Observations reçues par le Groupe d'étude

Soumission complète

(Soumis en anglais seulement.)

Auteur : Thomas B. Riley
Envoyé : le 30 mai 2001

1. INTRODUCTION

This is perhaps one of the most interesting times in history to be alive. We are witnessing a phenomenal abundance of change in societies around the world in a very short period. The source of most of this change is new technologies and the Internet. In the past decade we have seen every aspect of the lives of individuals and organizations go through many evolutions and uncertainties. Large, medium and small corporations alike have discovered the need to adapt to the new technologies, or sink in the emerging global knowledge economy. There is no facet of life in the industrialized world that has not undergone some form of shift. The resultant new information economy has brought with it different approaches to work. There has been a surge in tele-workers, entrepreneurs and home run businesses. Corporations have downsized and knowledge workers migrate from company to company, open to the highest bidder and the organization with the best deal. The highly proficient, intelligent and innovative knowledge worker is in demand. Knowledge itself seems to have become a commodity in the marketplace of ideas. The pace of change has been so dizzying to some they have difficulty in meeting the challenges these shifts have brought. We now live in an information intense driven society.

Nowhere has this been more evident than with government, who are constantly having to cope with the persistently emerging new technologies and demands from citizens. In today's wired world, the interactive citizen is one of the fundamental cornerstones of change. The Internet has put new power into the hands of the citizen. Governments can no longer simply be dispensers of information, even in sophisticated forms being developed by many governments. But governments have not been passive observers and are rising to many of the challenges. New technologies are being used not only to deliver services to the public but also to enhance government administration and facilitate businesses.

This section looks at the means by which some governments are moving to electronic governance and what role information will play in the future. In this context, governance can be seen as both a means of using new technologies to deliver services to the citizen, and ways in which to change and improve the efficient methods of administration within governments themselves. Governance and information are linked concepts. For there to be accountability it is important the citizen be informed. It is not enough that Canada's government fashion changes to the current Access to Information Act to bring into conformity with changing times or handle administrative weaknesses and oversights. Rather, it is important that Parliament, in considering changes to the legislation, develop ways in which information not subject to the Access Act be organized and made available to the public at large through the use of new technologies. This next section looks at the impacts the Internet is having on society and governments alike, to make the case that the public service needs to develop a whole new concept of how to deal with its vast information holdings.

2.1 THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET

At this stage of development few governments have effectively been able to involve their citizenry electronically in the democratic process. Many governments have been effective dispensers of information, which often passes as a means of enhancing the democratic process. There are few government initiatives seeking to help citizens to get online, seek feedback on government reports online, and develop listservs and discussion groups to elicit the views of the citizens. However, there are many groups actively participating in online activities in the hope of influencing government policies. But for the most part, governments are far behind the activities of citizens online around the world. Those actively engaged in online activities involving social or political change see the Internet as a medium to foster, enhance and change the way people have traditionally engaged in the democratic process.

The story of the Internet and electronic democracy is a cautionary tale. Much of the enthusiasm and hope for new forms of democracy and citizen input into public issues, sound very like the gushing optimism expressed about the potential of television in its nascent years. It is not yet known if the potentials offered by the Internet will be met. Will the Internet become like television, an arid desert with only a small oasis of excellence? This is an important question because the potential is there for the Internet to become dominated by a few large, corporate interests, or subsumed by government regulation that could inhibit the freedoms offered by this new technology. There is also the danger in a recent trend indicating that people are increasingly spending more time in isolation sitting in front of their computer terminals.

Suffice to say at the moment the Internet is creating major change both positive and negative. One of these changes is in the ways citizens are engaging in the democratic process and beginning to slowly altering the face of democracy. The next section looks at some of the initiatives and the reshaping of the face of democracy which online citizen participation is bringing.

2.2 GOVERNMENT AND THE INTERNET: UNDERSTANDING THE CULTURAL DIVIDES

Electronic democracy is leaping ahead in practice on the Internet, while debate and discussion about the subject goes on within government circles in many countries. This contrast was made abundantly clear at the recent Global Forum, which was held in Naples, Italy. Inside the conference there was much talk from government officials from around the world about bringing democracy to the people and engaging the citizen, while outside, 10,000 protestors were there as a result of electronic democracy in action. The organizers of the protest acknowledged that the Internet was a key tool in the preparations for this event. But the Internet is not about protest. Rather, it is about a larger phenomenon evolving in the online world. It is about creating new forms of online democracy far beyond the confines of world protest. The protests are just one manifestation of the deep rivers of change that the Internet is bringing to democracy and the world.

This most recent example indicates that the Internet is an effective tool for communication, organization, swift exchange of information, and dialogue, that spreads around the world instantaneously, in real time. The Internet is at work 24 hours a day, seven days a week (called 24/7) and reaches into every part of the world where there is a phone line or wireless accessibility. This has serious ramifications for governments who are increasingly looking to the Internet, and to other information technologies, as a means to deliver government programs, become a wide source of information for the public, and to seek to interact with the citizen.

