WebProNews

Tag: We the people

  • Petition to Make Unlocking Phones Legal Again Crosses Signature Threshold

    A petition to make unlocking cellphones legal again has crossed the signature threshold on the White House’s We The People petition site, meaning that it will receive an official response.

    Back in January, unlocking new cellphones became illegal via decision from the Library of Congress. It’s still legal to unlock phones purchased before January 26th, but doing so on any device purchased after that cutoff mean you could run afoul of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The basis for the reversal of U.S. federal policy was that only software owners (mostly Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.) shoudl have the rights to unlock handsets.

    Of course, many consumers strongly disagree and feel as though it’s their right to do whatever they want with a device once they’ve made the purchase. And that’s the feeling behind the petition.

    Here’s the full petition, simply titled “Make Unlocking Cell Phones Legal”:

    The Librarian of Congress decided in October 2012 that unlocking of cell phones would be removed from the exceptions to the DMCA.

    As of January 26, consumers will no longer be able unlock their phones for use on a different network without carrier permission, even after their contract has expired.

    Consumers will be forced to pay exorbitant roaming fees to make calls while traveling abroad. It reduces consumer choice, and decreases the resale value of devices that consumers have paid for in full.

    The Librarian noted that carriers are offering more unlocked phones at present, but the great majority of phones sold are still locked.

    We ask that the White House ask the Librarian of Congress to rescind this decision, and failing that, champion a bill that makes unlocking permanently legal.

    The petition currently has 101,000+ signatures, which means that the White House is required to respond. In mid-January, the White House upped the signature threshold to 100,000 from the previous 25,000, in the hopes of weeding out “joke” petitions and make the process a little more credible.

    Before this move, there were dozens upon dozens of petitions that hit their goal but were sitting in limbo, waiting for responses.

  • White House Sees First Online Petition Cross New 100,000-Signature Threshold

    The White House will be forced to respond to its first online petition since upping the signature threshold to 100,000. Created on January 24th, the petition has crossed the 100,000 signature mark in just two weeks.

    So, what does it concern? Marijuana? Secession? Drones? Gay Rights?

    Nope, a Russian-born political activist. The petition, “We ask American Congress to make The Act of Alexander Dolmatov to punish all Dutch officials responsible for his death,” asks this of the White House:

    On the 17th of january, russian political activist Alexander Dolmatov has died in the Dutch prison. He came to Netherlands to get the freedom but found his death. We ask American Congress to make The Act of Alexander Dolmatov which will include «Dolmatov list» to punish all Dutch officials responsible for the death of Dolmatov.

    The petition references the death of a 36-year-old Russian-born rocket engineer in a Dutch deportation center. The somewhat clouded circumstances of his death (a reported suicide) have led to plenty of theories.

    The White House recently increased the signature threshold required to elicit an official response from 25,000 to 100,000. As we reported, the 25,000 signature threshold was simply too easy to meet and was resulting in dozens upon dozens of unanswered petitions. It was also allowing many less-than-serious (but admittedly fun) petitions to qualify for responses.

    “When we first raised the threshold — from 5,000 to 25,000 — we called it ‘a good problem to have.’ Turns out that ‘good problem’ is only getting better, so we’re making another adjustment to ensure we’re able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve,” said the White House.

    In all, the White House’s We The People online petition initiative has seen over 9 million signatures on over 140,000 petitions since its creation.

  • Death Star Kickstarter Project Sees 500+ Pledges in Less Than Two Days

    If the government refuses to help us defend against impending threats, the people have no choice but to take up the project themselves. And since the White House has officially thrown water on the people’s demands to build our very own Death Star, it means that we have to turn to crowdfunding.

    Over 500 people have pledged over £70,000 to help kickstart the construction of a functioning Death Star on Kickstarter. I’m sure you caught the “£” – that’s because the Kickstarter project was actually started out of Leicestershire, United Kingdom. Kickstarter only went live for U.K.-based projects back in October, 2012.

    Last month, a petition to start building a Death Star on the White House’s “We The People” site garnered enough signatures to force an official response from the government. The carefully-worded response suggested that “the Administration does not support blowing up planets,” and that the project would be economically unfeasible anyway.

    Some estimates have given such a project an $850,000,000,000,000,000 (£543,000,000,000,000,00) price tag, but the new Kickstarter project is only asking for £20 million at this point, in order to develop “more detailed plans and enough chicken wire to protect reactor exhaust ports.”

    The project creators, gnut.co.uk, acknowledge that it’s all a joke and that the goal is set high to ensure it is never actually fulfilled:

    “The main challenge is assuring Kickstarter that this is a joke and not a serious project. As proof, the goal has been set high enough to make successful funding almost impossible.”

    That’s probably why 500+ backers over the past 48 hours have felt safe in making pledges.

    Still, you have until April 1st (fittingly) to make your pledge and help reach the £20,000,000 goal. Wouldn’t that be hilarious, if this thing was actually funded?

  • White House Invites Developers To We The People 2.0 Hackathon

    To its credit, the Obama administration has been far more tech savvy than any before it. One of its defining moments in this area was the building of the We The People Web site and making the software behind it open source. Now the White House is ready to move on to the next step, but wants input from developers along the way.

    The White House announced today that Petitions 1.0, the code that the We the People site runs on, is finished. Now the team will be working on Petitions 2.0. Here’s the details from the White House blog:

    In software development, when you go from one version number to another it means that something big is going on. We’re taking a new approach to how the application works, one that starts with the assumption that it should be as open, transparent, and flexible as possible.

