US Senate & House Create YouTube Channels 199
eldavojohn writes "Following an election in which online videos played an important role, the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate have opened YouTube channels (or 'hubs') advertised to be a 'backstage pass to your government.' Ideally this will bring transparency to citizens and inform them of their senators' & representatives' positions and ideas."
oh goodie (Score:5, Funny)
This we be watched as much as c-span! ....
>_
Re:oh goodie (Score:5, Interesting)
Even more unfortunate is that I cannot download these videos, at least not without violating the TOS, and so I cannot store my own copies of those proceedings.
Re:oh goodie (Score:5, Funny)
Here is a nice human interest video from Pelosi:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wtOW1CxHvNY [youtube.com]
Re:oh goodie (Score:4, Funny)
Here is a nice human interest video from Pelosi: http://youtube.com/watch?v=wtOW1CxHvNY [youtube.com]
That one's good but even better is this video on equal rights for women from Senator John:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfLAv3JHRwY [youtube.com]
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OMG. I wish I had mod points. I thought that was fake (somebody just pretending to be Pelosi), but there it is linked from the House's YouTube channel, so it's legit (unless the account was hacked). Kudos to her for that video.
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Wasn't it a few years ago that some lady senator got into a fight with a guard and started hitting him? I think it caused her not to get re-elected.
Stuff like that would be fun to have on Youtube...
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Some people care about parts of our government. CSPAN doesn't get watched because you have to watch all the parts you don't care about just to get to the parts you do care about.
At least now, I can search the videos for the stuff I care about. Like legalizing retroactive abortion...
Yep. CSPAN gets extremely boring. That's why I'm glad there are sites like CSPAN Junkie [cspanjunkie.org].
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C-Span has had streaming video on their website for a good long time.
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Oooo delicious irony, modded redundant not GP. And hey /. I thought redundancy was something to strive for. Yet I get modded down for it, that really hurts.
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Oooo delicious irony, modded redundant not GP. And hey /. I thought redundancy was something to strive for. Yet I get modded down for it, that really hurts.
What a horrible injustice.
You clearly should have beeen moded flamebait.
Re:oh goodie (Score:4, Informative)
Why let something as silly as a little TOS stop you, when it's so utterly pointless and stupid given the ease of acquiring a copy of the video. No one is going to begrudge you for trying to be a better citizen. Except for the politicians perhaps.
For those curious about how to download videos from youtube, this site [blogspot.com] will give you an easy method of doing so.
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Although your link notes that his method yeilds a higher-quality video than coping from cache.
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Because TOS violations are federal crimes [arstechnica.com] now.
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I mean, yo really think all those shoulder massage tools are being used according to the TOS???
That has got to be one of the best analogies I've seen on /. today. Well done.
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Well, watching that your employees are doing their job is part of a boss' job.
And those people in Congress and House are essentially your employees, if you're a US citizen. Some people tend to forget that, but in fact you are their boss. Even though it's kinda hard to fire them if they fuck up, their union must be insanely strong. I mean, do you know anyone else who has a 4 or even 6 years notice period?
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Which is unfortunate but true. Most people do not care about their government.
A slight exaggeration. We care, but we cannot follow along with it all day long, down to detailed minutia and throwing Filibuster Parties, complete with chips and dip. This ignores what they do when not in session, where the real wheeling and dealing is done. Everyone has an important part to contribute to society, for us, it's our day jobs. We need to supervise the government and ensure that the right trade-offs are being made.
We
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That's basically why they choose a service like YouTube. Imagine you could and, say, 5 years from now you could open a page that showed us just what our representatives said 5 years ago.
Ponder for a moment what kind of insight you'd gain into current politics if you could watch, say, some speeches of Sen. McCarthy.
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Part of the reason for the United Stated Democratic-Republic. Is the fact that most people don't have time for full involvement in the government. While network neutrality may be a big issue for you for others they will take it or leave it. As for all the stuff that goes on.
What I find more annoying is the people who we hire to take care of our government is not there to vote for every bill that goes across, and it is widely accepted that they don't.
Re:oh goodie (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of the reason for the United Stated Democratic-Republic. Is the fact that most people don't have time for full involvement in the government. While network neutrality may be a big issue for you for others they will take it or leave it. As for all the stuff that goes on. What I find more annoying is the people who we hire to take care of our government is not there to vote for every bill that goes across, and it is widely accepted that they don't.
