Today, the White House Web site (whitehouse.gov) switched to the open source Drupal platform -- the same software running FGI! I'm glad they made the shift. It's one thing to talk about transparency the way the Obama administration has done, it's another to use tools imbued with openness and transparency in order to get to that goal.

White House opens Web site programming to public
By PHILIP ELLIOTT
The Associated Press
Saturday, October 24, 2009

[tip 'o the hat to Chris Messina!]

ProPublica notes that there were big changes to the White House web site this week:

• ChangeTracker Update: Big Changes to WhiteHouse.gov on Obama’s 100th Day, by Brian Boyer, ProPublica, May 1, 2009.

They say that the administration updated more than two dozen web pages including some sweeping edits and complete rewrites to "The Agenda" area of the site, now renamed as "Issues." One of the specific changes they report is that the Iraq page was deleted and replaced with a single paragraph on the foreign policy page. You can see a side by side comparison of this using the ChangeTracker tool.

You can also follow changes using RSS or build your own change-tracker.

WhiteHouse 2.0, White House Blog, May 1st, 2009.

Today the White House is taking steps to expand how the Administration is communicating with the public, ... In addition to WhiteHouse.gov, you can now find us in a number of other spots on the web...

· Facebook.com/WhiteHouse

· MySpace.com/WhiteHouse

· Twitter.com/WhiteHouse

It will be interesting to see if this really works! The first comment I saw was just an unhelpful rant. It might be nice if they took a lesson from sites like slashdot which have figured out how to make comments helpful without censoring anyone.

The appointment of Vivek Kundra to become the White House's "first federal chief information officer" caught my eye in a NYT Caucus alert:

As reported by The Caucus, The Politics and Government Blog of the Times [New York Times, Thursday, March 5th], "[i]n a 25-minute conference call, Mr. Kundra discussed some of his plans and interests, including his intention to extend the use of “cloud computing” in the federal government and to create a data.gov web site that will put vast amounts of government information into the public domain..." [emphasis added]

Perhaps Mr. Kundra meant to say he would make public domain government information more accessible to the people by publishing it freely in an open access government site.

The post continues, Mr. Kundra "sketched out an ambition that is hardly modest: to shatter the assumption that government technology automatically must lag behind the private sector...[H]e will be expected to oversee a push to expand uses of cutting-edge technology. He will have wide powers over federal technology spending, over information sharing between agencies, over greater public access to government information and over questions of security and privacy..." [emphasis added]

"Mr. Kundra ... likes to refer to citizens as “co-creators.”

Infoworld has an informative, brief article on cloud computing: Galen Gruman, Eric Knorr. What cloud computing really means: The next big trend sounds nebulous, but it's not so fuzzy when you view the value proposition from the perspective of IT professionals. Infoworld (April 07, 2008).

The Obama administration is hosting an Open House Reception at the White House today. Those who would like to be there on the President’s first day can sign up for the reception using this form. The website states that this is an initiative to inform the public that the new administration “will be one of the most open and accessible administrations in our nation's history.”

Today, Barack Obama was sworn in the 44th President of the United States. The White House has a new website now and it is expected that this will serve as a place for “online engagement” with American citizens and the global community. It has been stated that the efforts of the new media will focus on a) Communication b) Transparency and c) Participation
Those who wish to know more about the economy, national security, etc. can get information and updates from the briefing room. They can subscribe to the WhiteHouse.gov blog or get e-mail updates. President Obama has pledged that he will publish “executive orders and proclamations for everyone to review, and that’s just the beginning of [his] efforts to provide a window for all Americans into the business of the government.” The President’s policy priorities are available online. He has also promised to ensure that American citizens participate in the work of the new administration. The White House is inviting comments, concerns, questions, etc. If you have any, please use this form online. Now is your chance!

Personally, I am very happy to witness one of the most significant turning points and a new chapter in American history – the inauguration of the nation’s first African-American President. Today, the United States has really upheld the values of democracy and freedom.

It is the time of transition and a lot of links in google searches to whitehouse.gov are broken and new pages are apparently not indexed yet. I imagine that google will update these links soon, but be aware. If you have hard links to White House pages (e.g., Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Office of Homeland Security, Office of National AIDS Policy), you might want to check them!

