Skip to Content
Uncategorized

Awaiting Obama’s Second Web Act

The delay in appointing a CTO makes a technological overhaul of the federal government seem less likely.
February 11, 2009

On his second day in office, President Obama signed a memorandum on “Transparency and Open Government” in which he directed his chief technology officer, in coordination with the director of the office of management and budget and the administrator of general services, to make recommendations within 120 days on how to use technology to create a more open government.

Three weeks later, there’s just one little problem: Obama hasn’t appointed a chief technology officer. Considering how technology was placed at the center of his campaign–reshaping politics along the way–some observers are surprised that he isn’t more rapidly trying to adapt that lesson to the federal government.

“The campaign was successful at riding a wave of empowerment that technology has given Americans,” says Andrew Rasiej, founder of a widely read blog on politics and technology and of Personal Democracy Forum, an annual conference. “It remains to be seen whether that wave of empowerment will be able to breach the wall of the federal bureaucracy.”

The delay itself speaks volumes, Rasiej says. He adds that if the appointee winds up not reporting directly to Obama, but rather to a cabinet member, it will be even worse. The danger, Rasiej says, is that “technology is viewed as an issue–‘health,’ ‘energy,’ ‘technology’–and thought of and budgeted as a vertical, as opposed to a platform that literally solves problems for all the different issue areas.”

To be sure, the president has some big issues on his plate, and it’s only been three weeks. Still, as Rasiej puts it, “One of the big problems is that every time there is a new administration, they start putting butts in seats based on the framework of the bureaucracy in the prior administration. A good question to ask here is, what would Google do?”

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build

“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”

Meet the people who use Notion to plan their whole lives

The workplace tool’s appeal extends far beyond organizing work projects. Many users find it’s just as useful for managing their free time.

Learning to code isn’t enough

Historically, learn-to-code efforts have provided opportunities for the few, but new efforts are aiming to be inclusive.

Deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has quit Google

Hinton will be speaking at EmTech Digital on Wednesday.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.