    As a result, Petitions 2.0 is based on an application programming interface, or API, that we will release to the public in the coming months. The first set of methods, Read API, will be released in March, 2013 and will allow anyone to retrieve data on petitions, signatures, and responses. Later, we’ll release a second set of methods, Write API, that will allow other websites and apps to collect and submit signatures without directly sending users to WhiteHouse.gov. With this API in place we’ll be able to decouple the presentation and data layers of the application and build a new, streamlined signature process. This also means that developers who reuse our code will be able to choose which database the application relies on. Between that and our continued work on a white label theme, Petitions 2.0 will be easier for others to contribute to and reuse.

    Before any of this is made public, however, the White House staff will be inviting a small number of developers to the White House Open Data Day Hackathon. Those invited will receive access to the new API methods before the event so they can mess around with it for a bit. At the event itself, developers will show off what they have done, and submit examples to be included with the public SDK.

    Are you interested in building the next open platform of citizen/government relations? If so, you can apply to join the hackathon here. If you are selected, you’ll be notified no later than February 8.

  • Galactic Empire Responds to White House Petition Response Re: Death Star

    Earlier this week, the White House dashed the dreams of over 34,000 American citizens as they officially refused a petition to start production on the country’s very own functioning Death Star. Bummer, right?

    In their statement, the White House cited a few reasons why they won’t be building the Death Star. First, it’s just too damn expensive – $850,000,000,000,000,000, by some estimates. Also, the administration apparently doesn’t support blowing up planets.

    Well, the Galactic Empire isn’t buying it. In a response letter, they (someone at Starwars.com) quote Governor Wilhuff Tarkin of the Outer Rim Territories and Admiral Conan Motti of the Imperial Starfleet in citing the White House’s “cowardice” and the “overwhelming military superiority of the Galactic Empire.”

    Good stuff.

    Here’s the letter in its entirety, via StarWars.com:

    IMPERIAL CENTER, CORUSCANT – The overwhelming military superiority of the Galactic Empire has been confirmed once again by the recent announcement by the President of the United States that his nation would not attempt to build a Death Star, despite the bellicose demands of the people of his tiny, aggressive planet. “It is doubtless that such a technological terror in the hands of so primitive a world would be used to upset the peace and sanctity of the citizens of the Galactic Empire,“ said Governor Wilhuff Tarkin of the Outer Rim Territories. “Such destructive power can only be wielded to protect and defend by so enlightened a leader as Emperor Palpatine.”

    Representatives on behalf of the nation-state leader from the unimaginatively named planet refused to acknowledge the obvious cowardice of their choice, preferring instead to attribute the decision to fiscal responsibility. “The costs of construction they cited were ridiculously overestimated, though I suppose we must keep in mind that this miniscule planet does not have our massive means of production,” added Admiral Conan Motti of the Imperial Starfleet.

    Emissaries of the Emperor also caution any seditious elements within the Galactic Senate not to believe Earth’s exaggerated claims of there being a weakness in the Death Star design. “Any attacks made upon such a station — should one ever be built — would be a useless gesture,” added Motti.

    Your move, White House.

    [h/t Business Insider]

  • White House Now Requires 100K Signatures for Petition Response, Will Hopefully Weed Out Wacky Secessionists

    About a month ago, I said that the White House’s “We The People” online petition site was “ensuring its legacy as a total joke.” I know, that’s pretty harsh. But at the time, it really looked like the experiment in active citizenship was going to burn out. When I made that statement, the site had a whopping 48 petitions that were sitting, unanswered by the White House.

    That’s not 48 total petitions. That was 48 petitions that had crossed the 25,000 signature threshold, meaning that by rule they warranted an official response from the White House. 48 (about half of them were crazy secession petitions). Since then, 2 of the 48 have received responses (and one had to do with building a Death Star).

    It was abundantly clear that in order to survive and to retain any level of legitimacy, the site had to restructure its signature threshold to make it a little bit harder to garner enough signature to trigger an official response.

    Thankfully, the White House has done just that. Starting today, new petitions must receive 100,000 signatures in 30 days in order to receive a response from the administration. That’s up from the 25,000 that clearly wasn’t working, and 20x what was originally required when the site first opened up in 2011.

    “When we first raised the threshold — from 5,000 to 25,000 — we called it “a good problem to have.” Turns out that “good problem” is only getting better, so we’re making another adjustment to ensure we’re able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve. Starting today, as we move into a second term, petitions must receive 100,000 signatures in 30 days in order to receive an official response from the Obama Administration. This new threshold applies only to petitions created from this point forward and is not retroactively applied to ones that already exist,” says Macon Phillips on the White House blog.

    So does that mean the White House will be getting to work on those other 40+ petitions that deserve responses?

    Anyway, this is the right move. The site is becoming way too big for a 25,000 threshold. It’s probable that eventually, the 100,000 threshold will need to be adjusted. If you give people a voice, no matter how small it is, they usually take advantage of it.

    The White House says that participation has grown significantly in just the past two months: 2.4 million new users, 73,000 petitions, and 4.9 million signatures. In two months.