But this is where governments are running into trouble. There is an ever-widening gap between the culture of governance, based on old systems and precepts of operation, and the fast-paced online world that is daily changing the face of society, as we have known it. The latter represents an invisible current of change, which we will not fully understand for decades to come. Rapid change is a fact in today's world, and the question is how will governments be able to fit into, and react to, that online world.

In the industrialized world, most governments operate on public administration precepts that were developed in the nineteenth century. This system of government has a built-in slowness, and inertia, in the way it operates. The reason for this is that the system of government was developed on the concept of hierarchy. In a hierarchal world there is a set chain of common and rigid infrastructure for decision-making. Power flows from the top downwards. In the online, networked world power flows in a non-linear direction, and this, in itself, changes the way in which people perceive the world. This change doesn't just give power into the hands of the individual, but creates an environment that allows people to adapt swiftly to changing events.

In the past in government, for example, research was done, policies were proposed, and decisions made, on whether to move on to legislation. This form of policy development or public consultation was based on an era when there was the luxury of time for the decision-making process, and the engaging of the public, through the academic world, experts, and public interest groups.

For example, in pre-Internet eras, a department in Ottawa might develop a policy on trade and seek public engagement. To do this, an advertisement would have been placed in a newspaper or professional journal, in which the content of a paper would be described in general terms, and then opinions sought. There would also be information on where to write to get a copy of this policy paper. The citizen would then have to write or phone, and then wait for a copy to arrive in the mail. When the consultation process ended, then the results would be tabulated and the department would go on to the next step, which could be recommendation of legislation to the Minister, or making significant changes, or doing more study on the matter (and more likely the latter). This process gave department officials significant control of the process. In this form there was the luxury of time because there was so much distance to cover in order to allow public input. That is, the time it took to cover the distances across the country and for the whole process to take its course.

Thus, in the pre-Internet era, time was controlled by distance. But now, on the Internet this has been reversed, and distance is measured by Internet time. In other words, in a 24/7 world, time and distance have merged. If a government puts out a policy paper today it goes on the web and response can be accelerated. But government reactions and actions are still based on the old time paradigm. More importantly, in the past, if there were disagreements over a particular policy, there were far more hurdles for groups and individuals to express their disagreement. Today, discussions or disagreements can be instantaneous, and a thousand and one newsgroups, listservs, and other forms of discussion can be up and running in less than a day, with or without government input. Issues of the day are reflected on the Internet in all manner of form, from the serious to the comedic, in text or multimedia sight and sound. The Internet has become a complex matrix of change and diversity.

This is a dilemma for governments as they are faced with a puzzling dichotomy. On the one hand, governments are preparing to reach out more and more to the citizen. This is measured through the current move to government online, in which citizens will be able to receive speedy and efficient services, but also the aim is to allow citizens to interact with government. Some countries, such as the UK, are working on ways to enhance electronic democracy through ways and means of engaging citizens in online discourse and debate. Many other countries, such as Sweden and Finland, are working towards these same goals of enhanced democracy, with Finland having some success in engaging the citizen (and proving to be the exception rather than the rule among governments).

Meanwhile, the citizens of the Internet are moving in a medium that is outpacing time and distance, as we have traditionally known it. People can respond, if they so chose, instantaneously, whether it is sending an electronic card to someone, engaging in e-commerce or taking part in a thousand and one activities, depending on the choice of the individual. Individual officials in governments, in their roles in life as individuals using the Internet, are part of this change. But collectively, as part of the government process itself, these same people, as a group, are operating at a snail's space that cannot equate with what is happening on the Internet, which is expanding and changing daily. And it is this gap that is the dichotomy facing governments.

This is the challenge facing governments. The solution to this challenge lies not in conducting the "business" of government in the same old ways, but in reform of the way in which the public service, no matter what country, operates. But a first step is understanding and then dealing with the dichotomy between a culture of government that exists from another era, and the rapid changes that new information technologies, the Internet, and our new era are bringing, with the concomitant new culture arising. This is an essential first step - creating public administrative systems that will be in harmony with this changed world. However, as part of all this it is information that is paramount. It is important for governments to develop tools to enable citizens to better access and use the vast information resources contained within government databanks and networks.

2.3 Electronic Democracy, Electronic Governance and Electronic Government:
The Differences in Terminology

Rarely have major changes in society been led by governments. New and radical ideas, that have changed the course of history, have always come from independent, exterior sources. Throughout history, radical writers, philosophers, prophets, scientists and artists have mostly been reviled in their times. Many examples spring to mind, from Socrates to Galileo, to Jean Jacques Rousseau, to name but a few.

This is not a negative criticism of government or traditional institutions. Rather, it is a reflection of the nature of institutions themselves. Organizations have the inherent characteristic of being slow to change and not easily adapting to new ideas. The reason for this is that each organization builds, as it grows, internal bureaucracies to ensure efficient administration and long-range survival. Thus, as the knowledge economy has grown, due to the rise of all-embracing information technologies that have changed the way society works and plays, many large private companies have suffered, due to the inability to react swiftly to the changing currents washing over the post-industrialized world. The same is true for Government. Traditionally, governments have evolved institutions to ensure the social good of the country, continuing public order, some form of social justice, and the maintenance of sovereignty on the world stage.

