From: Dan Jellinek [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 20 September 2002 13:55
To: egb-html
Subject: E-Government Bulletin - 20 September 2002
E-Government Bulletin - 20 September 2002
* E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN.
The Email Newsletter On Electronic Government,
UK And Worldwide.
* ISSUE 122, FRIDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2002.
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* NOTE: As a navigation aid to visually impaired people and
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* CONTENTS.
Section one: News.
High-tech infrastructure for deprived estate
- Newham project to launch in November.
Audit system 'sends out wrong message'
- 'uncertain' ratings could hit staff motivation.
New group scrutinises open source software
- senior civil servants swap intelligence.
A vote for Scottish youth
- elections for online 'parliament.'
Bush drafts cybersecurity policy
- public agencies to be held accountable.
News in brief: Email crackdown continues in Liverpool; Flexible working
debate; Everybody online;
Parents explore technology.
Section two: debate report - VoxPolitics.
Participation and reality: Dan Jellinek reports from a meeting convened to
examine how technology can be
used to help revitalise democracy.
Section three: opinion - e-democracy.
Beyond government: third party web sites have a key role to play in
generating and channeling public debate
on policy issues, says David Brake.
Section four: international - US security.
Brotherliness and bunkers: William Mead discovers that information sharing
is still the key barrier to
strengthening US homeland security.
[contents ends.]
* SPONSORED NOTICE: PRACTICAL POINTERS ON
IMPLEMENTING E-GOVERNMENT
From LexisNexis Butterworths Tolley, publishers of Standardisation of PFI
Contracts for the OGC, comes a
new title on Local Government Contracts and Procurement with a specific
chapter on e-government. Written
by Rosemary Mulley of Nabarro Nathanson, together with leading local
authorities, the e-government
section provides practical advice on legal and commercial considerations,
CRM databases, risk management
and procurement guidelines.
To purchase your copy of the book/online resource, with case studies, sample
contracts and model clauses,
call the government sales team on 020 7347 3538. Alternatively order online
at
http://www.localgovernmentdirect.co.uk
You may also set up no-obligation trials to other PFI titles on our list
here.
[Sponsored notice ends.]
* SECTION ONE: NEWS.
* HIGH-TECH INFRASTRUCTURE FOR DEPRIVED ESTATE.
An initiative to create the UK's most advanced residential interactive
television infrastructure and services is
set to launch at a deprived Newham housing estate in November after months
of delay, Newham council
confirmed this week.
The Carpenters Estate consists of 750 homes, over half of which are in tower
blocks. The estate is in
Stratford Ward, which is among the most deprived wards in the UK. It is
estimated that almost 80 per cent
of the estate's residents are from ethnic minorities.
When the 'Carpenters Connect' project launches, selected residents on the
estate will receive state-of-the-art
set top boxes fed by a high bandwidth connection (see
http://www.newham.org.uk/wired). Residents have
already had the chance to become involved in a community television
programme-making project run by the
Media Trust (http://www.mediatrust.org). Other features will include
everything from interactive public
services to online gaming.
Partners in the multimillion pound project include infrastructure providers
NeosNetworks and MASE, set
top box manufacturer PACE, and Microsoft. Early problems encountered
included trouble with rats chewing
through wiring, after unusually large numbers came into the estate after
being disturbed by the nearby
construction of the Stratford high-speed European rail link.
Funding for the scheme was won from the Department for Education and Skills'
10 million pound 'Wired up
Communities' scheme. The scheme is also set to fund six other, mainly
web-based, community networking
projects, in the Kensington area of Liverpool; Blackburn; East Manchester;
Alston Moor and Brampton in
Cumbria; and Framlingham in Suffolk. For details see:
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/wired
* AUDIT SYSTEM 'SENDS OUT WRONG MESSAGE'.
The Audit Commission's system for rating local authorities' e-government
work could be making it more
difficult for councils to engage staff and citizens in new projects,
according to the latest council to be
audited.
Tewkesbury Borough Council (http://www.tewkesburybc.gov.uk) is among around
15 per cent of local
authorities whose e-government plans have so far been rated as showing
'poor' or 'uncertain' prospects for
improvement (http://fastlink.headstar.com/tewk). According to the council,
the ratings system itself could
have a negative effect on performance. "'Uncertain' gives the wrong message
- we'll certainly improve," said
Tewkesbury's director of resources Peter Antill. "But this could make it
difficult to motivate staff and sell e-
government to the public."