    Here’s why the 25,000-signature threshold just wasn’t working:

    “In the first 10 months of 2012, it took an average of 18 days for a new petition to cross the 25,000-signature threshold. In the last two months of the year, that average time was cut in half to just 9 days, and most petitions that crossed the threshold collected 25,000 signatures within five days of their creation. More than 60 percent of the petitions to cross threshold in all of 2012 did so in the last two months of the year.”

    In total, the site has seen 9.1 million signatures on 141,000 petitions from 5.4 million users since its creation. Out of those 141,000 total petitions, 21 different agencies and departments have offered 162 official responses.

  • White House Responds to Death Star Petition, Doesn’t Support Blowing Up Planets

    Sorry John D of Longmont, Colorado and the 34,000+ other who signed the Death Star petition: the White House has responded and the answer is no.

    The federal government will not be initiating a program to construct a functioning Death Star, despite the pleas of tens of thousands of Americans. They’ve just published an official response to the November petition that appeared on the We The People online petition site, saying that they share a desire for job creation too, but this isn’t the way.

    Here’s the White House’s reasoning:

    The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

    • The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
    • The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
    • Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

    The original petition asked the U.S. government to “secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016.”

    The response was written by Paul Shawcross, Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget. It’s cleverly titled “This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For.”

    The White House did highlight some cool space tech that we can be proud of, in lieu of a functioning Death Star.

    “Even though the United States doesn’t have anything that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, we’ve got two spacecraft leaving the Solar System and we’re building a probe that will fly to the exterior layers of the Sun. We are discovering hundreds of new planets in other star systems and building a much more powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that will see back to the early days of the universe.

    We don’t have a Death Star, but we do have floating robot assistants on the Space Station, a President who knows his way around a light saber and advanced (marshmallow) cannon, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke’s arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers,” said Shawcross.

    Last week, the White House responded to another petition, saying that they would not consider deporting British CNN host Piers Morgan for his stance on gun restrictions in the U.S.

  • Piers Morgan is Safe as White House Asks Gun Activist Petitioners to Remember the 1st Amendment

    The White House’s “We The People” online petition site has seen some ridiculous petitions gain steam over the past couple of months. First, there was the rash of secession petitions that popped up following President Obama’s reelection. Then, we saw a petition to build a functioning Death Star succeed the signature threshold. Someone even asked the White House to consider a law banning the practice of insulting religion.

    Funny? Of course. But it’s clear that none of these petitions were really created in good faith. You can’t secede. You can’t have a law outlawing people from making fun of your God. Get real, people.

    Recently, another crazy petition amassed quite a few backers. It asked the White House to “Deport British Citizen Piers Morgan for Attacking 2nd Amendment.” Morgan, host of his own CNN show, has been vocal in his criticism of American gun laws (or lack thereof).

    “British Citizen and CNN television host Piers Morgan is engaged in a hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution by targeting the Second Amendment. We demand that Mr. Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens,” read the petition.

    It has received over 109,000 signatures as of the writing of this article.

    Now, the White House has published an official response to the petition, written by Press Secretary Jay Carney. His message is pretty clear: 2nd Amendment activists need to reread the 1st amendment.

    “Let’s not let arguments over the Constitution’s Second Amendment violate the spirit of its First. President Obama believes that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. However, the Constitution not only guarantees an individual right to bear arms, but also enshrines the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press — fundamental principles that are essential to our democracy. Americans may disagree on matters of public policy and express those disagreements vigorously, but no one should be punished by the government simply because he or she expressed a view on the Second Amendment — or any other matter of public concern,” writes Carney.

    So it appears that the Federal Government will not be taking any steps to remove Piers Morgan from the country.

    Alex Jones, radio host and founder of InfoWars, recently appeared on the Piers Morgan show to “discuss” guns and the petition, which he backed. You can catch up on that sideshow below:

  • The White House Currently Has 48 Successful Petitions Waiting on Responses, Further Ensuring the Site’s Legacy as a Total Joke

    The We the People White House petition site opened up in the fall of 2011, as a place for Americans to rally other Americans behind causes that the U.S. Government could then respond to. It’s been in the news lately for some interesting petitions, including secession petitions from all 50 states, and one successful plea to build a functioning Death Star.

    Unfortunately, the site is a joke. And not even because of the aforementioned petitions. It’s actually because the White House has let four dozen petitions, that by its own rules deserve responses, languish in obscurity. Yes. 48 petitions with over 25,000 signatures, and zero responses.

    Below are all 48 petitions that have already crossed The White House-set threshold of 25,000 signatures. That means that in theory all these petitions, on topics ranging from secession to South Korea and from pot to premium cigars, are slated for an official response from the White House. (I listed them all to hammer home a point, you don’t really have to read all of them)