Thus, governments and elected bodies are reactive by nature. A social problem, for example, must first be realized, contemplated, and then legislation brought forth to deal with the "problem" or social need of that time. This makes the institutions of government necessary and invaluable to society, but at the same time, these institutions are cumbersome in nature and slow to react to change. With the transformation from the post-industrial society to the age of cyberspace, it has become increasingly difficult for governments to adapt or respond to the changes upon us. This is especially true in the area of electronic democracy.

The term, electronic democracy, is now becoming a whole subject in, and of, itself. In its nascent stages in the early eighties the term actually referred to online voting. It has now grown to encompass the multitude of ways in which citizens can interact within the democratic process, to means whereby citizens can influence the political and policy making processes of elections, elected legislative bodies, and government institutions, ranging from the policy making process to the economic, social, cultural, and other major issues of the day. When discussing this subject it is important to discuss the differences between the terms electronic government (E-government), electronic governance (E-governance), and electronic democracy (E-democracy).

Briefly, E-government constitutes the way public sector institutions use technology to apply public administration principles and conduct the business of government.
E-governance is the movement of governments online to electronically deliver their services and programs, provide government information, and interact with the citizen.
E-democracy is about how the citizen interacts with government or influences the legislative or public sector process. Electronic democracy is all about participatory democracy as opposed to representative democracy, which is now the currency of elected, democratic governments around the world. Electronic democracy is also about how citizens can interact with each other to use the Internet and other new technologies as organizational tools to reach their goals of aspiring change.

2.4 E-Democracy in the Wired World

In the wired and connected world the online citizen is increasingly playing more and more of a role in the democratic process. There are now hundreds of groups involved, from the community and local level to the national and international stage, in some way working to have an influence on government policies and programs, and on societal issues of our age. Citizens are engaged online in:

• citizen to government interaction,
• citizen to group,
• group to government interaction and, the most predominant,
• citizen to citizen engagement on the social, cultural and political issues of the day.

Because of these changes, the process of government will soon no longer be controlled from the top and micro-managed by a few. In the changing wired world, citizens are voicing their say. Governments may not necessarily be listening, but the thousands upon thousands of people engaging in discourse on the thousand and one issues of the day are certainly listening to each other. This is resulting in powerful currents of change, which are only beginning to manifest themselves. The new voices are by no means cohesive, as there are so many dissonant voices and disagreements on what exactly online activism means. Also, as can be seen when analyzing the online groups, often many do not know of the existence of others, but this could change, as groups and individuals with similar interests find each other. The most important characteristic of the growing forces of online democracy is the fact that the Internet is recognized as the most advanced communication tool devised in history. Equally important is the fact that the Internet is an organizational tool for the thousands of people who want to use it to play some role in the democratic process.

The E-democracy movement is being driven in different ways around the world. In the United States, E-democracy is a citizen-driven phenomenon. Early evidence suggests that it is the Americans who are currently the most involved in E-democracy activities, from engaging in debates (candidates and citizen alike) during the recent elections, to acting as effective drivers of change for many groups and individuals wanting to impact on issues. The Americans have been primed for quick adaptation of the Internet as an experiment in E-democracy, not just because the US population jumped onto the Internet so early and adapted it as part of their daily lives, but because of their long history of town hall meetings. The tradition of the town hall runs deep in American society, its roots based in the eighteenth century, and this concept of the belief in citizen engagement in the democratic process transferred itself easily to the Internet. In the 2000 U.S. elections, citizen engagement on the Internet was widespread. Many politicians were also quick to take advantage of the growing movement. A recent American survey showed that 76% of what are now being called Wired Elected Officials (WEOs) were re-elected. WEOs are officials who effectively use the Internet to stay in touch with their constituents and engage individuals in the political and governing process.

In Canada, attempts to galvanize individuals to use the Internet to impact on the Federal General Election in November, 2000, was generally met with a muted silence.

In the rest of the world, governments mostly drive the E-democracy movement. For example, in Sweden, it was Prime Minister Carl Bild who, in 1995, recognized the Internet as a tool to enhance democracy and engage the citizen. In 1997, the young Blair Government experimented with online discussions of some important policy initiatives and, most recently, with the UK Citizen Portal, is using the Internet as a medium to attempt to engage communities and citizens alike. Many online E-democracy initiatives also receive government funding, but the most successful cases in the United Kingdom appear to be those emanating at the community level or by entrepreneurs. An example of this is a site in the UK (http://YourGov.com) which comments daily on political events. In the United Kingdom, during the 2001 General Elections, some individuals and groups successful using the Internet to counter the traditional political parties. Also, the political parties are archiving video and audio statements of the leaders on government policies, bypassing the traditional media who report in fragments. As the Westminster style of Parliaments are more restrictive representative bodies, in that it is the party with the most seats that forms the government of the day, it will be interesting to see the results. Labour MP, Chancellor Gordon Brown stated that it was evident the Internet was now starting to significantly change the dynamics of elections. However, the real change will not be visible in our culture for many years.