This announcement from C-SPAN may be of interest:

Join C-SPAN for White House Week! This 7-day television event kicks off on December 14 with the premiere of a 90-minute feature documentary, The White House: Inside America's Most Famous Home -- a C-SPAN original production. White House Week takes you beyond the velvet ropes to the private residence, sharing exclusive interviews with the First Family, the White House staff, and renowned presidential historians.
 
The White House: Inside America's Most Famous Home, which headlines the weeklong series, recounts highlights of America's most famous home -- from George Washington's first design decisions to an exclusive tour of the private residence given by First Lady Laura Bush.
 
And that's only the beginning. After the documentary premiere, six additional nights of special White House programming will air on C-SPAN. Programs will feature rare footage, behind-the-scenes video, and extended interviews with historians, White House staff, and other experts -- all providing an unprecedented look into the public spaces of the White House and the private home of our nation's First Families.
 
Produced with assistance from First Lady Laura Bush and the White House Historical Association, this weeklong series is the most comprehensive look at the White House ever offered in video, bringing this treasured landmark alive for viewers across the country.
 
You can get inside the White House ahead of time by visiting www.c-span.org/whitehouse today. View the trailer, interviews with historians, footage from the documentary, and content from the C-SPAN archives -- with more video added every week.
 
The White House: America's Most Famous Home premieres December 14 at 9 pm ET on C-SPAN. Additional original programming will air nightly at 9 pm ET through December 20.

As we have seen through the conflict and problems of preserving White House e-mail, the law has not kept up with preservation of electronic messages.

A bill (H.R.5811, "The Electronic Message Preservation Act") moving through Congress would address the problems by adding a new Section 2911 to Title 44, Chapter 29. It would require the electronic capture, management, and preservation of electronic records, require that they be readily accessible for retrieval through electronic searches, and would establish mandatory minimum functional requirements for electronic records management systems to ensure compliance with the requirements.

The Bush administration is threatening a veto:

• White House Threatens To Veto House E-Mail Storage Bill, By Dan Friedman, CongressDaily, Jul 9, 2008 (subscription required, but freely available here).

The White House and officials at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) argue that the law gives NARA new responsibility and expands the agency's job from advice to oversight, but the sponsors of the bill say that it only affirms the National Archives' job of advising the White House on record-keeping.

The CongressDaily articles notes that:

A less-discussed but farther-reaching part of the bill updates the Federal Records Act to require federal agencies, also under standards set by the National Archives, to save all e-mail records electronically and create systems to allow electronic searches.

According to GAO and a committee report, most agencies now use "print and file" records systems for keeping e-mail, many of them spotty.

(See National Archives and Selected Agencies Need to Strengthen E-Mail Management, United States Government Accountability Office, GAO-08-742 June 13, 2008.)

A comment in the Committee Report (House Report 110-709, "Electronic Message Preservation Act" 110th Congress 2d Session, June 11, 2008) says:

To make federal agencies comply, I believe this legislation should include enforceable repercussion language. Ms. Patricia McDermott of OpenTheGovernment.org suggests this is the only way to make federal agencies comply with the Federal Records Act. Ms. McDermott states that she does not "think anyone has ever been prosecuted for destroying, much less failing to preserve federal records." Just ask former Clinton EPA Director Carol Browner. She supposedly oversaw the destruction of her computer files in violation of a judge's order requiring the agency to preserve its records.

Meredith Fuchs, the general counsel of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, writes that the Bush administration's hostility towards public access to and preservation of records combined with changes in technology that have transformed the way in which we all communicate are leading to a situation in which "primary sources on the most important decisions and activities in the government may be lost, destroyed, or closed to the public." [emphasis added]

• The White House: Off Limits to Historians? by Meredith Fuchs, Passport: The Newsletter of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (5-1-08), posted at History News Network on Thursday, May 8, 2008.

