
>  Sep 10th, the Legislature quits working in Sacramento for the year.
>  Oct 10th, the Governor must veto legislatively-approved bills he opposes.
>On AUGUST 18TH, the Senate Rules Committee run by Sen. Dave Roberti 
>(D-Van Nuys area) will hear AB1624.  If Roberti doesn't like it, he can and 
>will kill it.   If Roberti passes it, it will almost-certainly pass the 
>Senate. Then we need for the Assembly to "concur in amendments" and the 
>Governor to not veto it.
>
>
>  Address letters/faxes to "State Capitol, Sacremanto CA 95814."
>
>AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, send a one-page letter supporting AB1624 to the 
>Senate Rules Committee - who have seen essentially *no* support for it:
>Sen. David Roberti, Chair, Room 400; fax/916-323-7224; voice/916-445-8390.
> and to the other four members (tiny, *powerful* committee!):
>Sen. Ruben Ayala (D-Chino area), Room 5108; f/916-445-0128; v/916-445-6868.
>Sen. Robert Beverly (R-Long Bch), Room 5082; f/not avail.; v/916-445-6447.
>Sen. William Craven (R-Oceanside), Room 3070; f/not avail.; v/916-445-3731.
>Sen. Nick Petris (D-Alameda), Room 5080; fax/916-327-1997; v/916-445-6577.
>
>Important:  Please send COPIES of ALL letters to the AB1624 author:
>Hon. Debra Bowen, Room 3126; voice/916-445-8528; fax/916-327-2201.
>
>
>CAN EMAIL VIA ME, IF YA CAN'T FIND TIME FOR SNAIL-MAIL
>  If you don't have time to send snail-mail, you can email your message via 
>jwarren@well.sf.ca.us.
>  Write it exactly as you would snail-mail, but be SURE TO INCLUDE your name, 
>address and phone #s for legislators' independent verification.  Upon receipt 
>by email, I will print and/or fax the entire message to Bowen and to the 
>legislator(s) to whom you address it.  (Please allow for that delay.)
>
>
>LEGI-TECH'S OLDER BROTHER DONE GOOD!
>  The McClatchy organization is the owner of Legi-Tech, one of the two 
>largest online distributors of California legislative information.  They are 
>also owner of a number of newspapers - their flagship being the powerful 
>Sacramento Bee.
>  On Jul 26th, the Bee ran an editorial *strongly* supportive of AB1624 - 
>laudible, principled action by The Bee, McClatchy, and presumably by 
>Legi-Tech in the face of a difficult trade-off between the public's 
>interests versus their business interests.
>  Applause!  Applause!
>
>
>CALIFORNIA LEGISPEAK: "AUTHOR" VS. "SPONSOR" VS. "SUPPORTER"
>  In California legislative circles:
>A bill's AUTHOR is a legislator who introduced the bill.
>A bill's SPONSOR(S) is a person or organization, if any, that requested that 
>the bill be introduced by the bill's author.
>A bill's SUPPORTER(S) is a person or organization that is officially listed 
>as being in favor of the bill, usually including its sponsor(s), if any.
>  All bills have one or more authors.  Some bills do NOT have sponsors.
>  AB1624's author was Assembly Member Debra Bowen.  It had no sponsors, but 
>has a growing number of supporters.
>
>
>PROGRAMMERS:  SAMPLE LEGISLATIVE DATA-FILES ALSO AVAILABLE AT CPSR.ORG
>  AB1624 Update #19 detailed a set of sample data-files for review and 
>test-programming, available from Tim Pozar's KUMR.LNS.COM by anonymous ftp.
>  As of Jul 22nd, those Legislative Data Center sample files were/are also 
>online at cpsr.org in  /ftp/cpsr/states/california/ab1624/sample_data  
>for binary ftp access.  For questions about accessing them there, contact:
>Al Whaley        al@sunnyside.com       +1-415 322-5411(Tel), -6481 (Fax)
>Sunnyside Computing, Inc., PO Box 60, Palo Alto, CA 94302
>
>
>We have a voice.  Use it or loose it.
>--jim
>Jim Warren, columnist for MicroTimes, Government Technology & BoardWatch
>jwarren@well.sf.ca.us  -or-  jwarren@autodesk.com
>345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/415-851-2814
>
>
>



------- End of Forwarded Message

Lance Dettweiler writes:

> cypherfolks, do you have any idea what these efforts are the faint
> glimmers of? Imagine a future society where *anyone* can propose laws,
> not just the elite few called Legislators and identified in an

Actually, this is my worst nightmare of what this country could
become: a direct democracy of the most populist sort.

