The Federal Communications Commission has a pretty cool system for electronic filing of documents: comments in proceedings, disclosures, and such. It’s called the Electronic Comment Filing System.
The Washington Post is reporting that someone uploaded a lobbying strategy document through ECFS, rendering it quite widely available.
What’s most interesting is the ritualistic resignation of the guy who wrote the document and the collective twittering among the lobbyists. Johnny showed his underwear! Hee hee!
Lesson 1: Electronic communications are dangerous and powerful. Watch your step.
Lesson 2: The lather about the existence of lobbying, even among lobbyists themselves, shows the wide gap between public expectations that ours is a thoughtful, deliberative government and the reality that it’s pretty much a slot machine.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.