[O]ver the last seven years there have been a series of moves by the current administration that may ensure that the records of the White House and the federal offices and agencies that work closely with the White House will not be available to historians.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. It has authority to investigate the subjects within the Committee’s legislative jurisdiction as well as “any matter” within the jurisdiction of the other standing House Committees.
Tues. Feb. 26 at 10 am the full Committee will hold a hearing entitled “Electronic Records Preservation at the White House.”  According to the Committee website,  the witnesses expected to testify include:

Court may move against White House, by Pete Yost, Associated Press, Wed Oct 17, 2007.

A U.S. magistrate indicated Wednesday that a federal court may order the Bush administration to preserve copies of all White House e-mails, a move that a government lawyer argued strongly against.

Waxman: Save all e-mails from or to the White House

Rep. Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has asked several federal agencies to step up their efforts to save e-mails they send to, or receive from, White House officials through nongovernmental e-mail accounts.

The Committee's request is a response to a recent announcement by the Office of the White House Counsel and the Republican National Committee (RNC) that the RNC may have destroyed a large quantity of White House e-mails, beginning as early as 2001.

In light of the speculation surrounding the U.S. Attorney firings, it is mind-numbing to think about the sheer volume of erased messages providing potentially valuable information related to this and other such events during the Bush administration.

And what about the RNC's policy to allow White House officials to delete their own e-mails from the RNC server? Each official would probably have a different idea of what constituted an important public record and what constituted spam or simply e-mail that he or she didn't want to become public knowledge. Such arbitrary handling of public records is not only suspect during the current scandal, but it also goes against Americans' "right to know" about their government's activities, whether altruistic or detrimental.

Two Leaders: both were presidents. One was a leader, and the other was a dictator.

Gerald R. FordGerald Ford was the only president who was not elected. He was appointed vice president by Richard Nixon when Spiro Agnew resigned in the fall 1973. He became president by default when Nixon resigned in August 1974.

Gerald Ford is undoubtedly one of my favorite U. S. Presidents. He was an "every man" who took the reigns of the nation during the difficult time following Vietnam and the resignation of President Nixon. The leadership skills of this average man helped to heal many of our nation's wounds. Some of us wondered why he pardoned Nixon, yet perhaps it was this act of forgiveness that allowed our nation to heal and reunite.

By the bicentennial celebration in 1976, citizens were once again proud to be American. In a pub the evening of July 3, 1776 the band began playing "It's a Grand Old Flag," and the entire audience began singing. One man in our group had escaped from Eastern Europe the previous year, and was concerned the police would arrest us for that display. We were happy to inform him that in America we could celebrate our Nation's birthday, and not fear about repercussions from our government.

The Federal Government has designated Jan. 2 as an official day of mourning for former President Gerald R. Ford. Flags are flying at half-mast and most government offices will be closed on January 2nd. Ford's funeral service will be televised that day.

Read a biography of President Ford at The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum.
The Presidential Library and Museum recently posted a section of News, Special Events & Featured Pages on their home page.
Three image galleries contain 78 public domain photographs that chronicle the nation's 38th President.
No special permission or usage fees are required, but the library would like you to use the credit line included in the pop-up text for each photo.

Remembering Gerald R. Ford, July 14, 1913 - December 26, 2006 is a FirstGov.gov page with links to information about the former president.

Saddam Hussein
The Trial of Saddam Hussein at the Law Library of Congress provides essential information about the ongoing trials of the deceased Mr. Hussein, who was executed on December 30, 2006, for killing 148 men and boys in Dujail in 1982. .

The leader of Iraq from 1979 to 2003, Hussein gained infamy during the 1988 chemical weapon attack on Iraqui Kurds, as well as for his brutal tratment of his own citizens. A U. S. Department of State report, Saddam's Chemical Weapons Campaign: Halabja, March 16, 1988 descibes the mass murder which occured in the city of Halabja in 1988.

The White House issued a press release, President Bush's Statement on Execution of Saddam Hussein. Previously, the White House compiled theApparatus of Lies: Saddam’s Disinformation and Propaganda, 1990-2003 which chronicled the alleged attrocities of the Iraqui dictator for over a decade.

Saddam Hussein's Capture: One Year Later is a feature article in DefendAmerica the United States Department of Defense Official Website on the War on Terrorism.