Elections in the future are not going to be about online voting. Recent analysis of Internet voting shows that online voting is still a long way from fruition. While some experiments have been done, serious problems have arisen. The two major problems are security and authenticity. It is essential to ensure that the individual's vote is kept secret and is not subject to scrutiny or revealed to others. Part of the problem is determining how a secure network can be built to ensure that the citizen's individual vote is kept sacrosanct. This is essential to preserve the whole value of a democratic vote in an open society. Another major problem is authenticity, that is, ensuring the voter is whom he/she says, and that a vote can only be cast once. Another important issue is that in the digital divide, it is important that the ability to vote on the Internet is universal, and that it is not exclusive to the literate and affluent middle class voter. These are just some of the issues that need to be resolved before Internet voting in our form of representative democracy can become a reality.

There are many difficulties when setting out to engage the citizen in the public policy process. The Internet is not the only technology. Our electronic and information technologies offer an array of choices. But for the moment, part of the problem as to why there is not more of a migration to the Internet, and engagement in electronic democracy, lies within the institutions of representative, elective bodies who have vested interests not to change. It is not that government institutions are not aware of the changes going on in society and the fact that there is a tool there to engage the citizen. Rather, the problem is historical and requires a willingness to develop the tools of change that will further engage the citizen. This is a theme that is consistently referred to within this paper. Citizen interactivity with government is now a major issue of our age. This is the subject of the next section.

2.5 INFORMATION AS A DEMOCRATIC TOOL

Within the next decade, or sooner, we will probably not even use the word the Internet, or the Net, because the actual convergences of technologies is creating a new phenomenon. Now an individual can be connected to the online world through a variety of technologies. For example, wireless technologies, including the Blackberry, developed by a Canadian company, are proliferating at a rapid rate. This is creating another paradigm shift. In experimental stage in the labs now are glasses you will wear that will bring the online world to your lenses. You wont need to boot up and go through all the messy program commands as these glasses will be linked to a micro cellular device which will be voice activated. You will just say what you want, get your email, send a message, take a virtual tour of the office, meet others in virtual meeting spaces, go there anonymously with created identities, book a holiday, look for new online or whatever any of the things you want to do. You will be in cyberspace, disconnected from the physical offline world except for the glasses you are wearing.

Experiments are currently ongoing to have automated automobiles on the highways so all you have to do is program your destination (probably by voice) and off you go. The car, as it travels, will not necessarily go to the route you (once known as the driver) will tell it, as it is will be connected to a GPS (GeoPositioning Satellite) which will alert your autocar to any potential traffic jams or road problems ahead. Thus, your car (or, that is to say, the machine the technological masters are letting you occupy) will be diverted as needed to the most desirable and quickest5 route. This mapping of cars is not a fantasy or possible scenario for the future but a reality, as mapping programs already exist to get you to your destination by the quickest route. There are also software programs being developed that will allow anyone to "pilot" a plane simply by programming the online computer. In much of the industrialised world most countries are already mapped electronically, thanks to satellite technology, and available on the Internet. Other ideas for the Internet include the wired home in which everything from your electricity to your heat to your refrigerator would be connected to the Internet and connected to whatever company is providing you with the service. Thus, the electricity corporation can adjust uses of electricity and your refrigerator can alert you when you are low on milk or, more probable still, send a message to your grocery supplier to send more supplies to you. This is all very efficient, and perhaps even a timeserver for the consumer, but do we want our lives to be governed by disparate pieces of technology? For the sake of efficiency and time do we really all want to be wired to a seamless technological mosaic? But this is just one small example of the technological world we are building.

That is not to say there are not intrinsic values to the Internet and the new technologies and that many have benefited. The Internet has been a tool of enrichment for large numbers of our populations. It has allowed diversity, the rise of the entrepreneur, the mushrooming of home businesses, the bringing together of family and friends through instant communications, the Internet has been a voice for many who for too long did not have the means to express themselves because prior mediums of the expression of communication have been controlled by the few. The Internet has been many things to many people. New, advanced medical technologies and scientific breakthroughs have lengthened our average life span and brought us better health and lifestyles.

On the Internet, there are pockets of dissent and discourse. There are many who use the new technologies for learning, to facilitate their businesses, to get a service, whether from government or business, play games with each other over long distances, keep in contact through email and a thousand and other good usages that can benefit the individual. We know the benefits, we know of the attempts of many professionals who seek to use the Internet to both gain knowledge and dispense and share knowledge. Perhaps, the most important feature of the Internet is that it has allowed individuals to communicate in ways not available before. This is an important new channel through which communication, ideas and knowledge can flow. The Smithsonian Institute in the United States, the British Library along with a wider consortium of universities and libraries are joining together to put online the Magna Carta, the Lindisfrane gospels and the entire contents of the Smithsonian online. Their purpose is to take the massive volumes of knowledge available in off line libraries and to make available online for the whole` world to benefit. The intent is simple: what an individual can get by going to a library should be available to the world through the Internet. But as with all things in life there are positive benefits and negative impacts. The questions now we must ask ourselves collectively are: how do we manage to grow the benefits while neutralizing many of the negative elements? And there are many negatives surfacing as technological advances far outstrips society's ability to determine the direction we will go as a result of the developments. These trends stress the need for governments to better harness and dispense their information resources to better help Canadians cope with the continuing social shifts being brought by technology.