    • We ask President Obama to support law abiding gun owners in this time of tragedy
    • Investigate the IRS Tax-Exempt Status of the Westboro Baptist Church
    • Remove the Westboro Baptist Church’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, and make it retroactive
    • Revoke the tax exempt status of the Westboro Baptist Church & re-classify Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group
    • Urge Congress to advance federal legislation banning the sale of assault rifles & high capacity magazines
    • Today IS the day: Sponsor strict gun control laws in the wake of the CT school massacre
    • Set a date and time to have a conversation about gun policy in the United States
    • Immediately address the issue of gun control through the introduction of legislation in Congress
    • Legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group
    • Define the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group due to promoting animosity against differing cultural demographics
    • Grant Temporary Protected Status to Guatemalans
    • Give federal employees a day off on Monday, December 24, 2012 (Christmas Eve)
    • Support the People of Catalonia in their effort to decide their own future
    • RECOGNIZE “SIKH GENOCIDE” – 30,000+ KILLED IN INDIA DURING NOVEMBER 1984 – “YES, IT IS GENOCIDE”
    • We request that Obama be impeached for the following reasons
    • Allow Any American To Voluntarily Opt Out Of “ObamaCare” [The So Called Affordable Care Act]
    • Federally Legalize Marijuana
    • Repeal Obamacare. It is killing jobs in this country. Thousands have already lost their jobs because of it
    • Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
    • Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw Their State From The United States Of America
    • Grant a full pardon to Chris Williams, a man facing 80 years in prison for legally growing Medical Marijuana
    • Officially recognize American Sign Language as a community language and a language of instruction in schools
    • Support a law protecting states’ rights to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol
    • Peacefully grant the State of S.C. to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government
    • End to the War On Coal, end the job killing policies of the EPA and require an economic impact analysis of new policies
    • Peacefully grant the State of Georgia to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government
    • Peacefully grant the State of Tennessee to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government
    • Peacefully grant the State of Florida to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government
    • Peacefully grant the State of North Carolina to withdraw from the United States and create its own NEW government
    • Peacefully grant the State of Alabama to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government
    • Recount the election!
    • Peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government
    • Remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substance Act and allow the states to decide how they want to regulate it
    • Peacefully grant the State of Louisiana to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government
    • Include Licensed Naturopathic Physicians as primary care providers in the Federal Healthcare Law (Obamacare)
    • Enforce the tax code, and strip violating Religious institutions of their tax exempt 501(c) status
    • Light the White House Purple to Celebrate 75th Anniversary of March of Dimes and as Symbol of Hope to Preemie Families
    • Finalize Standards for GLUTEN-FREE Labeling
    • outlaw offending prophets of major religions
    • Persuade South Korea (the ROK) to accept Japan’s proposal on territorial dispute over islets
    • vigorously enforce US laws to seek the return of US citizens’ properties expropriated by the Vietnamese government
    • Repeal the House of Representatives Resolution 121 to stop aggravating int’l harassment by Korean propaganda & lies!
    • Require free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research
    • Remove the monument and not to support any international harassment related to this issue against the people of Japan
    • Support mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods (GMOs)
    • Not Allow The FDA To Regulate Premium Cigars
    • The U.S. Government Must Redress Wrongs Against the Chagossians
    • Require all Genetically Modified Foods to be labeled as such

    The last response from the U.S. government came in October from the Office of Management and Budget and was called “A Balanced Approach to Reforming the Postal Service.” It was a response to two separate petitions, one called “Save the Postal Service” and the other called “Preserve 6 Day Mail Delivery.” Neither of those petitions even crossed the 10,000 signature mark.

    Ok, we know that the White House or anyone inside the U.S. government is never going to respond to a petition to impeach the President, or to secede from the union. But it’s clear that they are cherry-picking the safest petitions to respond to – even if they haven’t even crossed the 25,000 signature threshold. In fact, you’d have to go back eight responses to find the last time one was given to a petition with more than 25,000 signatures.

    Nobody really expected an online petition site to affect real change at the national level. Everyone should have prepared for bullshit responses to the petitions that triggered responses. But I at least thought we’d get responses to the most popular petitions (most of them) – even if those responses were vapid and insulting to our intelligence.

    I mean, they say that they will:

    “The White House plans to respond to each petition that crosses the signature threshold, which you can view on the Terms of Participation page. In a few rare cases (such as specific procurement, law enforcement, or adjudicatory matters), the White House response might not address the facts of a particular matter to avoid exercising improper influence.”

    The White House gives itself the right to change the signature threshold if they think it’s necessary. Please, for the love of god, change it. Both the threshold for appearing on the site (it’s only at 150 signatures currently) and the threshold for warranting a response. If they changed this, and then responded only to petitions that could generate real buzz – 50,000, 100,000, even 200,000 signatures – it could give the site some legitimacy (even if the responses failed to please).

    But until then, just know that the White House has a backlog of 48 petitions that deserve responses, based on their own guidelines. And until the site drastically changes how it operates, it’s just a joke. It may always be a joke, but at least it wouldn’t be as obvious.

  • Death Star Petition Passes 25,000 Signatures, So You Know What That Means

    Your move, White House.

    Among the many pressing issues facing our great nation, the people have rallied together in support of the most pressing one of all: our reckless lack of functioning Death Stars.

    A petition asking the Obama administration to gather the resources and begin production of our very own Death Star has passed the signature threshold on the White House’s We The People petition site. Crossing that 25,000 signature barrier means that the White House is forced to issue an official response.

    “Forced,” in theory. The White House says that they “will do our best to respond to petitions that cross the signature threshold in a timely fashion, however, depending on the topic and the overall volume of petitions from We the People, responses may be delayed.” So maybe they’ll get to it, maybe they won’t. But at least it’s officially on the list.

    Unfortunately, that list has other official responses ahead of it. As you may remember, a flood of secession petitions inundated the We The People site following President Obama’s reelection. A few of those petition actually succeeded in breaking the 25,000 signature threshold. Those petitions have yet to receive a response.

    The Death Star petition has its roots in 4chan and received additional promotion from reddit. Here’s what it asks:

    Those who sign here petition the United States government to secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016. By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.

