The Democratic Leadership Council's Progressive Policy Institute will release a paper Friday urging the high-tech community to educate Congress and the Clinton administration on why the federal government should accelerate the process of digitizing its services, according to an initial draft obtained by National Journal's Technology Daily.
The paper outlines the roadblocks to a fully Internet-integrated government and calls for the appointment of a federal information technology czar, much like the White House Y2K czar, who can direct agencies and manage the integration process of the Internet and government services.
"The federal government has made considerable progress in establishing a vision for digital government and providing information to the public through agency Web sites," the paper says. "But relative to the capabilities of the technology much more can be done."
The DLC's study concludes that there has been a lack of top-agency and government-wide leadership on digitizing services, and notes that agencies have been focusing on themselves, rather than looking at the entire government.
Other roadblocks include a lack of funding made available by Congress to agencies that could be used to invest in digitizing services and a lack of pressure from the public, the high-tech community and Congress for change. Agencies also have been resistant to offering their services on the Web, the report says.
The study also makes policy suggestions on how best to digitize the government. One suggestion is to reduce fees for those who use the Internet services.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, as well as Todd Ramsey, IBM's general manager for global government industry and Rob Atkinson, director of PPI's Technology and New Economy Project, will present the paper at a news conference on Friday morning.
The paper is online at www.dlcppi.org/texts/tech/digitalgovernment.htm.
NEXT STORY: E-mail blamed in USPS workforce cuts