By
Debbie Weil
July 96, Number 2
SO
THEY'VE GOT HOME PAGES
Capitol Hill is _wired_ .
Well, that's the hype, anyway.
Some 300 House and Senate
members have home pages and
an even greater number use
e-mail. But do Congressmen
& women and Senators really
"get it"? Are enough of them
fluent in this new medium
to debate intelligently on
privacy, parental control,
indecent content, encryption
and other issues relating
to regulating the Internet?
The two-cent answer is "No."
But things are changing fast.
Chris Casey, a Senate staffer
who has made a name for himself
as one of the Hill’s
most visible Web experts,
says we’ll see an even
greater number of Net-knowledgeable
members in the 105th Congress.
And he points out that the
2nd session of the 104th Congress
has been a lot more Web-savvy
than the first. He put his
former employer, Sen.
Edward Kennedy (D-MA),
on the Web in 1994 - creating
the first home page for a
member.
Casey, who now works for the
Senate
Democratic Technology & Communication
Committee also maintains
CapWeb: A Guide to the U.S.
Congress and has a new book
out: "The Hill on the Net."
He notes that Sen. Kennedy
was one of 16 Senators who
opposed the Communications
Decency Act and who understood
"the CDA vote as a First Amendment
issue rather than the simplified
anti-pornography bill that
others regarded it (as)."
Also among the 16 opposing
the CDA, Casey adds, were
Sens. Bingaman
(D-NM), Leahy
(D-VT), and Robb (D-VA), who
happen to maintain Web pages.
CAN
THEY WRITE HTML?
Although many Senators and
Congressmen have home pages,
"that doesn’t mean that
those members are themselves
hands-on computer users who
read their own e-mail and
write their own HTML," Casey
says.
He adds: "Sandwiched between
the shrinking number of technophobes
who don’t use computers
and will never go online,
and the growing number of
bonafide hands-on Net surfers,
is a large number of members
who have taken enough notice
of the Net to have their offices
brought online - and who have
as a result gained a better
understanding of the medium."
THE
TOP 25
Several other Hill staffers
echo Casey’s optimism
about the progress being made
to bring more members online
and up-to-date about the new
technology.
Says Julie Reiser, a DC Webgrrl
and staffer in the House Clerk’s
office responsible for Web
page and database development:
"Six or seven months ago,
I would have said, ’No,
they don’t get it.’
But with the outcry over the
Communications Decency Act
they’ve had to come to
terms with what the Net means
to their constituents."
Speaking for himself and not
in his official capacity as
Senate Webmaster, Chris Lee
says, "Congress is doing a
great job, given the limited
staff and resources that are
available." Lee is the creator
and maintainer - on his own
time - of Capitol Hill Online,
a new site ranking "The Top
25 Congressional Member Home
Pages."
After reviewing over 300 member
home pages, Lee awarded the
top spot to Sen. Bill Frist
(R-TENN), whose content-rich
site features, among other
things, a video clip welcome,
a pointer to his call-in cable
talk show, news and weather
information, and a page with
an embedded form to send an
e-mail message. An e-mail
writer is able to specify
the general topic of his or
her message, choosing alphabetically
from Agriculture to Transportation.
Lee also has a page on his
site offering "suggestions
on creating a quality home
page." He advises that constituents
are interested in a number
of things, including tour
information, fax numbers and
recipes.
BTW, House and Senate members’
expertise in Web page design
is nonpartisan. Of the Top
25 selected by Lee, 15 are
Republican home pages and
10 are Democratic.
WHAT
IF THEY DON’T WANT TO
’GET IT’?
Interestingly, some members
who do "get it" insist that
they don’t.
"I don’t ’get it’,"
says Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA),
laughing. He is leery of plunging
too deeply into what he calls
a "two-way informational exchange"
with his constituents. "We
just don’t have the staff
or the time to take on a Web
site and respond to every
e-mail letter that comes in."
He does plan to put up a "one-way
Web site" that will list his
voting record and his positions
on a variety of issues. But
don’t try and send him
e-mail or Joe (a high-school
buddy) will kill me...
A
SECURE WEB MAIL PIONEER
Then there are the surfers...
several hailing, appropriately,
from California. Rep.
Anna Eshoo (D-CA), a second-term
Congresswoman representing
the Palo Alto, CA area, is
not yet among Lee’s Top
25. But let’s hope Chris
is reading this and will give
her site a second look before
he judges again in October.