Prices too high at the grocery store? Quick, pass a law lowering them.
Too many bums downtown? I'm sure a majority can be quickly gotten
together to pass a new law. 

Much of what we are seeing in America today is the result not of venal
and corrupt government folks, but of them simply doing what they
perceive the people want. The people want drugs outlawed, so they are.
The people want jobs, so imports are restricted. And so on, just as de
Tocqueville warned 150 years ago (something like: "America's grand
experiment in democracy will last only until its citizens discover
they can use the democracy to pick the pockets of their
neighbors"...he said it more elegantly!).

I certainly am not implying that Lance is in favor of this. But there
are some mighty good reasons, outlined in "The Federalist Papers," why
a direct democracy is undesirable. In today's terms, we might speak of
it as having undesirable feedback relationships, with too much
tendency toward wild oscillations (mirroring the oscillations of
public opinion). The Founders wisely adopted a _representative_
democracy, with more dampers on the results a direct democracy often
gives.

(I would be less fearful if fewer things came up for voting, if a
Constitution truly protected basic property rights. This would
eliminate things like most drug laws, the motorcycle helmet laws, "No
smoking" laws (which, naturally, are wildly popular to the "majority,"
even if the rights of airlines and restaurants to set whatever
policies they wish are completely trampled), minimum wage laws, and so
on. I won't cite the usual libertarian points here.

> exceedingly time-consuming, tedious, and troublesome process. Imagine
> that everyone has complete access and full understanding of all the
> laws that affect one's life, and the ability to propose and *pass*
> superior modifications. It would be a sort of Legislative Free
> Enterprise, a competition in the marketplace of laws such that superior
> ones would prosper and inferior, archaic, and absurd laws would be
> rooted out and expunged by the citizenry itself, in a very dynamic,
> interactive, and responsive process! Far from this bureacratic
> nightmare we lumber in daily! Write that small letter to set in motion
> this grandiose cyberspatial karma!

I am not as hopeful as Lance is. "Electronic democracy" could easily
be the most totalitarian thing the planet has ever seen. Imagine this
on CNN: "This just in to CNN. Todays's popular vote on whether
citizens can use strong cryptography has gone 72% to 16% in favor of
the ban , with 12% either abstaining or generally clueless. To remind
our listeners, under this new law, effective tomorrow, unauthorized
use of a cryptographic system can result in forfeiture of all assets,
plus a 5-year jail sentance.  People we interviewed expressed the
opinion that only drug dealers and tax cheats would want to use these
hacker systems.  President Reno expressed satisfaction, saying "This
plebiscite will make America free.""

We certainly don't need more laws, more restrictions, however popular
they may be.

Besides, as Milton Friedman points out so cogently, in a free market
we are in fact free to choose. Anything that makes even more laws
possible is _not_ a good thing, in my opinion.

Having said this, the proposal Jim Warren is pushing sounds fair
enough. But not because it'll turn ordinary citizens into proposers of
new laws. Rather, it will allow groups to spot legislation early on
(this is one of the main motivations, the NRA tells me--yes, "I am the
NRA," to no one's surprise) and then marshal their forces to defeat
the legislation. Things like tax increases, new regulations, etc.

Just this Cypherpunk's opinion.

-Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) on `electronic democracy':

>Actually, this is my worst nightmare of what this country could
>become: a direct democracy of the most populist sort.
[...]
>"Electronic democracy" could easily
>be the most totalitarian thing the planet has ever seen.

I'm delighted that Mr. May has come out against my vision for the
future based on all the tired cliches and entrenched blind spots of the
status quo of two milleniums. It is extremely dischordant and eerie to
hear someone who advocates `CryptoAnarchy', black markets, drug
legalization, digital pornography, digital cash (tax evasion?) and the
Collapse of Governments to suddenly decide that Representative
Democracy is a Good Thing (tm) because of a quotes by the snobbish
elitist De Tocqueville, Milton Friedman, and a 200 year old experiment
called the Federal System of America that is far from perfect and could
stand some serious adjustments and fine-tuning. His beautiful
statements nicely capture all the stereotypical knee-jerk reactions and
objections of a prosaic minds, dulled by centuries of history's
mediocre mundanities and brainless propaganda inflicted by their
rulers, all who wouldn't recognize salvation if it was nailed to a
cross, to the true potential of future Cyberspace!