Technology is the modern spider that has increasingly built a web around our lives. The collective question for us as a society is: are we the fly now captured in this complex, intricate web or are we still the masters of our destiny? Where is the debate, discussions about the social, cultural and political impacts of technologies on our lives and what these technological changes are doing to our humanity? Has society become the fly willingly ensnared in this new web (and not simply the Web on the Internet) actually created by a few and used to drive the new economy and the engine of consumerism? Has electronic commerce and the burgeoning global information economy so subsumed the agendas of world governments that we can no longer objectively look at where we should be going? It can be persuasively argued that throughout history all new technologies have changed the way the world lives and operates as a society. Transportation brought the world together and television resulted in the global village that brought all of us on the planet closer together as a people (though not necessarily in a harmonious way). Now tourism is the world's second largest industry with millions of people on the move all around the world, experiencing and sharing in other cultures.

Whatever the opinions or views of individuals and governments in society it is evident that we need a far deeper debate and discourse over the impacts of technologies. There are concerns over ensuring all citizens have universal access to the Internet (and are free to use it or not use it as they wish), there are serious, abiding anxieties about the digital divide that is occurring throughout the world. Privacy laws, to protect people's information and endow on their certain rights over their own personal information, are spreading. But the implementation of such laws is but one small step. Articulation of these issues is just the start. We need deeper discourse. Ironically, it is this medium that affords the opportunity to bring such discourse forward.

This is why online e-Democracy is so important as this activity represents the power of this technology and how it can be used to embrace democracy and involve people in the social, economic, cultural and political issues of the day. This is a tool that can give people, the individual citizen, the power to influence public policy. Governments are slowly coming to realize that there is an undercurrent of democratic change going on in the world. The face of democracy is beginning to change and a few thousand at the moment are doing it. But this is a change that has the potential for growth.

Technology is a cold and neutral medium. It is people, individuals that bring passion, life and meaning to this medium. It somehow seems that this point is missed as society collectively races to embrace technology. We are the inheritors of our past that we did not bring about but the creators of our collective futures. At this point in our history we have a collective responsibility as to how our society will shape itself. We have the capacity to create change in our societies through speaking out. Many changes do occur in society when people speak out and spark debate. It is now time for such a discourse over the future of technology. We need to develop a philosophical base about all these new technologies so society drives technology and not technology drives us. Part of the solution is to develop information as a tool in the knowledge society.

This next section looks at the distinctions between electronic governance and electronic democracy and how the latter is having a wide impact on civil society. The move towards online activism, and the use of the Internet as an information and communications tool to forward common social goals is important to understand. The mechanisms evolving in the developed world to influence government policy can also be used as tools to help those in the developing world.

3.0 ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY IN A WIRED WORLD

3.1 INTRODUCTION: ELECTRONIC GOVERNANCE VS. ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY

Many governments are moving to electronic governance. In this context governance can be seen as both a means to using new technologies to deliver services to the citizen and ways in which to change and improve the efficient methods of administration within governments themselves. Another element looked at in this section is the means as whereby governments will increasingly be able to involve citizens in the democratic process of government.

As noted above, at this stage of development few governments have effectively been able to involve their citizenry electronically in the democratic process. For the most part, governments are far behind the activities of citizens online around the world, who see the Internet as a medium to foster, enhance and change the way people have traditionally engaged in the democratic process. There are some efforts on different government fronts.

However, on the whole, governments tend simply to provide information on their web sites and use the Internet, and other technologies, to deliver services electronically. The prime example of this is the US White House site , which is primarily an information tool and conduit to executive agency web sites. In January 2000 then President Clinton announced that government had to be interactive with the citizen but this rarely happens on the US federal site. There are millions of documents on FirstGov.gov but it is lacking sufficient tools to allow the citizen to effectively access needed information. Tools are being developed, such as the software Pathfinder, to allow citizens to get to what they are seeking. In Canada, some parts of the canada.gc.ca site allow access to some significant blocks of information whereas others are sadly lacking in any kind of cohesive organization or ease to get the information. This is where tools can be developed, along with far more information being put online, to help Canadians.

The dispensing of information, without substantial input from the citizen, is not a real interactive transaction. Yet, the Internet in and of itself is an interactive medium. Individuals on the Internet understand this and, for growing legions of people, it is becoming a force that is changing the nature of democracy, as we know it today.