Furthermore, the whole way e-government projects are viewed is skewed
towards urban areas, according to
Phil Claridge of Tewkesbury's e-government team. "The feeling people have is
that there is a 'one size fits
all approach' to e-government, based on what urban areas do. For example,
you hear a lot about kiosks.
Kiosks are a good thing for urban areas but would be a waste of time in
Tewkesbury, which has a dispersed
population," Claridge said.
Ironically, the Audit Commission scrapped the old ratings last year in an
effort to avoid stigmatising
councils that perform less well. The commission says the new ratings, which
reflect how well local
authorities implement Best Value principles, are supposed to have a more
positive impact. "We don't want to
create a self-fulfilling perception with these lower ratings," said a
commission spokesperson.
Previously, future prospects for improvement were rated as 'no', 'unlikely',
'probably', and 'yes'. The new
categories are 'poor', 'uncertain', 'promising', and 'excellent'. Around 50
local authorities have been assessed
under the new scheme.
* NEW GROUP SCRUTINISES OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE.
A new government special interest group on open source software was convened
last week, bringing
together senior civil servants and representatives of local government to
share intelligence about projects,
products and suppliers.
The group, which will reconvene four times a year, is chaired by Mick
Morgan, internet services technical
manager at the Office of Government Commerce (OGC - http://www.ogc.gov.uk).
According to Morgan,
government departments share some core concerns about open source, and are
hungry for information.
"They are particularly concerned about how open source will be supported,
but they also need more
information about suppliers and the costs of open source," he said.
In particular, departments want to know how to offset the costs of
transition from proprietary to open source
software against the savings that will come from sharing knowledge and
applications across departments,
Morgan said. These calculations are complicated because many departments
source their software through
service contracts with third party suppliers.
Although at present information is flowing mainly in one direction from
the OGC outwards - Morgan
hopes the group will establish more of a dialogue between departments and
OGC and among departments.
Although the project is led by OGC and the Office of the e-Envoy
(http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk), local
government is represented by SOCITM (http://www.socitm.gov.uk) and IDeA
(http://www.idea.gov.uk).
* A VOTE FOR SCOTTISH YOUTH.
In early October, 15,000 young people from the Scottish Highlands will cast
electronic votes for candidates
for Highland Youth Voice, an online parliament with 75 seats that debates
health, crime, education and
transport issues and has regular consultations with the Scottish Parliament.
Candidates were nominated earlier this week by 29 secondary schools in the
Highlands, following initial
election processes at each school. Highland Youth Voice
(http://www.highlandyouthvoice.org) recently held
a debate on how to increase youth involvement in sports activities and will
next tackle crime and transport
issues.
The organisation, which is sponsored by government and health service
agencies and supported by the
International Teledemocracy Centre at Glasgow's Napier University
(http://itc.napier.ac.uk), has previously
addressed Scottish national conferences on health and culture issues and met
with members of the Scottish
Executive.
* BUSH DRAFTS CYBERSECURITY POLICY.
The US federal government this week unveiled plans to hold public agencies
accountable for network and
information security and to look into increasing the amount of cross-agency
purchasing and management. At
the state and local level, the document encourages the introduction of
security programs, awareness audits
and standards.
The draft policy (http://www.whitehouse.gov/pcipb/cyberstrategy-draft.pdf)
is intended to reduce the
nation's vulnerability to "deliberate, malicious disruption" caused by
internet hackers and viruses. The policy
document draws a clear link between tackling these threats and those posed
by terrorism.
The draft was drawn up following town hall consultation with citizens,
academics and representatives of
public and private sector organisations. Another eight town hall meetings
are scheduled to take place around
the country and comments on the document can also be sent by email to
[log in to unmask]
NOTE: See also 'Brotherliness and bunkers', section four, this issue.
* NEWS IN BRIEF:
* CRACKDOWN CONTINUES: Liverpool City Council is to continue 'indefinitely'
its experiment to
restrict the use of internal email by its staff on a Wednesday, as a means
of focusing attention on how email
should and should not be used. The move was controversial when it was
introduced in July (see E-
Government Bulletin, 22 July 2002) but Liverpool executive director Phil
Halsall told E-Government
Bulletin this week that initial trials had proved successful.