We stand at the threshhold of a new era in human interaction and social
systems with the onslaught of cyberspace, but when I propose a new kind
of *government* Mr. May is too uncomfortable and beats a hasty retreat
to `representative democracy', an elaborate and complex system that
purports to protect people from their own stupidity by diluting their
demands through blundering elected officials.  Perhaps what I am
advocating is truly new, and deserves a new name: Responsive Democracy.
If anyone would care to look up `representative' in the dictionary, Mr.
May's comments will be rendered nonsensical. To paraphrase:

``Our government doesn't actually represent the people. That's why it
is stable. There are unresponsive elements and obstacles to social
change called `legislators' that dampen the tendency toward `wild
oscillations in public opinion'.  If our government truly represented
public opinion we would easily have the Most Totalitarian Thing the
World Has Ever Seen. People want drugs to be illegal, restricted
imports, and banned cryptography. Of course, I'm certainly not implying
that Lance is in favor of Apocalypse!''

(It sounds more like anarchy as Mr. May describes it, so I wonder why
he's coming out against this scenario.) Mr. May, are you saying you
*don't* want a responsive government? one that is an inspiration
instead of a degradation? do you *prefer* to complain about injustice
and wretchedness to the point you would rather wallow in it than be lifted from it?

I find it exceedingly difficult to rebut Mr. May on specific points
because his whole position, when I try to grasp it, comes out to be a
tangle of convoluted and ephemeral contradictions, speculations, and
emotional quasi-fictional references to e.g. the War on Drugs or Janet
Reno. Do you like our current `representative' government or don't you?
What, exactly, is the Representative Democratic Government's role in
`cryptoanarchy', and why are you in favor of it?

* * *

Anyway, I would like to elaborate on a few of the misconceptions that
are raised by his statements.

1) the world has not really ever seen a true `direct democracy' or had
the technology to support one -- until now. Not even the Greeks,
renowned as the inventors of democracy, had one.  It seems to be every
civilized person's worst nightmare, yet it has never been implemented.
How do we know it would be so terrible? Does anyone even know what it is?

2) consider that our current government represents the *imbalance* of
popular opinions. A vocal, powerful, or wealthy minority is able to
distract attention from issues or manipulate the process to the point
of influencing law. e.g., the NSA can derail cryptography exports
because no one has any influence on the other side, despite plenty of
supporters for loosened restrictions! e.g., some Widget Manufacturer
gets favorable tax breaks or import restrictions! What if everyone
could have an equal influence on *all* laws irrespective of their
wealth & illegitimate influence?

3) consider that dampening mechanisms can be built in to a `responsive
democracy' system. To paint a picture of `direct democracy' as people
voting instantly on CNN is an ignorant insult.  Conservative,
deliberative, stable structures, with the formality of court
proceedings and similar protocol, can be developed. What is a court but
an elaborate mechanism to uncover truth, resolve conflict, and pass
judgement, through presentations of evidence, opinion, and voting by a
nation's citizens? Held to the utmost ideal of impartiality and
fairness? Impacting every plane of human interaction?

4) I believe `representative democracy' is essentially a mask for the
idea of saying `some people should have more influence than others in
voting and influencing social conventions, because they are leaders,
they know more about the subject, they are more affected by it, they
are recognized experts, they have everyone's best interest in mind'
etc. Now, consider that this `influence' could be *formalized* into a
system such that people `own' it and trade it and grant it to others
like a *currency system*, and that voting systems automatically weight
votes in different areas based on it.

5) Mr. May says `we don't need more laws & restrictions however popular
they may be' and completely missed my specific point that the citizens
would have the capability to *retract* ineffective, useless, obsolete
laws just as easily as creating them. He completely ignores the aspect
of `competition of superior laws by selection' that is central to the
idea. If laws have disastrous, outrageous, or terrible effects, the
citizen-populace and collective social psyche will quickly learn and
*evolve* to *avoid* them.