Not only does Rep. Eshoo have
a fairly deep Web site but
she is active on the Net regulatory
issue of parental control
over indecent content and
she is the first member of
Congress to implement a secure
e-mail system for her constituents.
Interviewed recently in her
office in the Cannon House
Office Building, Rep. Eshoo
didn’t flinch when I
pointed out that there was
no computer on her desk -
or anywhere in sight - in
her private quarters. The
fact is, her budget won’t
allow it. Her office was equipped
with aging PCs when she moved
in - and she soon found out
that there were "constraints"
on her ability to purchase
and upgrade hardware. "The
Republicans have let us have
more appropriations" for computers,
she noted wryly.
The new machines she eventually
ordered - and installed on
the desks of key staffers
- came without Windows 95.
"When the contract went out,
Win95 hadn’t been released,"
explained her press secretary
Lewis Roth, rolling his eyes.
Undeterred by Congressional
bureaucracy, Rep. Eshoo is
pioneering the use of CitizenDirect,
an e-mail system embedded
in her Web site that enables
her constitutents to write
to her directly even if they
don’t own a personal
computer. The system allows
users to create private password-protected
mailboxes and to log in from
a public library computer,
for example.
Rep. Eshoo insists that she
reads - and responds to -
every piece of constituent
e-mail. But she does so by
signing off on hard copies
of the e-mail responses prepared
by her staff. The Web page
responses are titled Special
Delivery "Annagrams" and feature
her flourishing signature
stamped as a graphic.
’USER-FRIENDLINESS’
The ever-energetic freshman
Rep. Rick White (R-CA), co-founder
of the Congresssional Internet
Caucus, continues to beat
the drum for making Congress
more user-friendly. He recently
introduced a resolution calling
for the amendment of House
rules to put Committee information
online. "The rule changes
are needed," he said, "because
most bills and reports are
printed on paper and filed
manually... (which) prohibits
people from having the chance
to look at the bill before
it is voted on in committee."
BILL’S
’COMPELLING’ CONTENT
CONFERENCE
Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m
as vulnerable to Microsoft’s
PR machine as anyone. And
there were close to 500 anyone’s
sitting in a darkened movie
theater in Bethesda, MD on
July 16th, "participating"
in a real-time Microsoft event
entitled WorldWideLive. The
satellite downlink was broadcast
simultaneously to 50 locations
and required a $35 entrance
fee.
Amazing, really, that an audience
of that size would pay up
for such an event and would
sit for eight hours (11 a.m.
to 7 p.m. EST) to listen to
a one-way presentation about
Microsoft’s new and evolving
technologies including ActiveX,
Internet Explorer 3.0 (still
in beta), Style Sheets and
Nashville - the (not secret)
codename for an add-on to
Windows95 that integrates
the Windows desktop with the
Web. All are being developed
to help Web designers create
"compelling content." You
can take a look at some of
the new stuff on The Nature
Conservancy’s Web site,
which Microsoft "made-over"
as a demo for the event.
Broadcast from a stage set
dubbed Active Cafe, the whole
thing was surprisingly entertaining.
Bill came on camera for a
few seconds and smirked (to
the audience’s delight):
"It’s so easy to get
into the online service business...
If I can do it, so can you!"
REACTIONS
TO SLATE
You definitely know when you
touch a nerve... out here
in cyberspace. Here are two
of the reactions I got to
the comments I made in my
last column about SLATE.
I said that the new ’zine’s
content ought to "reflect"
the medium of the Web in some
way - and not be just an online
version of The New Republic
or The Atlantic Monthly.
Writes Mike Gordon from inside
Microsoft headquarters in
Redmond (he’s Creative
Director for Cityscape): "So,
Gutenberg should have printed
his first book about... hot
lead? And early radio should
have talked about... static?
... Communication is communication.
It adapts to its medium but,
like Slate, it usually isn’t
about the medium itself. Thank
goodness - navel-gazing gets
old fast."
And from an award-winning
Web newspaper publisher, who
wishes to remain anonymous:
"You’re right on about
wondering about the ’point’
of Slate. I was very disappointed
with the first few editions
after all the hype (and certainly
the talent of the editor).
People who eat their news
and information off the Web
expect a little Web with their
meals. It seems obvious that
Kinsley just doesn’t
’get’ the whole
idea behind the Internet..."
Seeya