    As I said yesterday when I told you that the petition was nearing the signature threshold, this petition shows just how off the rails the White House’s online petition initiative has gone. Death Stars, secession – I’m pretty sure that this is pretty far from what they had in mind when they developed the portal back in 2011.

    But then again, the White House may have to respond to the people’s desire for a Death Star. Cool.

  • Death Star Petition Nears Signature Threshold on White House Site

    UPDATE: The petition has crossed the 25,000 signature threshold.

    ORIGINAL ARTICLE: In the near future, it’s possible that the White House will actually have to respond to the people’s suggestion that the U.S. Government begin construction on our own Death Star by the year 2016.

    That’s all thanks to the We The People online petition site, which has seen its share of publicity recently due to a flood of secession petitions that popped up shortly after the 2012 Presidential election. The White House started the We The People petition initiative in 2011 as a way to “provide a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country.”

    With the current rules, if a petition reaches 25,000 signatures in one month, the White House is supposed to issue an official response.

    Well, this Death Star petition has about 20,000 with two days to go.

    The actual petition, which was started on 4chan and further promoted on reddit, asks the Obama administration to “Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.” Here’s what the body of the petition says:

    Those who sign here petition the United States government to secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016. By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.

    If it garners another 5,000 signatures in the next two days, the White House will be forced to issue an official response. Well, kind of:

    “We will do our best to respond to petitions that cross the signature threshold in a timely fashion, however, depending on the topic and the overall volume of petitions from We the People, responses may be delayed,” says the White House. And we’ve yet to see any official responses for the secession petitions – and a few of those crossed the 25,000 signature threshold.

    But we can hope. Part of me sees this for what it is: a bastardization of a serious process. Then again, nobody really thinks these We The People petitions can actually do anything. Also, it’s a petition to build a mf’in Death Star – what the hell am I thinking?

    Anyway, some guy already calculated that is would take approximately 833,315 years to even produce enough steel to begin construction of a Death Star. At current prices, it would cost a number with over 15 zeros to make. Then again, the Death Star petition is probably more likely to work than any of those secession petitions.

  • If Texas Secedes, Austin Wants No Part in It [Secession Drama]

    Austin, Texas residents famously want to “keep Austin weird.” It looks like many of them also want to keep Austin a part of the United States.

    I’m sure you’ve been following the saga that is the secessionist agenda playing out on the White House’s online “We the People” petition site. Starting one day after President Barack Obama was reelected to a second term, petitions began to appear on the site asking if specific states could “peacefully” leave the union to form their own governments. At first, it was only a couple states being represented – Texas and Louisiana. But it quickly grew to over 50 petitions representing nearly every state in the country.

    In response, we saw new petitions created that sought to punish the secessionists and other that simply wanted to unify the country.

    Now, in another hilarious wrinkle, the city of Austin, Texas has decided that they don’t want to go along with the rest of Texas (Texas’ secession petition is the most-popular on the site, with nearly 100,000 signatures). Some residents of Austin are formally requesting that they be allowed to “withdraw from the state of Texas & remain part of the United States.”

    Here’s their reasoning:

    Austin Texas continues to suffer difficulties stemming from the lack of civil, religious, and political freedoms imposed upon the city by less liberally minded Texans. It is entirely feasible for Austin to operate as its own state, within the United States, in the event that Texas is successful in the current bid to secede. It is important for Austin to remain in the union as to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers.

    Like I’ve said before, these secessions petitions, anti-secession petitions, and modified secession petitions are simply serving to discredit the White House petition site, if it had any to begin with. Sure, there are some serious requests that at least deserve a response. But alongside the now 50+ secession-related petitions we have “Make the President attend a Fark.com party…if shceduling does not permit, at least have a beer with Drew Curtis” and “legalize crystal fucking weed.”

    As of right now, a half-dozen or so of the secession petitions have hit the threshold (25,000 signatures in 30 days) and now demand an official White House response. That includes the secession requests for Texas (95,000), Georgia (27,000), Tennessee (25,000), North Carolina (25,000), Florida (28,000), and Alabama (26,000). I wonder if the White House will just tackle them all with one response or if they’ll just raise the signature threshold. Who knows? All I do know is that this has slowly but surely devolved into a sideshow.

    I think we need a petition to get rid of this petition site and start over, what do you say?

  • As More Secession Petitions Appear, Petition to Deport Signers of Secession Petitions Gains Steam

    If the situation over at the White House petition site wasn’t already silly, now it’s official. As the number of petitions to allow states to secede from the United States continues to grow, there are now a couple of petitions aimed at punishing those who signed said petitions.

    Yesterday, we told you that the number of secessions petitions on the “We the People” site had grown to 25. Those 25 petitions represented 22 different states, who all asked that the United States government grant them the right to peacefully leave the union to form their own government. Although none of the petitions specifically state the reelection of President Obama as the catalyst, the petitions began to roll in on November 7th, so it’s probably safe to assume that it was at least a contributing factor.

    As of this morning, 15 new petitions have appeared, meaning that there are currently 40 secession requests on the White House site.

    But now, there’s a new wrinkle in the story. Two new petitions ask the federal government to deal with the secessionists by either deporting them, or stripping them of their citizenship and exiling them.

    “Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw Their State From The United States Of America,” says one of the petitions.

    “Mr. President, please sign an executive order such that each American citizen who signed a petition from any state to secede from the USA shall have their citizenship stripped and be peacefully deported,” says the other.

