Interesting People mailing list archives
from the EFFector re Senator kennedy
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1993 12:02:12 -0400
********************************** Senator Kennedy Offers Info Online ********************************** ______________________________________________________________________________ from the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy ______________________________________________________________________________ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: PAM HUGHES SEPTEMBER 14, 1993 202/224-2633 SENATOR KENNEDY IS FIRST TO OFFER DIRECT ACCESS TO CONSTITUENTS THROUGH COMPUTER OUTREACH Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is the first member of the U.S. Congress to offer constituents direct access to his speeches, press releases and Senate statements through their personal computers. In a pioneering experiment, Kennedy began posting releases in May on computer bulletin boards for reading by his Massachusetts constituents. "Massachusetts citizens are among the most technologically sophisticated in the nation," said Kennedy. "By communicating directly with my constituents in their homes, schools, and workplaces, I hope to make my day-to-day work in Washington more accessible to the people of Massachusetts. I invite Massachusetts citizens to take advantage of this inno vation in electronic democracy." Kennedy's public statements are accessible on several computer bulletin boards, as well as in two USENET news groups via the Internet. The bulletin boards provide a cost-effective way for voters to directly access information from Sen. Kennedy on various policy issues. Readers of the Kennedy releases may provide the Senator with immediate feedback on the issues by commenting via computer. While all comments will be monitored, staff limitations will prohibit individual replies for the foreseeable future. Constituents are encouraged to contact Kennedy's Boston or Washington office by mail when a reply is desired. Response during the summer experiment has been so positive that Kennedy's office has expanded its reach of bulletin boards and is actively alerting the general public about the availability of the Kennedy postings. Comments from con stituents have included: "I would like to thank you for making the effort to publish these press releases on our bulletin board. It is admirable that you are sincerely making an effort to get your opinions out into the public arena..." "I'm all for our elected reps getting 'with it'." "I recommend that everyone check out the Sen. Kennedy press release conference..." Senator Kennedy, who chairs the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, will play a major role in the Senate's consideration of President Clinton's comprehensive health care proposal. The Labor Committee also has jurisdiction over federal legislation involving jobs and education. Constituents interested in these and other policy matters can read his electronic postings to obtain up-to-date information. North Shore Mac, a free bulletin board run by Jonathan Gourd in Beverly, Massachusetts, provides the home location for the "Sen. Kennedy Releases" conference. This board can be reached at 508/921-4716 and can be accessed with standard telecommunications software, or in its graphical interface via Macintosh or Windows client software available for downloading on-line. Visitors can sign-on with the User ID: visitor, Password: visitor. On the Internet, releases can be found in the following USENET news groups: ne.politics and talk.politics.misc These releases are also available via anonymous FTP: ftp ftp.ai.mit.edu, (login as) anonymous, cd incoming/Kennedy Technical assistance and distribution to the Internet is provided as a public service by the Intelligent Information Infrastructure Project, at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Current thread:
- from the EFFector re Senator kennedy David Farber (Oct 03)