* FLEXIBLE WORKING: E-Government Bulletin publisher Headstar, in association
with the Public Policy
Forum think-tank, is running an online debate on teleworking and flexible
working in the public sector from
30 September to 4 October, aimed at producing a 'top ten' list of tips for
successful teleworking. It's free to
take part. If you are interested, please send your name, job title and email
address to:
[log in to unmask]
* EVERYBODY ONLINE: Two hundred residents in Brannel, Cornwall accessed the
internet, used
webcams and took digital photographs from their local community centre last
week as part of 'Everybody
Online', a national project to increase access to technology in
disadvantaged communities. The project is run
by Citizens Online:
http://www.citizensonline.org.uk
* PRACTICAL PARENTING: An initiative to help parents feel more involved with
their children's
education and keep them up to date with new technologies is being launched
in London next week. The
'parents online' week, run by the Department of Education and Skills, will
allow parents and their children
access to computers in schools, libraries and UK Online Centres across the
country from 30 September to 4
October:
http://www.parentsonline.gov.uk
[Section one ends.]
* SPONSORED NOTICE: IDEA E-CHAMPIONS NETWORK
FIRST CONFERENCE INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
- Thursday 26 September, QEII Conference Centre, London
There's still time to book your place at the IDeA's first-ever annual
conference and exhibition for its e-
champions network. This one-day event will examine, from international
perspectives, how e-government
transforms public services, organisations, employment and social inclusion.
Delegates will have the chance
to hear e-government experts from the USA, Italy, Portugal, Republic of
Ireland, the States of Jersey and the
UK.
Every authority in the e-champions network is eligible for two free places.
Additional places are available
for 90 pounds + VAT per delegate.
To book, visit http://www.idea.gov.uk/events/e-champions or email
[log in to unmask] or phone 01323
637701
[Sponsored notice ends.]
* SECTION TWO: DEBATE REPORT
- VOXPOLITICS.
PARTICIPATION AND REALITY.
by Dan Jellinek [log in to unmask]
E-democracy experts, politicians, civil servants and academics were among
the crowd at a packed meeting
convened earlier this month by the online campaigns body VoxPolitics to
debate the government's new
consultation paper on e-democracy (see http://www.edemocracy.gov.uk).
The technology writer and commentator Bill Thompson opened the meeting by
saying the government
needed to start by looking at how we can revitalise democracy, and then look
at how technology might be
able to help with bits and pieces, rather than starting by assuming
technology would itself be able to
revitalise democracy.
Sian Kevill heads the BBC's New Politics Initiative, which has been tasked
with drawing together elements
of the BBC's output in innovative new ways to refresh its political
coverage, particularly for a younger
audience.
She told the meeting that the current widespread failure of large parts of
society to engage in or show any
interest in the democratic process was largely due to a feeling of
powerlessness on behalf of individuals.
"People ask 'what can I do on my own? Nobody will listen to me.' They also
don't know how to begin to
engage with the government or politicians. And finally, they feel nothing
would happen anyway," she said.
Broadcasters and in particular the BBC could play a key role in addressing
some of these problems, Kevill
said. For example, they could help explain in simple terms what people can
do to engage with the system;
and they could tailor more of their output to addressing people's needs and
wishes, as determined by a
continual process of public consultation.
Internet consultant David Brake told the meeting that unofficial outlets for
public debate are just as
important as official ones (see also section three, this issue, where Brake
develops this theme). In particular
he said 'weblogs' the free-form, interactive online diaries that have
become something of a craze in recent
years demonstrated that the web was becoming the natural home to unlimited
freedom of expression.
Brake runs his own acclaimed weblog at http://blog.org
Another debater pointed out that it is not just brand new technologies that
can be used to revitalise
democracy, but 'nearly-new' technologies such as telephone call centres as
well. "We need to think not so
much in terms of e-democracy, as multi-channel democracy or modernising
government", said Rhion Jones
of Dialogue Data Management.
The issue of webcasting of democratic meetings (see also E-Government
Bulletin, issues 120 and 121) was
raised by Mathew Jellings of UKCouncil. He said webcasting with an
interactive element was useful as it
gave people a chance to maintain their anonymity and allow them to couch
questions in their own time,
putting less pressure on people than if they were attending a council
meeting in person.
