CHAPTER THREE: NPTN PROGRAMS: TELEDEMOCRACY The men who founded this country knew how well their declara- tions of democracy applied to the major medium of their day, the printed word. Those who followed made similar use of other commu- nications media, such as radio and television, to further close the gap between governor and governed. In our generation we are faced with the development of yet another major means of communi- cations, a new medium, known as telecomputing. What remains to be seen is how this medium will be used to enhance the democratic process. The purpose of the NPTN Teledemocracy Project is to ex- plore that question. The Teledemocracy Project is proceeding in three distinct stages: Stage One has involved us in establishing several signifi- cant governmental information services on each of our public ac- cess community computer systems. Stage Two, called "Campaign '90/'92," involved us in studying how these public access computers can best be utilized by candi- dates for public office to interact with the electorate, and by the electorate to learn more about the candidates. Stage Three will involve two major branches. The first will be to establish "electronic office space" for as many public offi- cials and city/county governments as we can, in order to study the interaction between these elected officials and their constituen- cies over time. The second branch will involve us with a major educational campaign whereby curricula will be devised at levels ranging from secondary schools, to college, to adult education classes, which will teach even more people how to use this tech- nology to become better citizens. STAGE ONE Stage One involved us in establishing several major govern- mental information services across the NPTN network. The two most notable of these were the Congressional Memory Project and Project Hermes. The Congressional Memory Project is a service being carried out by NPTN in conjunction with the Washington Times Corporation. Each week six congressional bills are summarized (three on the House side and three on the Senate) and placed on each of the NPTN community computer systems. Along with each bill is a list show- ing how each member of Congress voted on that measure. These bills are searchable by subject and, within each file, by keyword. As with all Free-Net services, they may be viewed by any member of the community who wishes to call in and use the system. Project Hermes is a service being provided by the U.S. Supreme Court whereby decisions are sent electronically to CWRU within minutes of their release by the Court. CWRU, in turn, pro- cesses and makes them available to NPTN for distribution to its affiliated community computer systems. Thus, via Project Hermes, citizens throughout the nation can be reading the full-text of Supreme Court decisions within 15-20 minutes of their release in Washington D.C. This represents a governmentally-related informa- tion resource which, heretofore, was utterly unavailable to the average citizen without going to a specialized library, usually months after a decision was rendered. Other Stage One activities include: providing a service simi- lar to Project Hermes for the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals--called Project Mercury, and the Ohio Supreme Court. STAGE TWO Stage two of the Teledemocracy Project was dubbed "Campaign '90" but has now extended across a number of election years. Campaign '90 actually began during the 1988 presidential campaign when both major presidential candidates were criticized by the press for not making their positions clear with regard to the substantive issues of the day. The candidates, in turn, crit- icized the press for not utilizing the myriad position papers and other documents they produced. During Campaign '90 we launched a concerted effort to collect and archive on each Free-Net system any and all documents released by the major candidates which dealt with their position on various issues. These files were "search- able" and "downloadable" by the electorate. The two major guber- natorial candidates in Ohio were especially invited to participate in this forum; and, with the cooperation of the Ohio League of Women Voters we were able to provide at least a capsule sketch of all candidates running for office at whatever level in each rele- vant county. In 1992, this process was repeated for the Presidential Campaigns. Full-text of all position paper, fact sheets, press releases, etc. for both candidates were carried across our commu- nity computer network. As a further extension of this service, we are also now run- ning the "Presidential Memory Project" whereby the complete text of all of President Clinton's campaign documents will remain on- line for as long as he is in office. STAGE THREE As mentioned above, Stage three will involve two major branches. In the first we will begin a long-term program to establish permanent "electronic office space" for as many public officials and city/county governments as we can. This will allow cities and counties to post information about its services and facilities, provide information services to its citizens such as City/County Council meeting minutes, and have question and answer forums available where officials can clear-up the many questions and problems that people have. It will also allow elected representa- tives at all levels to have electronic mail contact with their constituents and be able to post, among other things, summaries of their activities. In this regard, we already have on-line sev- eral city and/or county governments in the tri-state area around Cincinnati, in Medina County, and in Cleveland. The second branch will involve us with a major educational campaign whereby curricula will be devised at levels ranging from secondary schools, to college, to adult education classes, which will teach even more people how to use this technology to make them better citizens. This will, however, involve a larger fund- ing base than what is available to us at the moment. ___ The Teledemocracy Project is one small attempt at developing the technology necessary to bring our citizenry into theInforma- tion Age and study the impact of this new technology on the demo- cratic process. There is no way we can imagine a governmental structure of the 21st Century which does NOT include telecomputing as one means of communicating with and informing the people; and, if that is so, then let that developmental process begin now.