What bothers me is that in Congress, the senators and representatives routinely vote on bills that they have not even read. They rely far too heavily on their staff to process and condense this information for them, which is flawed because we voted for and elected the representative, not his assistant.
Not only do I think they should be required to read every bill on which they vote, I also think that each year they should be forced to copy down the entire tax code, by hand, before they are allowed to take any other action (I wish I could remember where I heard this idea). When that proves impossible perhaps we would see some improvements to the way things are done.
Re:oh goodie (Score:4, Insightful)
I also think that each year they should be forced to copy down the entire tax code, by hand, before they are allowed to take any other action (I wish I could remember where I heard this idea). When that proves impossible perhaps we would see some improvements to the way things are done.
The first improvement would be removing the "Write the tax code by hand" requirement.
Re:oh goodie (Score:4, Interesting)
The first improvement would be removing the "Write the tax code by hand" requirement.
Why? Maybe it would give them an idea of just how ridicious the tax code really is. According to this [usnews.com] the Federal tax code consists of 3.7 million words. By contrast, all seven Harry Potter novels [answers.com] only clock in at around 1.1 million words.
What's wrong with that picture? It really requires that much complexity to fund the Federal Government?
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The first improvement would be removing the "Write the tax code by hand" requirement.
Why? Maybe it would give them an idea of just how ridicious the tax code really is. According to this [usnews.com] the Federal tax code consists of 3.7 million words. By contrast, all seven Harry Potter novels [answers.com] only clock in at around 1.1 million words.
What's wrong with that picture? It really requires that much complexity to fund the Federal Government?
I think it was not so much a criticism of the idea as it is pointing out that it is a "fox guarding the henhouse" situation. Basically, short of a constitutional amendment requiring them to hand-write the tax code, they would just legislate it out of existence first chance they got.
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I think it was not so much a criticism of the idea as it is pointing out that it is a "fox guarding the henhouse" situation. Basically, short of a constitutional amendment requiring them to hand-write the tax code, they would just legislate it out of existence first chance they got.
Eh, true enough I suppose. I can still understand the sentiment and desire though.
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The first improvement would be removing the "Write the tax code by hand" requirement.
Why? Maybe it would give them an idea of just how ridicious the tax code really is. According to this [usnews.com] the Federal tax code consists of 3.7 million words. By contrast, all seven Harry Potter novels [answers.com] only clock in at around 1.1 million words.
What's wrong with that picture? It really requires that much complexity to fund the Federal Government?
I think it was not so much a criticism of the idea as it is pointing out that it is a "fox guarding the henhouse" situation. Basically, short of a constitutional amendment requiring them to hand-write the tax code, they would just legislate it out of existence first chance they got.
It's better to first worry about whether an idea is sound and good. Only after deciding that does it really make sense to concern yourself with what it would take to bring it about, like a constitutional amendment in this case. The difficulty of doing a thing, alone, is not a valid argument against the soundness of an idea so long as it really could be done, which is true in this case. It does take a measure of courage to see and entertain possibilities like this despite knowing that these good things a
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His point was that the first "action" they would take to "improve" government would be to remove that stipulation.
And we're back where we started.
How to get the tax code rewritten (Score:2, Interesting)
1. No more withholding. Everyone has to pay their full taxes to the IRS by check or plastic.
2. Change the tax due date from April 15th to the first Monday in November.
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I think it has to do with the fact that elections are the first Tuesday in November.
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What I believe would be a good idea would be a mandatory maximum lifetime for any law. Say 10 years max. After that, if they are not reinstated, they fall away. Problem being is nobody would agree on a lifetime, nor would that want to let any not that important laws go away. Spending too much time keeping up with all the laws etc when it should be getting easier.
Re:oh goodie (Score:5, Informative)
There is a bill being aggressively pushed by DownsizeDC, the Read The Bills Act [downsizedc.org], which requires not just that the congressmen read the bill, but requires each bill to be read aloud in session before it can be voted on. This ensures that all congressmen voting on the bill will have heard its text, and it will also do a lot to cut the size of these monstrosities.
In addition, the bill must be posted online 7 days in advance, and no changes may be made without resetting that 7-day period, ensuring that the public can see and react to exactly what will be passed.