But this is just part of the wider picture of developments in electronic democracy. In fact, individuals and groups are coming together online around the world to influence policy. Politicians are also using the web. In the United States every Presidential candidate has a web site. There are also alternative web sites by interested citizens or groups who want to have their say about the candidates. There are also other groups who are offering sites which will present in-depth analysis of the issues in the upcoming presidential and congressional elections as well as elections at the local and state level. Those wanting to check out the activities of the US Democratic party or the Republican Party can go to either: http://www.democrats.org or http:// www.rnc.org. If you want in-depth details on the 2000 Elections in the USA you can go to: http://www.Politcaljunkie.com There are also many independent sites that either oppose the mainstream candidates, satirize the candidates, or offer alternative in-depth information and analysis of the issues. But the phenomenon of engagement in politics online is not restricted to the United States.

3.2 THE CHANGING SHAPE OF DEMOCRACY TODAY

There are thousands of other individuals who are active online and attempting either to get more information from their government or to influence policy. The online world of democratic activism is growing around the world. This section looks at the emerging trends in electronic democracy, how citizens active online are changing the nature of democracy, as we have understood it, and how governments are going to have to tap into this emerging trend. This section shows the distinction between online democracy, and what its participants are achieving, and electronic governance.

In the wired world, the online citizen is increasingly playing more and more of a role in the democratic process. There are now hundreds of groups involved, from the community and local level to the national and international stage, in some way working to have an influence on government policies and programs, and on societal issues of our age.

Because of these changes, the process of government will soon no longer be controlled from the top and micro-managed by a few when it comes to public policy. In the changing wired world, citizens are voicing their say. Governments may not necessarily be listening, but the thousands upon thousands of people engaging in discourse on the thousand and one issues of the day are certainly listening to each other. This is resulting in powerful currents of change, which are only beginning to manifest themselves. Electronic democracy is not about citizens voting on a multitude of referendums as laid out by governments. Electronic democracy is citizens engaging in the political process in means chosen by individuals.

E-Commerce currently dominates the mass media as the main phenomenon of the Internet. But the real story lies in the changes being brought by the thousands of groups and people online around the world, who are engaged in some sort of civic activism, political engagement, or just plain discourse and debate, on the issues that are important to them.

The new democracy we see surfacing is more the expression of individual voices that congeal into a collective whole over ideas that the society of peoples online develop into a consensus. And while a consensus might be formed on major issues, people are still in a position to express their individual thoughts and ideas (even if they range from the erudite to the opinionated). In this emerging world we see the evolution of a true populist democracy (albeit a small one at this point in time). Although people's ideas do not necessarily have to be acted upon individually, the means exist for individuals to communicate freely to an audience. That audience can be large or small, but it represents a freedom for the individual that has not existed up to this point in time. The mass media still hold the reigns of mass communication. It is still important to get that letter to the editor published so you can reach a wide readership. But with this new medium of the Internet you can write something and it will reach the level of interest in the audience out there.

Many people talk about the "Individual" being in control, or having great power because of the ability to tap into the world through the keyboard, but it is not certain if the real power is understood. It has mostly been identified as the power of the consumer to buy the product he wants, or read the online newspaper of choice. In fact, what has actually happened is we have collectively opened a Pandora's box. And it really is too early to state exactly all the changes that will occur. It can be said with certainty that there is a powerful current of knowledge and ideas now circulating the world because of the capacity for change that the Internet has brought to societies spanning the globe.

What once took months or years to turn into an issue now can occur in less than a day. This is the true power of the citizen. This is the story of the evolution of a truly populist democracy, an emerging democracy in which issues are being transformed from the hands of the few elite to thousands (and one day will be millions). It is like throwing one seed into the garden and from it a flower grows. Throw the seed of an important idea or issue out onto the Internet and it flowers thousands of times over. This is a key development in our evolution at this point in our history. Central to this development is the degrees to which people can communicate, form opinions, make judgments from available data, and then act upon them. The Internet is a medium that allows ideas to flow among thousands of channels. People are empowered not because one can get onto the Internet and get a product, read a newspaper or research out some knowledge. That thinking is from an old paradigm succinctly expressed in the saying: knowledge is power. The new paradigm is the ability to talk back (true interactivity), dialogue and go to whatever source an individual wants to choose.

There are legions of people who are out there ruminating and thinking, or engaging in conversation (or whatever activity one chooses). Many of these people are not restrained by the dictates of mass media which tell us what we must read, what is the story of the day, or what we must listen to on the radio or watch on TV. None of these media afford the independence of operation that the Internet allows. This is another reason why the Internet is developing into such a strong, world political force, not captured by boundaries, time, space or distance. It is true that many in the world still very much reflect their religious beliefs, cultures, ethnic or political bias. Beyond this lies the opportunity to break away from the intellectual and emotional chains of the past and be free as an individual. And this is occurring on the Internet. However, even with these changes, there are still opportunities for governments themselves to benefit from the changes. There are also efforts by many governments, worried about the potential freedoms a medium such as the Internet brings, to curtail both access and content on the Internet.

