The Chief Technology Officer in Obama's administration will be a central piece in his cabinet. As technology becomes more connected to everything from healthcare (putting records online so that they are more accessible) to the economy and environment (green collar jobs through innovation), the CTO could be intricately involved with every department in the administration. And he or she will be handling some of the most important issues directly impacting government transparency such as internet access/broadband growth, copyright policy and energy innovation.

The CTO cannot just be a "getting stuff done" workhorse, but also someone who understands the policy behind issues like net neutrality and DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Can you imagine Obama hiring a CTO who doesn't know how to operate a Blackberry? Or doesn't use the internet for anything but email? There would be an uproar in Silicon Valley. So why not start the process by asking the people what the most important issues are facing us from a technological perspective? Done.

The Obama team has put up a new site letting "we the people" submit and rank the most important issues facing the incoming Chief Tech Officer. Each user receives 10 votes to spread as they wish across a host of user-submitted issues. Honestly, I had a hard time choosing how to divy up my votes and ended up changing them a few times. I liked ALL of the ideas -- from supporting Net Neutrality to having a live online bidding process for government contracts.

The point here is to show what the public thinks the biggest issues facing us technologically and to do it in an open and transparent way. Kudos to the Obama camp for launching this. I feel confident that they're listening and will follow through on what the public says.

President Elect Obama, during his campaign, pledged for sweeping ethics reform under his administration. Now, as he mounts his transition team he has created “the strictest, the most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history.” So says John Podesta in today's New York Times article.

Obama and his co-chair of his transition team Jon Podesta are abiding by the same principles that guided his campaign for more than two years. What's important here is that the President-elect is taking the necessary steps to clean up the way Washington works by drawing a line between special interests and the government.

Under the rules announced by Mr. Podesta, federal lobbyists will not be allowed to raise money for the transition, nor continue lobbying while working in the transition. In addition, he said that someone who became a lobbyist after being involved in the transition would be prohibited from lobbying the administration on related matters for 12 months.

The goal in this move appears to be two-fold:

(1) to attract those to government who's premier purpose is to serve the public interest, not make a profit.

(2) to earn the trust of the public by slowing the "revolving door" between government and the private sector. This administration understands that restoring trust in government is the most important element in developing sound policies, and for that we applaud them.

Some say this move comes at great expense. It will prevent people with much knowledge and experience on key issues like healthcare and global warming from serving immediately. I would argue that its a worthy expense. As the Brookings Institution's Thomas Mann said, "That is a real cost but it is more than balanced by the strong signal sent by the President-elect. He aspires to attract to government able individuals whose highest priority is to serve the public interest. This is a very constructive step in that direction."

Yet, it's not possible to cut every cord strung between government and the private sector. Just today one of Senator Obama's advisors was reportedly on the board a defense contractor. Former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn is currently serving as Chairman of Public Responsibilities at General Electric, a company that has received $8.8 billion in over 280 defense department contracts. Obama's transition team had no comment about weather this was a conflict of interest, but did say that Nunn's role was "informal" and that he was considered an "outside adviser." Whether or not this is seen as conflict of interest need not supersede the fact that the only reason it is considered such is because of these new self-imposed ethics rules the Obama transition team have adopted.

We do hope that these new rules are obeyed and not bent to accommodate the desired needs of the transition team. After all, the problem with self-imposed rules is that the only one enforcing them is the one who needs them.

Lessig has an article in this month's Stanford Magazine highlighting what happens when the engine of democracy (specifically Congress) contains a flaw. And that flaw is the "first problem." From the end of the article:

The flaw at the core of the People's House is dependency. Think of the dynamic of the dependency of an alcoholic. The alcoholic may be losing his family, his job, his liver, but we all know he will not solve any of those problems unless he solves his alcoholism first. It's not that alcoholism is the most important problem; it's just the first problem he needs to solve if he is to solve the rest.

There is no end to the problems that we as a nation face—from global warming to Iraq to the economy to media reform to education to broadband growth, even to copyright—but we will not address these problems sensibly until we solve this first problem: our own alcoholism, our own dependency on the way money has corrupted this government.

Corruption, lack of public trust and transparency, and a failure to get the easy public policy decisions wrong all contribute to this flaw.

Senator Barack Obama also mentioned recently what he thought was "flawed" about the Constitution.

This brings up an interesting point: Has calling to question elements of our own Constitution become improper and frowned upon? Are we willing to accept any potential inequalities or, "flaws" in it or do we treat it as the Gospel? The fact that we've amended it twenty-eight times shows that we're willing to add necessary changes calibrating it to a society that is constantly progressing and moving forward.

What will the next amendment be, you might ask. We're hoping that it has something to do with corruption -- it's oldest foe. More from Lessig:

It's not very PC to say, but let's say it: they failed. Many who went to government were drawn for the most venal of reasons. Corruption was at the center of government throughout the country for most of our history—much worse than anything we've ever seen. Daniel Webster, who served in Congress when Congress was considering whether or how to regulate the Bank of the United States, was paid by the Bank of the United States. He wrote to the Bank: “If it be wished that my relation to the bank be continued, it may be well to send me the usual retainers.”

After more than two-hundred years its time to make the Constitution work for the people again. Its time to close the loopholes and begin to tackle this new challenge. Fixing this flaw is the first problem. If we can solve this first problem, we can solve the many others that face us as nation, be it global warming or healthcare.

My interest has been peaked of late. What is the fate of publicly funded campaigns given the "Obama phenomenon?" A recent NPR article Did Obama Kill Public Campaign Finance? asks the question, "Is something rotten in the state of public financing for presidential campaigns?"