Everyone whose heard of this thing (and is not in the political class) is for it, and there's been enough pressure that the House Minority Leader requested the 7-day full-text posting of Obama's stimulus package. It's a great step, and it shows that the pressure from the electorate's phone calls and messages is working, but there's no reason that it should only be applied to a single bill.
The other bill they're pushing for, which I'll mention here because it also represents another process to improve our quality of legislation, is the One Subject at a Time Act [downsizedc.org]. It's pretty self-explanatory, and would end the use of "riders" - sneaking unpopular chunks of legislation (or pork) into other popular or necessary bills.
If you want to see these changes made, one of the best things you can do is to raise awareness of these bills, call your congressmen, and convince your friends and family to do the same.
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I've always thought that "riders" were a terrible idea and a sure way to encourage corruption. I like this solution because the only other workable one I've heard
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Oddly enough, it hasn't gone anywhere. Here's to hoping that the One Subject at a Time Act won't have the same experience.
Again, I must stress that hoping is not enough. If you want to see _any_ legislation that limits government and gives more power to the people passed, the only way to do so is to pressure your congressmen to co-sponsor and vote for these acts, and to persuade others to do the same. Congress will pass them, but they will have to be nagged by enough of us little people beforehand and dragged kicking and screaming to let go of the powers that they have seized through our negligence.
you can't force people to be interrested (Score:2)
requires each bill to be read aloud in session before it can be voted on. This ensures that all congressmen voting on the bill will have heard its text
I was required to sit and listen to a lot of monotone reading of books in my education.
I learned very little from that.
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Thanks for sharing!
Myself, I played kickball a lot and got picked last. I gained very little self-esteem from that.
I confess that I don't understand what you are implying.
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His point is that the congrescritters, if they had to listen to every bill be read, would:
- find it a waste of time
- not get a lot of things passed, unless they were small bills.
Some consider a slow-moving congress to be a good thing. Those who wanted something to ACTUALLY get done (or at least get a vote done) would be encouraged to have shorter bills. In theory, they can't claim that they didn't read it (though they might be absent the day it was read ...) before voting on it. This way, there are 100+ c
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.
In the days of corporate controlled goverenment, we elect officials not for them to do the work, but for their trust that they'll hire lobbyists or interns that put our trust (and interests) in front of their careers. Or at least consider it.
.
Unfortunately, that's not the case currently. And it's not a divided nation, it not the lost of faith in our gov't, it's not that we find gov't untrustworthy, it's that with technology and the global community, the translation of tr
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And the representative chose the staff, and chose how much to rely on them.
If you don't like it, run for office yourself on a platform of not having your staff read bills and condense information for you, and you can test the theory of whether or not that is really as important to other voters as it clearly is to you.
I'm just curious as to whether you really consider this to be a constructive response.
The point is not the name of the person who reads a particular bill. The point is that the Founding Fathers intended for most of our experience with government to come from the state and local levels. This is a sound idea and I believe in it. But instead of that, we have a federal government that is so involved and so complex that the people running it have no hope of personally managing their own workload. When I s
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More constructive than I consider the recommendations it responded to.
If that's not the point, then that's not what you should have complained about. Complaining that people respond to what you say rather than some unstated point that you did not say seems to me a bit odd.
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I don't have the links on me, but, I saw a graphic on TV of how little they are actually in session....and it was shocking to me.
THey should be required to clock in, and work full days all year, much like their constituents do at their jobs.
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Yes, that's the point. They would be forced to simplify laws and make less of them.
There's no need for that many bills, surely?
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My brother used to think that 25%-50% of the government's overall budget went to NASA. He certainly wouldn't give them any more money.
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That is because they already know who is voting for what. For the most part, the vote is just making things formal. All the wheeling and dealing goes on before.
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What I don't understand is why people seem to think we are a democracy of any kind. We aren't.
The word "democracy" does not appear in the US Constitution. In the Federalist Papers, it appears, but in a derogatory context - it is widely considered to be a flawed form of government.
We are not a "Democratic-Republic". We are a republic. A federal republic, if you want to be pedantic about it.
