Two things that make President-Elect Obama the perfect person for this time

[ProSense]

He's a strong believer in open government.

He strongly opposes deregulation (PDF).




edited typo

[ProSense]

1. Bush E-Mail Records Could Be Lost To History

Bush E-Mail Records Could Be Lost To History:

Q: Barack Obama has promised to put a technology czar in the White House. Do you think that this might help with electronic record-keeping?

Fuchs: I think that having people who are a little more visionary about technology would be a very, very useful thing. I think that a lot of government officials still are in a paper mindset, and when we talk to people at the various agencies, records managers, in some cases they recognize this as a real challenge, but in some cases they don't buy it. They don't really accept that we're moving to an all-electronic environment. So I really do think it's critical -- and it's not just because of the open government, and transparency and accountability concerns that my organization cares about. This is really important for continuity of government, and for effectiveness of the government....

It would be great if there was someone in the executive branch who makes a priority of this, but I think Congress has to act as well, because we often hear things like, "There's no technology to do this," "We haven't solved this problem," but I have confidence that our private industry will come forth with solutions if Congress mandates it, and I really think it's time for Congress to do that.

Light night and day.