The article continues:

Sen. John McCain, one of the most vocal proponents of campaign finance reform, is being hoisted by his own petard by choosing to accept federal funding for his general election campaign. Meanwhile, Sen. Barack Obama, the choice of the Democratic Party — the very party that cried out for finance reform in the wake of the Watergate scandal — has chosen to bypass public funds and, as a result, is pummeling McCain in the fundraising arena.

Irony alert: The Republican standard-bearer is using federal grants, while the Democrat extols the free-market virtues of individual campaign donations.

One could argue that Obama's campaign is 'publicly funded,' after all, he and the DNC have forgone Lobby and PAC money and the majority of his campaign contributions come from small donations made by lots of people. However, the "Obama phenomenon" does not take into account an average person seeking office. This is where public funding would level the playing field so that ordinary citizens could run for office. Obama's 'star quality' and fund raising ability, plus the current political climate, cloud the argument for killing public funding.

McCain opted in to public funds, thus agreeing to cap out at $84 million for his campaign. The RNC supplements his allocated funds by raising money and they do take Lobby and PAC money. Neither candidate, in my opinion, represents 'clean money.'

No matter which candidate wins the White House, both will be faced with determining the fate of public campaign financing, in fact, both have an obligation. At Change Congress, we would also argue that the issue needs to go beyond Presidential and on to Congressional elections -- a more difficult battle.

A smart conversation took place on KQED's Forum with Scott Shafer. I encourage you all to have listen and weigh in on the conversation through our comments section. Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics is on the panel and directs people to the OpenSecrets site so you can follow the money yourself. You can listen in below:

As you probably know, the Federal Elections Commission requires political committees to disclose information about all donors who contribute over $200, including their name, address, occupation, and employer. (There are some great sites, like OpenSecrets.org and FundRace.org, that help make sense of this data.) But this is just a minimum -- campaigns can do more. John McCain has been disclosing his sub-$200 donors and he recently criticized Barack Obama for not dong the same.

By looking at the disclosed records, the RNC and other Obama critics have found donations that Obama isn't legally permitted to accept -- contributions from overseas, contributions over the legal limit, contributions under apparently-fictitious names. Presumably, McCain thinks that if Obama opens up the rest of the data, they'll find even more. Obama has received contributions from literally millions of people, so it's a lot of data to look thru.

To put the pressure on, the RNC has released RNCDonors.com, which provides a near-real time search interface to all sub-$200 contributions to the RNC. (Why only sub-$200?) Very little data is disclosed about each contribution, but it's still fun to type in the names of Republican friends and see if they donated. So far Obama and the DNC haven't responded to these tactics.

For the last week we've received some interesting emails and comments from our members about Change Congress's stance on Obama's decision to opt out of public financing. Our basic response is one echoed by some' pundits and those working in the reform movement over the last two decades. It's a tough situation for any candidate to be in. The current public finance system is a mess and desperately needs to be overhauled. Public financing is only one piece of the overall campaign reform puzzle, yet, a vital one. The recent dancing around public funding by McCain and Obama is a situation that no candidate should have to be in -- choosing between a broken system that could cost them the election while gaining positive press or being called a "flip flopper" for opting out of that same broken system.

The current public financing system fails to address major loopholes abused by both parties over the past twenty years. Until this needed reform happens, we're foolish to think that any candidates able to raise more on their own would ever opt-in to a broken system that could end up costing them a victory down the line.

The Big Loophole - the explosion of 527 groups over the past ten years has given rise to the nastiest negative campaigning we have seen in our time. On both sides of the aisle 527 groups have made it their raison d'etre to challenge and accuse candidates not in line with their political ideals, launching powerful, well-funded attacks that can single-handedly change the outcome of an election. While many of these groups do not (and indeed by law cannot) work with or coordinate with a campaign, they are often ideologically aligned with one candidate and are often staffed with members of the same political party

The Big Flaw - the $84 million that public financing offers is not enough to run a presidential campaign in this economy. The problem is not that there is too much money in politics, rather that there is too much of the wrong kind of money in politics -- money from lobbyists and PAC organizations, people who expect favors later on. If we want a public financing system to be legitimate we have to honestly address the shortfalls that this sum of money leaves in its wake; the cost of national advertising on television, radio and internet being a major one. Or the cost of employing a national grassroots staff working in every state in the country. The public financing offer from the government should be realistic compared with the costs of a presidential campaign. If we want candidates to buy into the system, make them a decent offer. They aren't going to accept a used Chevy Malibu when they can buy a new Ferrari with their own money.

Pundits on the right say Obama is a hypocrite, given his pledge to accept public funding earlier in the campaign and then recently deciding not to. Both candidates could be called as such. McCain gladly accepted public financing during the Republican primaries when he was losing and broke, and then petitioned the Federal Election Commission to opt back out when he was winning and wealthy (and now he's opting back IN). Neither are wrong, they are simply doing the expected political shifting based on our broken system.

I can't wait for the day when a well-crafted, mutually agreed-upon, public financing system is finally ready to be implemented. But that day will come only after enough of us stand up to change that system by making it possible for politicians who fight for issues like public financing to win office and take this change to Washington. Change Congress is about working with you and other organizations dedicated to reforming this system from the inside out. The current system isn't working for the people, so it must be changed by the people from the bottom up. You can help, be a part of our movement, help us re-build this broken system. Join us! Its only our government if we work to reclaim it.