It appears that the word "republic" is totally gone from the English language, and the definition of "democracy" is
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I've always thought it would be a good idea to build up a website that listed a bill summary and allow people to vote themselves on the site and it matched them up with politicians with the similar voting records. It really wouldn't take a long time for people to log in, read a summary and vote and they could even read the full bill if they wanted. If the system was robust enough, you could send people an email with the summary and a link they can click on to vote yes or no. Most people sit down and read
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That is what I am worried about. It is a good thing CSPAN is still around, so that we can record this stuff on our DVRs, but if CSPAN is taken off the air one day because of the availability of things like YouTube...
"YouTube Service to a user's device in such a manner that the data is intended for real-time viewing and not intended to be copied, stored, permanently downloaded, or redistributed by the user. Accessing User Videos for any purpose or in any manner other tha
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Cspan and this is not meant to be popular. But government transparency. So you know there is a bill on something you feel strong about you can watch the debate, see who is for it who is against it. And not just go those damn republicans or damn democrats. But see who of those voted where, and if the opposition actually gave a good reason or not.
I doubt everyone will watch it like a TV show, but if something you feel important then you just may watch it.
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Yeah but when watching C-Span for the most part it's live house/senate coverage; you might watch for a week straight and never see your elected rep on camera. Super, ultra-mega boring. This allows you to keep an eye on your elected official and review if what he says is in line with your views or not, as opposed to what he says on the campaign trail. Plus, unlike the Obama videos, you can comment on them, so you can see what others are saying about him.
Coming Next: (Score:3, Funny)
United States Congress: After Dark
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United States Congress: After Dark
Don't you mean:
United States Congress: In The Dark
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You don't wanna know.
Poor interns and pages.......
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United States Congress: After Dark
You don't wanna know.
Dick Cheney and a bag of doritos.
House Remixed (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'll be impressed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'll be impressed (Score:5, Informative)
If that's what you're waiting for, than you might want to have a look at this article [theatlantic.com] about http://www.usaspending.gov/ [usaspending.gov]... It's an eye opener...
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If that's what you're waiting for, than you might want to have a look at this article [theatlantic.com] about http://www.usaspending.gov/ [usaspending.gov]... It's an eye opener...
This comment (and the GP) illustrates the point that people's expectations for the US government are often much lower than justified. This reflects the fact that there is much in the government that is thoughtful, competent, efficient, and honorable.
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This reflects the fact that there is much in the government that is thoughtful, competent, efficient, and honorable.
Unfortunately, the intersection of those things and "people" is \varnothing.
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*facepalm*
Yeah, slashdot's gonna support LaTeX math... good job there, me...
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'll be impressed (Score:4, Funny)
Bravo!
Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Ideally this will bring transparency to citizens and inform them of their senators & representatives positions and ideas.
+5 Funny.
I just saw one (Score:3, Insightful)
Check out the A bill to provide authority for the Federal Government to purchase and insure certain types of troubled assets for the purposes of providing stability to and preventing disruption in the economy and financial system and protecting taxpayers, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide incentives for energy production and conservation, to extend certain expiring provisions, to provide individual income tax relief, and for other purposes remix featuring Bun B and Lil Wayne.
Killer!
Well, that's nice. (Score:2)
So I can watch my government officials with inserted annoying advertisements, with crappy video that's blocky and looks like an angry fruit salad, and I can't save it to my own computer or give it to my friends because it would violate the TOS. Wow. There's a token gesture to government accessibility if I ever saw one.
It's almost as bad as the signs at the county service center, where they print in 13 languages "Warning! Big guy with gun go smack smack if past this point you go." Ah, but all the other signs
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I'm not sure what you're complaining about here. The first bit, I get -- YouTube looks like crap and its a pain to save. Got it. But is the second bit:
1. The signs have too many languages
2. The signs are written poorly
3. The card at the counter doesn't contain these other languages
or (and I suspect its this one)
4. The person at the counter only speaks English
If it is 4, I will pull up just short of saying, "Folks living in America really outta learn English," and instead I'll go with, "My tax dollars can
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I think you missed my point. It's that the so-called "accessibility" to these services is a patchwork of inconsistencies that fail to accomplish its main purpose -- which is providing services to all of its citizens. If they're going to be multi-lingual, they should make a proper go of it. As it is now, we all have to search the giant displays for the 10-point sized english text buried somewhere in with a few dozen other languages in a half dozen fonts at different sizes, weights... These posters look more
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Don't worry, you missed his point too:
What he wrote:
>but I'm also all about folks speaking English in America.