6) Finally, the bizarre Urban Legend that Order would Collapse or Utter
Totalitarianism would Ensue if everyone could vote on issues directly
without the tedious formalities of legislators, or that a government
unresponsive to true citizen desires to `protect them from their
stupidity' is preferrable or even existent, I simply all dismiss as
utterly ridiculous. As Mr. May says, the population gets what it wants.

The whole idea is far too multifaceted to explore in one essay, of
course--it requires an entire Movement, a Revolution, to advance to the
point that even Joe Sixpack grasps its basics and will not insult and
ridicule it upon first sight.  Fortunately, this is all automatic,
inevitable, and underway. Cypherpunks, you will be soon seeing dynamic
& interactive voting systems, `reputation currency' and all these other
fantastic social mechanisms that will formalize all your vague longings
for order and sensibility in the universe! I certainly don't claim that
Paradise is at hand, but a new form of government, that combines
elements of all previous models but unequivocally surpasses and
transcends them all, *is*!

In message <9308120846.AA06905@longs.lance.colostate.edu>, "L. Detweiler" writes:
>3) consider that dampening mechanisms can be built in to a `responsive
>democracy' system. To paint a picture of `direct democracy' as people
>voting instantly on CNN is an ignorant insult.  Conservative,
>deliberative, stable structures, with the formality of court
>proceedings and similar protocol, can be developed. What is a court but
>an elaborate mechanism to uncover truth, resolve conflict, and pass
>judgement, through presentations of evidence, opinion, and voting by a
>nation's citizens? Held to the utmost ideal of impartiality and
>fairness? Impacting every plane of human interaction?

An alternative to courts would be the using the concept of free association so
that if a decision you couldn't agree with was made in a group you
participated in, you could withdraw from the group and join another whose
decisions were more to your liking. Certainly there would be some actions like
dumping toxic wastes that are of society wide concern, but many other
questions such as how much money to spend (taxes) on roads and infrastructure
could be handled on a group commitment basis. Computers could be used to
implement the voting and keep track of accounting procedures that would
otherwise be impractical. Such as, how many people voted (bought shares in) the
space shuttle project and the corresponding benefits; access to the
information, status reports, etc.

>4) I believe `representative democracy' is essentially a mask for the
>idea of saying `some people should have more influence than others in
>voting and influencing social conventions, because they are leaders,
>they know more about the subject, they are more affected by it, they
>are recognized experts, they have everyone's best interest in mind'
>etc. Now, consider that this `influence' could be *formalized* into a
>system such that people `own' it and trade it and grant it to others
>like a *currency system*, and that voting systems automatically weight
>votes in different areas based on it.

I agree totally about the elitist assumptions of representative democracy. I
would prefer a combination of direct voting and an issue by issue proxy
system. For instance I have no problem giving Barbara Boxer my proxy on
health care, but am totally unwilling to give her my proxy on gun control.
This proxy system would also eliminate the winner take all system that
disenfranchises minorities. For instance blacks who are 10% of the population
in a district often get no representation; then there are gerry mandered
districts where a black is guaranteed to win. But you might have a
conservative black businessman representing a district where 30% of the blacks
are more radical. The winner take all system is just a way of diluting and
ignoring non-mainstream ideas and groups.

PS. I wish the From: or Reply-To: header came from the cypherpunk list. I had
meant to reply to this post to the group but accidently sent it to L.
Detweiler instead, only.
--
       Edward Elhauge -- ee@lever.com -- Lever Industries, San Francisco
"The goal of the working class is liberation from exploitation. This goal is
not reached and cannot be reached by a new directing and governing class
substituting itself for the bourgeoisie. It is only realized by the workers
themselves being master over production." -- Anton Pannekoek

Actually I believe the answer is neither electronic democracy nor
representative government...I will settle for making government
so inefficient and bumbling to as have no 'real' effects on
its victims, ah, I meant to say "citizens". I believe that
my so called brother will always seek to pick my pocket so
I will settle for simply strait jacketing my govermental
opposition by increasing the rate of change in street tech available
till shock sets in...I ma far more practical I suspect then most in this 
discussion...

    cheers
    kelly
--