NSF PR 97-22 - March 17, 1997
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GovNews Project Takes Democracy into Cyberspace
The International GovNews Project has announced a
special government category on the Internet's Usenet
news system. The creation of this new category lays
the groundwork for the wide, cost-effective electronic
dissemination and discussion by topic of large amounts
of public government information.
Through the Usenet system, GovNews will be distributed
through thousands of linked Internet servers throughout
the U.S. and the world. Millions of people will now
be able to follow and comment on government activity
in selected areas of interest without extensive surfing
on the Web. Schools, businesses and households, without
powerful computers and high-speed connections, will
now be able to use less complex systems to get rapid
access to federal agency information through newsgroup
servers located right in their own communities.
The project is the result of a collaborative effort
between international public and private sector volunteers
seeking to make government more open and accessible
to the people.
"The U.S. government is taking a leadership role in
providing a technology that could change the face
of democracy around the world," said Vice President
Al Gore in a letter about the effort.
Usenet news is a broadcast technology somewhat analogous
to the Associated Press (AP) newswire service. Reporters
from the AP or from newspapers supply information
to the AP network which is in turn redistributed by
newspapers across the country. Likewise, messages
sent to Usenet from authorized sources or from individual
users are broadcast to more than 200,000 servers worldwide
which in turn supply messages to tens of millions
of individual users.
"If the World Wide Web is the Internet's library,
Usenet is its newspaper," said Preston Rich, NSF's
FinanceNet Executive Director and leader of the International
GovNews Project. "For the first time, the GovNews
newsgroups on Usenet will facilitate the delivery
of government information to your cyberspace doorstep."
According to Rich, official notices, news, announcements,
reports and publications from government agencies
will be sent to a beginning set of more than 200 new
specialized newsgroups.
"The newsgroups are logically organized by topic from
privatization, procurements and emergency alerts to
toxic waste and marine resources, and include the
capability to discuss such information," he said.
"GovNews is just keystrokes away."
While active on the World Wide Web for some time,
governments have not until now been able to use the
special advantages of the Usenet system. The strength
of Usenet has been its capability to rapidly deliver
important new information, news and announcements,
organized by topic, direct to users through a wide
network of Internet servers. Usenet also provides
an efficient forum for public discussions on topics
of interest.
In addition to the efficient dissemination of government
news by topic, GovNews also opens new opportunities
for developing public participation and discussion
of government news by topic, while providing for important
citizen feedback to government administrators.
"GovNews can be today's 'town meeting', where it is
easy for anyone to participate," Rich said.
Editors: For more information, see: http://www.govnews.org/.
Also see
http://www.govnews.org/govnews/info/majorpubs.html
for a list of major US Government serial publications
now being broadcast in the new government newsgroups.
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