Part of the MFA Interaction Design Weekly Thesis Blog series - 4 of 64

In our first thesis preparation class, Liz talked about emotions as a good indicator for what makes a good thesis idea.  The ideas or problems that makes us tear up, or make us angry are good places to start.  It means those problems touch us deeply, and that is a well of energy that will sustain us as we push towards thesis.

Education makes me tear up, because it is so tied to the concept of providing opportunity to people. I have written about it plenty. This week, however, I was reminded of another topic that’s close to my heart, one which makes me truly angry.

• Internet Censorship: Arizona Politicians Scramble To Adjust Internet Censorship Bill After The Internet Mocks Them For Being Clueless

And some older news that still makes me fume.

• Citizen United: Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit
• SOPA/PIPA: Why Should You Fear SOPA and PIPA?

Law making isn’t easy. Even when the lawmakers are operating with the best of intentions, it is still a difficult process to write laws that are fair, equitable and enforceable. Now throw in the pressure of high stakes, highly adversarial and financially involved electoral process, and we can see why so many of our civic processes are so broken.

I would not be so angry though, if I didn’t see so much law making that seems blatant biased or simply incompetent. We hear stories of provisions and earmarks attached to bills that have nothing to do with the bill’s intent. We hear stories of bills which are plainly written and sponsored by corporations for the benefit of their bottom lines. The legislative process appears to be pay-to-play and hopeless closed to the average citizen. The anger behind OWS is a clear expression of people’s frustration with the status quo.

Returning to the theme of thesis, and the idea that we have new tools and better networks, I can’t help but wonder how we might make the process of legislation more accessible to the average citizen. How can we leverage networks and technology to make the legislative process more accessible? In particular I am intrigued by the processes used in developing open source software. Linus Torvalds famously said, “Many eyes make all bugs shallow.” It’s the idea that open source software is of high quality because so many people can look at it and contribute ideas. I wonder if that might apply to our government.

Can we make laws and bills accessible and shareable down to the level of lines and clauses? What would a Github for legal code look like? Can we do a diff and see how a proposed bill changes over time, and who wrote the changes? Can we make the interpretation of legal language accessible via a developer community like StackOverflow? Can we gather the attention of hackers nationwide to fix legal bugs?

What is the opportunity for design and technology in the legislative system?