Because the Internet as a medium is becoming the tool through which the nature of democracy itself is changing and taking new shapes and forms, it is important that governments understand this phenomenon. Increasingly, public officials and elected politicians are going to be faced with not only an informed citizenry but a citizenry that wants to be engaged in the decision making process in some form or another. An analysis of the numerous groups springing up on the Internet on a multitude of issues illustrates that there are voices out there that governments are going to have to tap into.

The Internet has brought about a decentralization of power. In the connected world, individuals can now make their own choices as to which authorities and information sources they will accept. This is leading to a greater democratization of knowledge, empowerment of the individual, and the potential for more informed interactions between the citizenry and organizations, including government. Moreover, since individuals now have ready access to a variety of information resources, organizations have to adopt new proactive measures to compile and disseminate information in a competitive information environment.

A citizenry that is able to seek and obtain information and knowledge from any place in the world through the Internet will, in all likelihood, also expect more from government.

One of the means that people can collectively work together to bring about change is through the strategic gathering, absorbing and using of information. Online groups and online activists, researchers and others involved as information professionals, instinctively understand this. It is the understanding of the nature of information and how it influences us as individuals that is going to bring the next big shift in society.

4.0 THE SHAPE OF INFORMATION TO COME: DEMOCRACY'S BEST TOOL

As the Internet takes hold in our daily lives, and begins to take a new and ubiquitous shape and form, the need for governments to develop information policies to suit the changing nature of these technologies is becoming more evident. In much of the developed world, the Internet is a communications force that is growing. According to NUA plc, a company in Ireland that tracks the growth of the Internet and the implication of our growing information technology infrastructure, as of the end of the year 2000, 60% of the population in the United States and Canada will have some form of online access to the Internet. This can be in the office, the home, an educational institute or some public space, such as libraries, community halls, Internet cafes and other public venues. Canada is recognized as the most connected country in the world. This is, in and by itself, a persuasive argument as to why the Federal Government needs to develop an information policy that is closer to the rhythm of our quickly evolving times.

We are now awash with information in our new cyber environments. There are currently billions of pages out on the world wide web. There is so much information that no single search engine can go out and suck up all the information an individual might be seeking. In fact, there is such a proliferation of information that many search engine companies now do not give total access to everything that is on the web. What some of the search engine companies are now doing is giving priority to companies who pay to have their company or organization show first on a search, when a given topic or key word is entered into their search engine. This is now giving an edge to those who can afford to pay the necessary fee to be at the top of the list.

The web is now so big that some web sites are not even getting joined to the network of networks because there might be a connection problem in their local area. Also, government and private organizations are now building web sites that can only be accessed through their own Intranets, or by having a specific address for a web site with a password to enter. The world is at the fingertips of the citizen, but the new challenge is actually finding what is out there. The freewheeling, widely democratic, open, ubiquitous, and accessible Internet is still there, but the shadows of secrecy are beginning to move in. The danger exists that corporate dominance, with the economic rules of the market force at play, could inherently impede the free nature of the Internet over time.

When entering cyberspace, the challenges for the citizen who wants an open and accountable society, both from government and the private sector world, are now many. The success of our new information technology environments is going to depend on how much say and control citizens will have on information in the decade to come.

Information is shaping our world. We now live in the Digital Age, in which information, in a global knowledge economy, has become the supreme commodity. Information is not only a piece of barter for the business world to use for competitive and commercial value. Information is now a precious commodity for the citizen.

In our new Internet environments, citizens are increasingly demanding more privacy rights to protect their personal information. However, there is also a contradiction here, as at the moment, citizens are sharing and using personal and aggregate information more than ever before. But in a cyberspace environment, the citizen is becoming increasingly sophisticated in understanding the impact that information can have on one's life. The individual wants to ensure that one's own personal information is not abused. The individual wants the ability to control his/her personal information environment in cyberspace. At the same time, the individual wants unfettered access to all manner of information. But the sheer amount of information available, the ability to communicate information, and the value that individuals put on information, is bringing a new understanding of the nature of information itself. This understanding is also what is driving the new forces for change in the growing democracy online movement around the world.

Thus, on the side of freedom of information, the public is starting to demand more information for all facets of their lives. We see more data on labels of commercial products; shareholders demand more information about the activities of the companies in which they are investing (not just the usual "hyped" good news about the company's activities in the past year). Citizens are demanding and seeking more information about many activities in society. The Information Age appears to be bringing more demands for accountability. In the years to come, the public will come to expect more and more accountability, in the form of enlightening information, from both government and private sector organizations. The Internet is an open network, which has created open environments. With this openness has come a demand for certain rights, to ensure the inherent democratic nature of the Internet is maintained. This idea is now spreading into society as a whole, resulting in demands for more and more accountability from all our public and private sector organizations.

Thus, it appears that the next wave of information rights will spread out to the private sector. As the average citizen becomes armed with more knowledge (or at least has the capacity to be armed with knowledge), then it will be private sector organizations, along with governments, who are going to have to become more forthcoming about the information held in their organizations. The private sector here means not just large corporations or businesses, but rather all organizations, including non-profits. Just as privacy moved into the domain of the private sector thirty years ago, when Sweden passed the first data protection law in the world, so will freedom of information become a part of the private sector domain. The shape and form it takes will be different, but the providing of more information to society will occur.

