Barack Obama is going to appoint the nation's first CTO. What are the top priorities?
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29 votes
Create a web UI for all levels of government
Government needs a user interface - not just the federal level, but state and local as well. The user interface should not only allow access to all services, but should provide information resources, including ongoing work by legislators and city councils, and the ability to discuss ongoing issu... more
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29 votes
Standardize InfoSec across local/state against int'l attacks
One of the major priorities needs to be the defense of our local, state and federal government systems from foreign attacks. This would include hardening the infrastructure, standardizing encryption standards and data formats. This Informatoin Security plan would include coordination with legisl... more
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29 votes
Invest in making our kids think science is cool again
Our children no longer want to be scientists and they think math is for nerds. Create some initiatives to make science cooler for young children. Create some programs in elementary schools to get kids interested early in science and technology.
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28 votes
make accessibility and universal design priorities
People with disabilities are still at a disadvantage when using the web. The CTO should lobby Congress to extend the ADA to the web, reinforce Section 508 rules for federal websites, advocate for universal design in the web, and encourage private enterprise and open-source developers to offer ine... more
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27 votes
Get rid of HSPD-12
HSPD-12 requires the government to issue one smart card for all civilian agencies. HSPD-12 has been a failure perpetuated by an over zealous GSA for the benefit of contractors--which is how the directive was written. While the government has issued some cards, they do not interact as required by ... more
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26 votes
Accelerate a national electronic health information network
Natural disasters like Hurricanes Ike and Katrina, and heinous crimes like 9/11 have demonstrated the incalculable value of electronically available secure health information. Private sector ventures like Microsoft's HealthVault and GoogleHealth have paved the way by addressing and mitigating pri... more
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26 votes
Save money, improve stability, security by switching to OSS
Switch to Open Source Software to save millions of dollars in licensing fees. Save more money in potential costs resulting from security holes, and even more money in stability.
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26 votes
Protect the US from cyber-attack.
see article" http://www.slate.com/id/2204123/?GT1=38001. The CTO should be a cyber-czar-like position and work with the DHS to protect the government networks from espionage and sabotage buy implementing many series of Security upgrades.
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25 votes
Relax encryption export
The legal restrictions preventing exportation of encryption technology are cumbersome and outdated. In the interests of helping US organizations keep up with the rest of the world, we should simply drop them.
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25 votes
Provide unlimited, online access to libarary collections.
Our nation's libraries - both public and academic - contain vast sums of information, and making that information available online, for free, to anyone who would seek to access it, can and should be a high priority of this office. If someone can read it, listen to it, or watch it when they visit... more
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25 votes
Set Regulations for Online Gaming in the US
In order to ensure installment before Obama takes office, the Fed. Reserve and the Department of the Treasury published the final rules implementing the UIGEA on Nov. 12th.
By doing so, the regulations against payment transactions involving Internet gambling become effective Jan. 19th, the day ... more
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25 votes
Follow the Constitution
If the constitution doesn't grant you the right to do it, don't do it.
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24 votes
100% digitization of healthcare records by 2014
Healthcare is one of the most-important aspects of our society. Digitization of healthcare records greatly increases the efficiency of care and level of care given to those in need of health assistance.
The government could do things such as: provide off-site data storage for regions at a cut-r... more
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24 votes
Leash RIAA, MPAA etc. before they rob and accuse everybody
These two have been extremely intimidating in the field of copyright and intellectual property. They use (dirty) tricks and unclear or no evidence at all to rip people off on the grounds that they violated copyright.
This practice has to STOP and media giants have to realize that the problem is ... more
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23 votes
Fix identity theft vulnerability of Social Security Numbers
The use of then Social Security Number (SSN) as a unique identifier for US citizens causes many problems. Most significantly, it is a identity theft risk when it is exposed, but its widespread utilization means that it must often be revealed. The national CTO should determine a way to defuse th... more
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22 votes
Institute the Fair Tax
GET RID OF THE IRS. TAXED ON WHAT YOU BUY, NOT WHAT YOU EARN. THIS IS NOT A FLAT TAX. www.fairtax.org
The FairTax Act (HR 25, S 1025) is nonpartisan legislation. It abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medica... more -
22 votes
Allow students greater access to unrestricted information
Right now students are extremely limited to what they can can cant do on computers at school. if we want a truly free, open, and modern society, we need to make all types of information available to students (including Pornographic materials). we can grow as a society until we can cast off our so... more
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22 votes
Adopt EFF's Innovation Agenda
Adopt the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Innovation Agenda as proposed November 11, 2008, at <http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/11/innovation-agenda>.
That is,
1. Repair the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Eliminate the ability of copyright holders to get statutory damages for ... more
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21 votes
Reduce the term for non-biotech patents
Biotech requires a long patent period to account for the time to get to market-- outside of biotech (read: software) reduce the patent term.
Yes, there's also the idea of ending "software" patents and "business method" patents, but these solutions have obvious flaws because c... more
