Whitehouse.gov

Chris Battle has a blog today on SecruityDebrief.Adfero.com that looks at the Homeland Security page that has appeared on the Whitehouse.gov web site. Chris has some interesting comments about the content of that page that are worth reading. Unfortunately he fails to note that the page is a direct copy from the Homeland Security page on Change.gov, the Obama Transition web site that I briefly discussed last November. Expanded Communication That White House web site has been around for a while, but it has changed, as you would expect, since the new President has taken office. It does look like the Obama White House will use this site more as a communication tool than George Bush ever did. This is not surprising since use of the internet was a hallmark of the Obama campaign. The site provides a wide variety of communication tools, including a request public feed back via the Office of Public Liaison page. Executive Orders While I agree with most of the points that Chris makes in his blog, I was more disappointed in fact that the two Executive Orders that are being reported in this morning’s news are not shown on the Executive Orders page on the site. Instead there is the place holder message that “The President has not yet issued any Executive Orders.” Either the press has got their information wrong (and that is always possible) or the White House is being slow to update their web site (and that would be disappointing). The two orders that I am talking about are ones that I heard reported on NPR this morning as I drove into town. They called for an immediate review of the status of all of the prisoners at Gitmo and a pause in the rule making process to allow for an Obama administration review of those rules-in-progress before any other actions are taken. The way they were reported sounds reasonable and expected, but I would like to be able to read them myself. Good Move In any case, I like the look of the new White House web page and will add it to the list of sites that I periodically check. It is nice to see the more of the government moving into the age of communication.