Richard Stubbs of Newham Online said one of the difficulties with any online
policy consultation with
government was the fact that government's view of what had happened when in
a policy debate tended to be
spun to fit in with their own political imperatives.
"The government spins, it reinvents the past. What guarantee is there that
when an online policy debate has
taken place, history will not be reinvented by the government, and that the
policy process is and will always
be a shared reality?"
This point was answered in part by Professor Stephen Coleman of the Hansard
Society, who pointed out e-
democracy was actually not about government at all, but about Parliament.
Last year Coleman, with fellow academic Jay Blumler, mooted the concept of
an 'online civic commons', a
new independent virtual debating and consultation chamber aimed at boosting
public input into democracy
(see `Realising democracy online' at:
http://www.citizensonline.org.uk/publications.shtml).
This radical concept will be among many that civil servants and ministers
will now ponder as the
consultation period on the government's first e-democracy green paper draws
to a close at the end of next
month.
[Section two ends.]
* SPECIAL NOTICE: E-DEMOCRACY EXCHANGE.
The publishers of E-Government Bulletin are hosting the e-Democracy Exchange
in London on 19
November to discuss the use of technology to engage the public in the
democratic process.
Speakers include Dr Ken Ritchie, chief executive, Electoral Reform Society;
Peter Livesey, assistant
director of e-democracy, Office of the e-Envoy; David McElhinney, executive
director, Liverpool City
Council; Alan Winchcombe, electoral services manager, Swindon Borough
Council; James Crabtree, The
Work Foundation; and Dan Jellinek, editor of E-Government Bulletin.
Bulletin readers can register at a 50 per cent discount by writing the word
'bulletin' after their surnames on
the registration form at:
http://www.electronic-government.com/e-democracy.htm
[Special notice ends.]
* SECTION THREE: OPINION
- E-DEMOCRACY.
BEYOND GOVERNMENT.
by David Brake
It is gratifying, with the publication of the new consultation paper on
e-democracy, to see the government
expressing an interest in using new technologies not just for e-voting but
as a way of involving the public
more broadly in the democratic system.
If new technologies are to have a positive effect, however, it is not
sufficient merely to provide an email
address or website for each parliamentary sub-committee.
A three stage process is required. First, people need to be guided to the
places where their participation will
count. Second, they need to understand how what they say makes a difference
(and how, in some cases, it
may not). And third, to break through the atmosphere of apathy and cynicism
that characterises many
people's attitude to the democratic process, they need to be shown
repeatedly how ordinary people working
within the system are able to make a difference.
Imagine for a moment you are an entrepreneurial Scot interested in
encouraging local businesses to recycle
more. You might want to contact your local council, and you could write to
your MP but would you have the
time to research the position of the Scottish Assembly? The regional
development board? The European
Union? The DTI? How much money do these bodies have to spend in your area,
how difficult will it be to
get their attention and how likely are they in the end to get involved?
Faced with such complexities is it any wonder that people interested in
tackling a problem look instead to
single issue organisations like Greenpeace to represent their interests.
While naturally enough e-democracy campaigners want to proclaim successes,
these are hard to find. Trials
of postal ballots have had much more effect on voter turnouts than
experiments with e-voting.
The Number 10 website's take on e-consultation
(http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page598.asp) is that
if you make an e- petition and gather 300 signatures, you will get a mention
of your petition on the site and a
brief response from the relevant department. Unfortunately, the website
doesn't actually let browsers know
what the original petition was, so you can't even rely on it to give free
publicity to your cause. There have
only been six such petitions in the past 17 months.
At present, potential participants have to figure out the legislative system
for themselves to determine when
and where they can be consulted on the issues they care about. Where
feedback is possible, it is not clear
whether anyone with decision-making power is listening, and if they are how
important an individual's view
is compared to the views of corporations or lobby groups.
What should the government do about this? Well, the 'life episodes' approach
of UK Online is certainly the
right idea. As well as providing information structured in the traditional
form -"here is where you can
provide feedback to the draft Communications bill CM 5508-I" - the
government could guide the citizen
through the process using a simple expert system - "What aspect of
government policy are you interested in?