    All of this is funny and all, or not funny at all depending on who you ask. The real lesson from this is that the White House petition site is moving closer to becoming a joke with every passing day. Out of 92 open petitions, there are now 42 that are completely ridiculous and have absolutely no chance of receiving a legitimate response from the White House. Many have derided the site as a sham since its creation last September, but this all but solidifies that position.

  • Nearly Half the States Are Represented in Secession Petitions on the White House Site

    Some people are taking the election results pretty hard, or at least had the election serve as a catalyst for their previously-held secessionist beliefs. Maybe it’s the fact that Lincoln hits the theaters this week.

    Whatever the case, you should probably know that there are currently 25 different petitions to secede from the United States on the White House’s “We the People” online petition site.

    Though it is altered a bit on some of the petitions, this is what graces the body of most of them:

    As the founding fathers of the United States of America made clear in the Declaration of Independence in 1776:

    “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

    “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and institute new Government…”

    All but four of the petitions were created on November 10th, but all of them are authored by different people (at least on paper). All of them are titled in the exact same way as well – “Peacefully grant the State of X to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government.” Either this is a coordinated effort between secessionists in multiple states, or one or two guys creating petitions for different states under assumed names.

    Either way, most of the petitions have around 4,000 signatures. The only exception is the petition specific to Texas, which has over 27,000 signatures. That means that it has reached the official threshold for a response, which is currently set at 25,000 signatures. That petition was begun on November 9th and gives this reason:

    The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government’s neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.

    None of the petitions speak directly to the November 6th Presidential election, but all of them were created after President Obama won a second term. As of today, there are official petitions for Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Georgia (x2), Mississippi, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, New Jersey, Oregon, Colorado, New York, South Carolina (x2), Michigan, Tennessee, Missouri (x2), Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Arizona.

    The White House launched the We the People online petition site back in September of 2011. Although many citizens have bemoaned its lack of any discernable purpose, the White House has promised that they are listening.

  • The Republicans Want To Kill NASA, Says White House

    You remember the White House’s “We the People” initiative, right? Back in September of 2011, they launched the site as an online forum for user-submitted petitions. In short, a petition will receive an official response from the White House if it receives enough signatures. In the past, we’ve seen petitions ranging in topic from student loan forgiveness to the legalization of marijuana, and from internet freedom to NASA funding.

    And although many have derided the White House for their oftentimes politically safe responses, and many feel that the petitions are absolutely pointless, the White House claims that the citizens’ ideas and questions do not fall on deaf ears.

    The aforementioned NASA gets a lot of play on the We the People site, as concerns mount over the program’s shrinking budget. A recent petition that hit the signature threshold has just received an official White House response. The petition, which asks the administration to help double NASA’s annual budget reads as such:

    Currently, NASA’s budget barely surpasses 0.5 percent of the Federal budget, and has seen a steady decline in the proportions of its funding, now reaching all-time lows. The cultural mindset brought on by NASA has allowed us to reap the benefits of economic growth, creating an influx of people wanting to become scientists and engineers.

    There is no question that the government has money to fund NASA: $850 billion was spent on the bank bailout, several hundred billion dollars more than the 53 year running budget of NASA. If we want to invest in our future, we must fund NASA at higher levels.

    After garnering nearly 28,000 signatures, the White House has issued a lengthy response that, among other things, blames the lack of NASA love on the Republicans. After explaining the key features of their plan to “push the boundaries of inspriation and discovery,” here’s what White House spokesman Phil Larson has to say:

    Unfortunately, not everyone is supportive of this ambitious effort. Rather than making bold, targeted investments in our space future and embarking on new partnerships with the private sector to ensure every taxpayer dollar is spent wisely, the proposed Republican House budget plan, if spread evenly, would significantly cut NASA’s budget, forcing the deepest cuts to the space program since just after we landed on the Moon.

    The response, which you should check out in its entirety here, is drawing the ire of some, in part because it sort of passes the buck to private companies like SpaceX. Plus, it really doesn’t give any assurances that current projects are safe from budget cuts.

    For instance, here’s how one redditor summarizes the response paragraph-by-paragraph:

    1) Thanks, we think NASA is cool too, bro.
    2) ‘Free market enterprise’ means we don’t need to give them any more money.
    3) Like those SpaceX guys, right? They totally got this shit. We don’t need to rely on NASA anymore.
    4) And hey, look at the pretty telescope and mars rover! That’s totally enough to satiate you, right?
    5, plus list) And here’s a bunch of other projects, which the budget totally covers guys, honest. They aren’t in any danger at all!
    6) Republicans are the ones shitting on all this, blame them.
    7) We’re totally heroes for just holding to the status quo rather than cutting them like a leetle peegy.
    8) Suck it.

    Can’t really argue with him on much of that translation.

    In terms of progress on NASA’s most recent expedition of looking for bacteria on the surface of Mars, it’s about 40 days away from touching down.

    Thoughts?

  • The White House Says “We the People” Petitions Don’t Fall on Deaf Ears [Video]

    Some people bemoan the seeming superficiality rampant on the internet (I’m often one of these people, to tell you the truth). Others fight an ongoing struggle against bills like SOPA, ACTA, C-11, and others that attempt to wrest digital freedom and privacy from individuals and put it in the hands of corporations and governments. (I’m often one of these people, too.) But beyond giving us things like Nyan Cat and Farmville, the Internet can also provide us remarkable tools to help promote dialogue and transparency between citizens and their governments. For instance, you might choose to tweet your concerns to your elected representatives, or if you’re the UK, you appoint Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales to an advisory role on transparency.

