Transparency for All

Of course, the Department of Homeland Security insists this is no big deal, but somehow a private government contractor posted a TSA air passenger screening manual online. And unfortunately, the supersecret parts of the PDF were redacted by drawing black boxes over them. Oh! Nobody will ever figure that out! The MSM will try to tell you that "hackers" used their elite skills to remove the black boxes, but in reality all it took was a copy of Acrobat Professional.

So what was revealed? Well DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano says "the security of the travelling public has never been put at risk," but I don't believe it. I'm sure many terrorists would love to know what size electrical wire can go undetected by airport screening machines or how to sneak in through the exit lane.

However, if you're traveling this holiday season, I suppose this new level of transparency can be very helpful! Gawker has kindly assembled 10 tips to get you past airport security based on the TSA manual. Tip number seven was the most disturbing to me:

7. Be Disabled:
The FSD may authorize the following modifications for the screening of Persons With Disabilities:
1) ETD searches are not required for:
a. Wheelchair and scooter cushions
b. Footwear of disabled individuals that cannot be removed
c. Prosthetic devices, casts, or support braces
d. Orthopedic shoes

Well, thanks Internet! It's not like this wheelchair user does a lot of traveling anyway, but now the TSA will be sure to overcompensate and give me an anal probe.

Our See-Through Government

Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for us about what our Government is doing. As if our Government knows what they themselves are doing.

I certainly don't think Congress knows what they're doing. Do you? Yesterday we learned that nobody knows who killed a provision in the stimulus package that would have curtailed bonuses at bailed out companies like AIG:

Building on public outrage and presidential denunciations of executives at bailed out companies getting bonuses, Wyden and his Republican colleague, Sen. Olympia Snowe, crafted a provision in the stimulus bill that would have forced bailout recipients to cap their bonuses at $100,000 (any amount above that would be taxed at 35 percent).

According to Wyden, he "spent hours on the Senate floor," working to get the bipartisan amendment passed. He succeeded -- not a single Senator voted against the provision. "But," says Wyden, "it died in conference."

We've seen this monkey business before. In 2007, as news of the purged U.S. attorney scandal spread, the big question was "who changed the Patriot Act to make it easier to replace U.S. attorneys without oversight?"

Before we get all rabble roused again, let's not forget that computer geeks already have an amazing, simple, and well tested tool that enables worldwide collaboration on open-source software. It's called version control software, and you've probably seen it in action if you've ever clicked the history tab on any Wikipedia article. But here's what version control could mean for Congress:

If bills were created under a system where strike-throughs and additions were carefully tracked, the public would know which legislator made which change to a proposed piece of legislation as it made its way through the Capitol.

At last, there would be transparency in the legislative process. Best-case scenario, it would shame legislators from inserting language against the public interest and only meant to reward political contributors; at worst, it would make such insertions public and allow the voters to punish the politicians who made them.

Ah, but will Congress ever agree to this innovation? It would change the whole way they do business... but isn't that what we voted for? Change?

We finally have a tech savvy President who has promised to appoint a Chief Technology Officer in addition to the already appointed Chief Information Officer. I hope they together will push our men and women in Washington -- though they'll be kicking and screaming I presume -- into this millennium. We urgently need a new see-through government.

Now if only we can create software that tracks whether members of Congress actually read these laws that they pass.