Local government is responsible for X, your MP is responsible for Y, Europe
has this policy - and you can
reach them all this way."
While it is laudable that the government is considering running its own
online message boards across a
broad range of sites to facilitate consultation, I fear this would put them
in an impossible position, as the
difficulties experienced with UK Online's Citizenspace debating area have
already proven.
They would be considered irresponsible if they failed to monitor the message
boards to ensure that obscene,
racist and other 'difficult' speech is purged from their site, but this can
easily be presented by others as the
government "censoring free speech". It also means that the government will
tend to concentrate on its own
discussion groups and ignore thriving discussions happening elsewhere.
I would suggest that the government instead encourages third party sites to
set up their own debates on a
given subject, links to them directly from its own pages and participates
directly if the number of
participants exceeds a certain threshold. As a service to the public (and to
cover itself) it could label the
discussions it links to as either 'moderated', for BBC-style moderation;
'lightly moderated' for lighter
moderation which only removes the most offensive stuff but might allow
swearing for example; or
'unmoderated'. It could also give browsers a rough idea of how busy a
particular forum is, and whether it is
merely being monitored by the government or whether they are participating.
It should also always make clear who from the government is either reading
the boards directly or reading
summaries, and what their powers are. And when a decision is made and online
discussion helped to inform
that decision, it is vital that this information is also highlighted in
whatever report is published.
The policy consultation asks whether key individuals in government
responsible for a given policy should be
individually addressable. While this is superficially appealing, it risks
over-loading the people responsible. It
also ironically reduces openness and transparency as messages sent directly
to the government can't be seen
or discussed by other interested parties. Of course there may still be a
place for anonymous contributions
(and people can always post anonymously to message boards) but it is best
where possible that all
contributions to a debate can be read by all participants.
Of course, the "solution" to e-participation doesn't lie largely with
government, since the public by and large
doesn't trust the government to deliver it. For e-participation to become
widely valued, it needs to be well-
signposted by existing media outlets.
Organisations like the BBC and newspapers like the Guardian could have an
important role to play here in
providing a more complete guide to the political process than the government
could provide. They could
guide people wanting to make a difference to the right body - whether this
meant using the government's
own process or joining (or forming) a pressure group.
'CitizensConnection.net'
(http://www.citizensconnection.net) from the independent educational
organisation Common Purpose is an
excellent example that is already up and running.
The government's e-democracy initiative could consider itself a success when
independent third parties
started suggesting it would be more effective to participate in online
debate than to take to the streets. And if
people found that an easier route to existing systems of consultation still
didn't result in change, they might
be more willing to push for the kind of broader democratic reform that
cyber-utopians crave.
NOTE: David Brake http://davidbrake.org is a journalist and an Internet
consultant specialising in the public
and voluntary sectors. He manages a weblog at http://blog.org
[Section three ends.]
* SPECIAL NOTICE: E-ACCESS BULLETIN
- THE NEWSLETTER ON ACCESSIBILITY.
The Disability Discrimination Act means ensuring accessibility of
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private sector bodies.
Our sister publication E-Access Bulletin delivers news, features and
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To subscribe send an e-mail to [log in to unmask] with
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[Special notice ends.]
* SECTION FOUR: INTERNATIONAL
- US SECURITY.
BROTHERLINESS AND BUNKERS.
by William Mead [log in to unmask]
Experts from the CIA, National Security Agency, Department of Defense and
the Department of Justice
came together last month in "City of Brotherly Love", Philadelphia, to
consider information sharing and US
security (http://www.cesfederal.com/ishs).
One might have expected a sense of enhanced homeland security to ooze from
every presentation, but
instead one heard threaded throughout the sessions phrases like 'bunker
mentality', 'interagency hard-sell',
'mandated standards', 'agency stovepipes', 'no interoperability among first
responders', 'lack of integration',
'no media coordination', and 'widespread critical infrastructure
vulnerability'.
Stephen Gale, Director of Organizational Dynamics for the University of
Pennsylvania, propounded two
chilling exercise scenarios. He and three colleagues were granted access to
"a building" with operational
control over electrical power data systems at a critical infrastructure
point. He said: "Within 30 minutes,
with nominal computer skills, we could have shut down the entire eastern
seaboard electrical grid for two
years." Dr Gale said the real nightmare of the war against terrorism is that
90 per cent of the US state's
vulnerabilities are not under government control, with some multi-national
and foreign-owned.