What you wrote:
>And yes, I agree with you - you should learn to speak the native languages of this country.
Seems we shouldn't bother with the extra languages until we can get people that claim to speak English to actually understand English.
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Please read the entire sentence before replying. -_- I was telling him in so many words to frack off, because English is not the native language. And I support multi-lingual resources. I think their implementation to date is full of suck, however.
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In the enlightened words of Jules, "English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?"
there needs to be a "save" mechanism (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sure, if they are produced by the US government, they have to be in the public domain, but why does Google need to change the features of its service if the government chooses to submit videos to the existing service with the existing features?
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If youtube is going to start carrying government videos, presumably funded by taxpayers, the videos need to be public domain and youtube needs to have a built in mechanism to allow views to save the video. I know there are ways of saving the videos already, but youtube does not provide this functionality.
Google videos does, and it is still operational I believe. All it would take is for Google to mirror a copy of the YouTube video on the Google videos sites.
Plan B (Score:3, Funny)
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Wait, Congress causes abortions?
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Wait, Congress causes abortions?
No the Supreme Court does.
What about 508 compliance? (Score:2)
Something wrong with hosting it themselves? (Score:2)
Any particular reason they can't host this content on a .gov server that I could possibly get to from work?
Sorry, just find it annoying to see yet another VERY large victim join the YouTube/MySpace/Facebook herd.
Of course, this also begs the question as to who will be the first to censor this type of content too, yet another issue with relying upon others to host your content.
Re:Something wrong with hosting it themselves? (Score:4, Insightful)
Having it hosted on YouTube doesn't cost the taxpayer anything for hosting and distribution, whereas hosting it on a .gov server would have a cost to the taxpayer.
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I didn't say anything remotely like that.
The fact that cost is a factor doesn't mean its the only factor, and doesn't mean it applies to every bit of content any part of the government might want to distribute for any purpose in the same way.
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I didn't say anything remotely like that.
I know. I was being a wiseass. I'm in that mood today for some reason.
To make a serious point I think there's a lot of people around here (myself included) that would prefer the ability to watch Congressional proceedings without having to agree to the Youtube terms of service or the C-SPAN copyrights. I would make the case that the costs of setting this up would actually be a proper use of Government funds and I wouldn't mind seeing my tax dollars go towards such a venture.
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I didn't say anything remotely like that.
I know. I was being a wiseass. I'm in that mood today for some reason.
To make a serious point I think there's a lot of people around here (myself included) that would prefer the ability to watch Congressional proceedings without having to agree to the Youtube terms of service or the C-SPAN copyrights. I would make the case that the costs of setting this up would actually be a proper use of Government funds and I wouldn't mind seeing my tax dollars go towards such a venture.
Agreed, especially given the fact that the bandwidth requirements for sites like change.gov are already extremely high I'm sure. I mean hell, what's the cost for running all they currently run on C-SPAN? Move it ALL over to streaming video, or better yet, get it off the Internet entirely and put it on a FREE OTA digital TV channel, if you want to try and get your message out to EVERYONE, not just those who choose to watch YouTube. Hell, they're already paying for the digital converter box.
I just get frus
Why hasn't anyone posted Pelosi's video? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Translations... (Score:2)
Of course these videos won't make any sense until they are buffalaxed. [youtube.com]
All along watching you pumping my retard!
Yeah .... (Score:2)
" Ideally this will bring transparency to citizens and inform them of their senators' & representatives' positions and ideas."
Good Luck with that!
Makes sense to me. (Score:2)
It only seems fair that they allow us back stage when we're forced to allow them in our back doors.
limit all Congress speeches to 5 minutes? (Score:2)
Am I the only loathing seeing Pelosi (Score:2)
Yeah! (Score:2)
Ideally this will bring transparency to citizens and inform them of their senators' & representatives' positions and ideas.
Ha ha ha ha ha! You kids these days with your crazy talk! :-)
Propaganda face (Score:2)
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that would be the engrish version of the headline.
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Now we can watch the Republicans sit in and try to resolve problems while the Democrats turn out the lights and go home!
Nothing amuses me more than to see our elected officials resolve disputes by acting like Eric Cartman. "Screw you guys, I'm going home!"
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Considering what has changed in that last few years, I'd say "doing nothing" would actually be an improvement.
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Sadly, the two Senators would be Barney Frank and Larry Craig.