    Even the White House has gotten in on the action, with a variety of programs under its Open Government Initiative. One such program that went live last September, We the People encourages American citizens to engage the White House on issues that matter to them. Anyone over the age of 13 can participate by signing up for a free whitehouse.gov account and creating a petition about a particular issue or policy. Petitions that get over 150 signatures are searchable on the White House website, and petitions reaching a threshold of 25,000 signatures within 30 days receive an official response from a member of the Obama administration.

    It sounds like a good idea, but the program has received a fair bit of criticism, largely for the perceived boilerplate and disingenuous statements issued by the administration in response to some petitions. Many people feel the program strives more for the appearance of an attentive government than it does promote a truly interactive government.

    But the White House is listening, it says. At the very least it’s listening enough to hear these criticisms. In response to such criticisms, the Office of Digital Strategy uploaded this video to the White House’s official YouTube channel yesterday. The video claims that successful petitions submitted via We the People actually do reach key policymakers and influence administrative decisions.

    Have you submitted or signed a petition through the We the People program? Do you feel the White House is really listening to concerns submitted to it through the service, or through other elements of the Open Government Initiative? Let us know in the comments.

    [Via Mashable]

  • White House: No Comment On Petition To Investigate Chris Dodd For Bribery

    As MPAA chairman, former Senator Chris Dodd had to address all of the SOPA backlash coming from every corner of the internet. And boy did he. Dodd went on a tear, calling the Wikipedia blackout an “abuse of power,” to which Jimmy Wales said: No, it’s democracy and oh yeah you should be fired. He said that the shelving of SOPA and PIPA would cost Americans jobs and expose us to foreign threats. To which actor Wil Wheaton called Dodd a “tone deaf asshole.”

    Dodd continued to talk, drawing the ire of many when he went on Fox News and basically admitted to buying votes in Congress. He said:

    Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.

    This prompted someone to create a petition on The White House’s petition site We The People, asking that Chris Dodd and the MPAA be investigated for bribery. The petitioner described Dodd’s act as “a brazen flouting of the ‘above the law’ status people of Dodd’s position and wealth enjoy.” Apparently, more than a few people agreed because the petition currently has over 31,000 signatures. That means it has reached the threshold to merit an official White House response.

    And The White House has responded….kind of. See for yourself:

    Thank you for signing this petition. We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on Whitehouse.gov. However, consistent with the We the People Terms of Participation and our responses to similar petitions in the past, the White House declines to comment on this petition because it requests a specific law enforcement action.

    If you head on over to the Terms of Participation, you’ll find this applicable note:

    To avoid the appearance of improper influence, the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government in its response to a petition.

    Now, it would be a lie to call this response a shocker. This is why the internet community has expressed such a lack of faith in this process. If The White House was actually looking into this, it would befit them to not go into details about it – but even if they were, they could respond in a better way than this. At least the petition shows us that there are plenty of people out there watching, and when someone mentions political bribery on national television, it won’t go unnoticed.

    [Hat Tip to TechDirt]

  • SOPA Petition Demonstrates The Idiotic Bluntness Of Bill

    SOPA Petition Demonstrates The Idiotic Bluntness Of Bill

    When all else fails, I guess it doesn’t hurt to try to appeal to our basic human absurdity meters – that little radar engrained in (most) everyone’s mind that when tripped, helps them realize that something is simply too ridiculous to exist.

    A new petition on the White House “We The People” site tries to trip that absurdity meter with an effective demonstration of the ridiculousness of SOPA.

    The petition is entitled “VETO the SOPA bill and any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information.” Here’s the plea, in full:

    “the more freely information flows; the stronger that society becomes” President Obama

    By allowing free conversation it is so easy to drop a link

    View post on imgur.com

    It would be ridiculous for an ISP to block the entire whitehouse.gov domain on court order because a single user posted a link. It is difficult for any web administrator to know which links to copyrighted material are done with permission. This will kill the free flow of information and conversation on the internet.

    SOPA is too blunt. Please veto.

    The petition references the SOPA provision that just a few infringing links, even if they are user-posted, can be grounds for the blocking of entire sites. Basically, “look how easy this is – in theory I just made whitehouse.gov an offending website.”

    The hypothetical “illegal” link is actually just a link to an image. As you can see, the idea for this petition comes from a redditor.

    The petition was created only yesterday and has already amassed almost 19,000 signatures. In order to reach the next threshold and become eligible for an official White House response, the petition must receive 25,000 signatures by January 17th, 2012 (which might be a little late, given the current SOPA timeframe).

    This isn’t the first SOPA-related We The People petition to gain momentum. Early last month, a petition emerged asking the administration to “stop the e-parasite act.” Although that petition is currently approaching 50,000 signatures, it has yet to receive an official White House response.

    This and other petitions like the one advocating for the decriminalization of marijuana have led folks on the interwebs to become quite skeptical of the power of the We The People initiative. Take for instance the petition on the site that stated “We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition.”

    When the history of SOPA is written, it’s unlikely that this little petition will have a starring role in the story – but that doesn’t stop it from being a wonderful example of the absurdity of it all.