Dr Gale's second scenario involved the coordinated bombing of selected
chemical cars within a train that
alone would constitute a "spill", but together could produce a highly toxic
gas plume. Such an incident could
easily be accomplished since most chemical cars are lined up for delivery
according to where they are going,
not what is in them. Jeff Gerald, technical manager of the Homeland Security
Advanced Concept
Technology Demonstration (http://www.homelandsecurityactd.org), eerily
reproduced this scenario in a
documentary style presentation that sent chills throughout the assemblage.
"It's ironic to me", said Gerald
"that the title of this conference, information sharing, presents both the
problem and the solution".
Seventh District Pennsylvania Congressman Curt Weldon lambasted the federal
government, including
Congress, for failing to act on critical data-mining and intelligence
integration proposals that he and others
wrote years before the terrorist attacks. Indeed, calls for a National
Intelligence Fusion Center to "cross-
pollinate" intelligence information has been widely argued among experts
within the homeland security
community of interest.
Shabtai Shavit, former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, felt
that "risk takers", willing to by-
pass the chain of command, served the dynamics of intelligence systems
better than information systems
analysts. According to Mr. Shavit, "The flagship of intelligence is human.
It is the only profession whose
task is to ask questions."
While there still seem to be significant hurdles to be overcome among the
intelligence community, a ray of
hope for progress seemed to emerge in the realm of technology standards. The
impetus there rests in the use
of two fundamental web architectures - XML (Extensible Markup Language) and
GIS (Geographic
Information Systems).
Steven Cooper, chief information officer for the Office of Homeland
Security, articulated the need to use
technologies that could provide interoperability among governments. "We
don't want to invest dollars if we
already have something we can build on", said Cooper. "The tendency to
duplicate existing information-
sharing efforts is a major risk facing hundreds of agencies at all levels of
government, as they race to
connect the dots. It doesn't make sense".
Susan Kalweit of the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) noted
that GIS is "a natural"
for mapping vulnerabilities, identifying critical infrastructure and
coordinating first responder activities.
"The problem is that with 9/11 we can no longer merely promote spatial data
integration", said Kalweit. "We
must mandate it".
The conference's Training and Education track found that 'First responders'
to an emergency - local state and
emergency services nearest to an incident - can draw on a plethora of
training and educational opportunities
provided by federal agencies.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, for example, has developed
comprehensive training
programs for homeland security awareness, critical incident management and
response efforts
(http://www.atf.treas.gov/training/arsonex.htm). The Joint Military
Intelligence College
(http://www.dia.mil/Jmic) has also established a virtual university
architecture that provides a full spectrum
of "anytime, anywhere" collaborative environments for community homeland
security training.
The track on 'Critical information needs of the first responder' was the
most crucial of the conference yet
raised the most cause for concern.
This was because, although emergency management agencies throughout the
nation are working hard to
prepare responders for the next terrorist attack in the areas of data flow,
training, mutual aid agreements and
operations support, there was a profound absence of leadership from the
federal agencies assembled. The
states, cities, counties and municipalities are struggling with the real
work of homeland security almost
entirely on their own.
The results of a survey of state homeland security directors conducted by
Kendra Stewart of Eastern
Kentucky University showed a majority of the respondents listing "the lack
of federal direction as a major
factor limiting their state's response to 9/11."
The National Governors Association recently issued a brief, State's Homeland
Security Priorities
(http://fastlink.headstar.com/nga), outlining several strategic priorities
and issues of concern. Among those
cited that have direct federal implications were state input into the
National Homeland Security Strategy;
coordinating efforts by all levels of government; adequate wireless
spectrum; rebuilding the nation's public
health system to address 21st Century threats; adequate federal funding;
protection of sensitive security
information; secure ports of entry and integrating federal command systems
into existing state and local
incident command systems.
The current deadlocked status of the legislation which the President has
proposed to create a new
Department of Homeland Security (see http://www.govexec.com/homeland) does
not sufficiently explain
the absence of leadership by the federal government in ameliorating these
critical issues.
NOTE: William Mead is a web developer and e-government columnist for the
American Society for Public
Administration (http://www.aspanet.org).
[Section four ends.]
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ISSN 1476-6310
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