We currently live in an age of individuals' rights, because in our current climate of the citizen as consumer, the individual is paramount. This will change, as the recognition dawns that it is also aggregate rights that strengthen the citizenry as a whole. As this idea flourishes, then privacy will now hold the same sway, and demands for information on a more sophisticated level will grow. Privacy will become a part of civil society's infrastructure. As the knowledge economy grows, and the knowledge professional comes to be seen as a powerful force in our society, so will the demands for wider swathes of information grow. It might seem at the moment that we already live in a world with too much information. In fact, we live in a world that has a paucity of information policies to transform us into true knowledge societies. This change of demand for information will be for "organized" information that informs, not overwhelms, the citizen.

Information is now an issue in a new form. Governments are also going to be subject to pressures from emerging information forces in society. For example, the secrecy of governments, at the moment, is defined to the degree that information is shared with the public. The lack of efficacy of a freedom of information law is shown by the narrowness with which government exempts information from the public. Canada's information law is currently under review, because of the criticisms that the statute too much favours the public sector, and too much information is withheld on specious grounds. Another reason for a review of the Canadian Access to Information Act is that it was developed in the late seventies, and passed by Parliament in 1982, before the emergence of new information technologies. Societal changes, coupled with the new technologies, are forcing demands to update legislation born in the gestation period of the Information Age. But the challenge of governments now is not just to pass or amend freedom of information laws.

In our new environments, we have to look at information as the force it has become in society. Changing environments bring different attitudes.

For example, as governments go online with electronic service delivery, more content is going to become available to the public. But it is not going to be enough to put information up on a web site. Any information is going to have to be organized.
In many cases, there is too much information on a web site, which makes the site virtually unusable by the citizen. Thus, information management is rising as a discipline within government. This is vital, so that policies can be evolved which ensure citizens are getting the information they need and want (not what someone 'thinks' the public want), while at the same time protecting individual privacy. Once governments put content online, a policy issue will immediately emerge. The private sector learned this in the early days of the web. The growth of online marketing and e-commerce brought with it major privacy and copyright issues. For the citizen, who is going online for government information, if a request is rejected, the issue will become: why can't I have access?

In an information-intensive society, citizens want more from both governments and the private sector alike. The above is simply an overview of the emerging issues and problems. Solutions need to be sought, as these new technologies become even more persuasive forces in our society.

5. POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: INFORMATION AS A PRACTICAL TOOL

RECOMMENDATIONS

There are numerous ways that governments at the local, regional and national level in Canada can facilitate these new forms of democracy that are emerging by improving, substantially, their information policies.

If we are to handle the digital divide between those who have the opportunities to be online and the vast numbers of people who cannot necessarily afford the costs of going online, it is going to be essential to level the playing field. Canada is doing a good job with their programs, such as the Canadian Access Program (CAP), which is helping many Canadians who cannot afford computers at home, to get online. In any populist democracy it is important that initiatives embrace all the people. At the moment it is estimated there are only between 150 and 200 million people online. These are small numbers where our world population has exceeded 6 billion people.

The Canadian Government should seek ways to engage their citizenry in the process of government through the development of new and cohesive information policies. They can do this in many ways such as:

• making more information available online from government itself to ensure there is an informed citizenry;
• providing web sites that seek input from people on all manner of government programs and issues;
• developing listservs and discussion groups on important national issues and other means to engage the citizenry;
• providing grants to organizations seeking online democratic activities;
• developing local community projects that embrace all levels of society from the academic world, to businesses, large and small, to non-profit and volunteer organizations; this can encompass governments at all levels across the country;
• develop intelligent search engines that allow citizens easy access to information they are seeking when entering Canadian web sites;
• ensure information on web sites is easily attainable, in a form understood by the citizen and can easily be downloaded;
• provide tools and hot links to ensure the citizen gets what he or she wants in the right format from the right agency;
• provide a provision in any reformed Access Act for the public sector to develop a set of best Information Practices that can be applied and used to embrace Canadians. This can help in contributing to our increasingly knowledge intensive society.

As indicated above, the Internet is a medium that has allowed people to involve themselves in the democratic process in new and unique ways. Governments at all levels and international organizations will increasingly be impacted by these changes. Thus, there is also a need for awareness building within governments and international organizations of the changes that are occurring. This can be accomplished through educational and training programs.

Note: Copyright 2001, Thomas B.Riley. Permission is given to the Access to Information Review Task Force to use part or all of this paper for distribution or placement on their web site

Thomas B.Riley 29 September 2000
Visiting Professor, University of Glasgow
Chief Executive
Commonwealth Centre for Electronic Governance
President, Riley Information Services Inc. Ottawa, ON
100 Bronson Avenue, Suite 1203
Ottawa, ON K1R 6G8
Web: http://www.rileyis.com
E: Tom@Rileyis.com
Ph:1-613-236-7844
Fax: 1-613-236-7528

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Observations reçues par le Groupe d'étude