Week Five- Post #1

The Transparency of the Government Cookie Attack!!

While reading chapter five, Information Access and Governmental Transparency I became aware of a re-occurring theme: accessibility. It seems to be the seam that holds together many intertwining elements associated with the content of this course. Chapter five best defines accessibility as a two-tired process. One level of access is ones’ ability to connect to the internet, run the appropriate software, etc. The second level of access is governmental entities providing electronic material in a usable form. This type of access then leads into government entities providing transparency, which is one of the fundamental venues for e-democracy. It is that primary freedom of information that established e-democracy. Which in turn aims to “increase global integration, diminish conflict and prompt economic development” (page 120).

One of the issues I’ve previously expressed on this blog was citizens right to privacy in relation to participating within e-democracy initiatives. Chapter five (page 138) briefly addresses my previously stated area of concern with this simple sentence: “be access- conscious when designing agency forms. For example, keep personally identifiably information separate.” Chapter six seems to address privacy on a much deeper level than simply the collection of personally identifiable information on a governmental form.

Chapter six did an excellent job at address the other side of privacy and electronic surveillance, especially to workplace employees. Employees do not have a right to privacy in workplace e-mail. This specific availability to request a public record/discloser became a huge issue of concern recently for The Evergreen State College faculty and staff after the riot in mid-February. Faculty and staff who utilized the State email address to send correspondences regarding the nature of the riot were subjected to public discloser. Subsequently this event sparked much debate with employees having lack of privacy while utilizing State owned computers.