False sense of transparency and accountability
Real transparency would need to be maintained in an e-Government.
Problem: “Opponents of e-government argue that online governmental transparency is dubious because it is maintained by the governments themselves. Information can be added or removed from the public eye (i.e. the Internet) with or without public notice. For example, after the World Trade Center in New York City was attacked on September 11, 2001, United States federal officials removed a large amount of government information from its websites in the name of national security. This act went relatively unnoticed by United States citizens. To this day, very few organizations monitor and provide accountability for these modifications. Those that do so, like the United States’ OMBWatch and Government Accountability Project, are often nonprofit volunteers. Even the governments themselves do not always keep track of the information they insert and delete.” – Wikipedia
Solution: This is always an issue in government organizations, and even an e-Government would not be fully transparent (although it would be more transparent than the system we have today). In particular, executive and judicial branches would need to be most closely monitored, and a citizen audit group may need to be formed as a watchdog for government action. These problems, however, can be mediated by allowing the voting system to be a separate, privatized/non-profit organization run by non-government employees. In this way, an independent “auditor” would be maintaining and providing the information to the public rather than the governmental institution.
Tags: democracy, eDemocracy, eGovernment, free democracy