  • SOPA Petition Gains Steam, Some Are Less Than Enthusiastic About Its Prospects

    SOPA Petition Gains Steam, Some Are Less Than Enthusiastic About Its Prospects

    We’ve recently told you about the backlash coming from all angles concerning the Stop Online Piracy Act (PROTECT-IP/E-PARASITE Act), a bill currently being debated in the halls of Congress that many feel would create the “Great Firewall of America.” The bill has been a topic of discussion and derision for free internet advocates on the web for some time now, and it was just this week that some big names on the internet like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and AOL threw their support against the legislation.

    We reported earlier this month on the new petition site started by the White House called “We The People.” It’s a service where users can submit petitions on pretty much any topic, and if it receives enough signatures, the White House will issue an official response.

    Back then, we told you about a We The People petition called “Stop the E-PARASITE Act” that had garnered over 7,000 signatures. And as of right now, it has over 38,000 and is growing rapidly. The petition was submitted on October 31st.

    Here’s what it argues, quite succinctly and effectively I might add:

    This Bill would allow essentially allow A Great Firewall of America and would be a shameful desecration of free speech and any sort of reasonable copyright law. The new Law would allow copyright holders to force websites which have any copyrighted material to be blocked by ISP companies around the country, without requiring that the websites be given time to take the offending material down. It would also put pressure on ISP companies to monitor their users like never before, a gross invasion of privacy. This bill is a direct assault on a free internet and a shameful attempt by copyright lobbyists to destroy net neutrality. Essentially it’s a censorship law that would end the internet as we know it in America.

    The creator of the petition is a redditor, and he took to the site to talk about his petition, where he says thanks for all the support.

    The problem is that not everyone has faith that the We The People initiative is all that helpful. Internet users in the past have expressed frustration over some of the responses from the White House, especially concerning a particular petition on the legalization of marijuana.

    For instance, here’s the top voted comment on the reddit post about the petition:

    I read that if a petition gets enough signatures, the president will personally print it out and wipe his ass with it.

    Another example of the lack of faith in this new petition system comes in the form of an actual petition on the site called “We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition.” It’s gathered nearly 12,000 signatures already.

    Since these petitions are ignored apart from an occasional patronizing and inane political statement amounting to nothing more than a condescending pat on the head, we the signers would enjoy having the illusion of success. Since no other outcome to this process seems possible, we demand that the White House immediately assign a junior staffer to compose a tame and vapid response to this petition, and never attempt to take any meaningful action on this or any other issue. We would also like a cookie.

    Each petition currently has to reach the threshold of 25,000 signatures in a month, so it looks like the White House is going to have to give a response to the Stop SOPA petition. Let’s just hope it’s not that vapid, condescending, politically safe response that many have come to expect.

  • Student Loan Forgiveness Addressed By White House In Response To Online Petition

    Back in September, the White House launched an online petition platform that they said would “give all Americans a way to create and sign petitions on a range of issues affecting our nation.”

    The platform, called We The People, is open to anyone 13 or older. Once you create a petition and submit it to the site, it’s your job to build momentum for your idea using social media and old-fashioned word of mouth. If a petition reaches 150 signatures in 30 days, it because logged and searchable within the database. If the petition reaches 25,000 signatures, it gets an official response from the White House.

    The original threshold for a response was 5,000 signatures in 30 days, but it appears that the White House wasn’t going to be able to respond to all of the petitions that got that many signatures, so the limit was raised.

    The first petition to merit a response from the White House has just gotten its response. The petition for the Obama administration to “Forgive Student Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy and Usher in a New Era of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Prosperity” currently has over 32K signatures on the We The People site.

    Forgiving student loan debt would provide an immediate jolt to the economy by putting hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of extra dollars into the hands of people who WILL spend it – not just once, but each and every month thereafter – freeing them up to invest, buy homes, start businesses and families.

    That’s what the petition’s creator, Robert A of Staten Island says about his proposal.

    The White House’s special assistant to the President for Education Policy has responded, saying –

    We agree that reducing the burden of student loans is an effective way to stimulate the economy and save taxpayer dollars. That’s why we’re excited to announce a new policy that speaks to the concerns expressed in this petition.

    The response goes on to explain the situation of student debt in the country and then links to the official press release concerning Obama’s new plan to lower student debt payments. Here’s the crux of the plan –

    The Administration is moving forward with a new “Pay As You Earn” proposal that will reduce monthly payments for more than one and a half million current college students and borrowers. Starting in 2014, borrowers will be able to reduce their monthly student loan payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income. But President Obama realizes that many students need relief sooner than that. The new “Pay As You Earn” proposal will allow about 1.6 million students the ability to cap their loan payments at 10 percent starting next year, and the plan will forgive the balance of their debt after 20 years of payments. Additionally, starting this January an estimated 6 million students and recent college graduates will be able to consolidate their loans and reduce their interest rates.

    Current income-based plans allow students to cap their payments to 15% of discretionary income, with remaining debt forgiven after 25 years. The new plan expedites a plan enacted by Congress set to go into effect in 2014.

    Obama also unveiled the plan while speaking at the University of Colorado in Denver this afternoon.

    Whether you believe that this is a good use of the web and social media or you feel skeptical about the power of individuals to enact change in this way, you have to admit that it’s a pretty interesting coordination of online presence and domestic politics. Whether you believe in the plan or not, it is interesting that the President unveiled a plan, it seems, based on the most-signed online petition on We The People.