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How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

arstechnica.com

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Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#41

Post by mjevans »

gamblor956 wrote: post #36
gammateam wrote: post #25

I've been wanting this for a long time, I wanted to take it further though: I want draft laws, I want to see all representatives as contributors and be able to see their contributions and changes to draft laws. the House should have a master branch that submits pull requests to another repository, the other chamber having one too The Governor/President gets to approve PR's from that jurisdiction It would become SUPER…

They have what you describe, and moreover such a thing has existed in paper form since th this country was formed. Real time access to laws as they are drafted is a Really Bad Idea. Good ideas need time to incubate. The system you want would lead to the sound byte version of legislating.

I actually really like the idea of a set of code branches like the Linux kernel has. Different groups would have their own branches and when they reach something worthy of actually considering 'outside of comity' (their still published but clearly development branch) submit a patch to a staging (discussion) branch which will then hammer things out and get feedback / analysis that leads to a version that is actually voted on.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#42

Post by School-Cotton »

casual_slacker wrote: post #33
Rotten194 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you use a blockchain? There's already a central authority - the DC city government. They should just host their own git instance.

There are cases in history where records offices were held in rebellion for political purposes. A blockchain would change means of control of records from violence to compute power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Archive_War

Whoever has the ability to do violence will always have ultimate control. They could just force everybody to start accepting a different blockchain.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#43

Post by dgreisen »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #40
amelius wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Github is just the storage medium. It's a bit like saying that the paper on which the law is printed may not be produced by a private company, which of course, doesn't make sense.

Paper -> Git. I don't think anyone has any problem with using Git as a medium. The only bookstore chain where you can find the trusted, canonical copy of the book -> GitHub. The government should host the canonical copy itself. Then, and only then, it can be replicated to any other commercial service willing to host a mirror. Be it GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, sr.ht or anything else. Git architecture is so well suited…

Even if the canonical copy were hosted on the Council's website, you would still be trusting the hosting provider, the DNS system, and the certificate authority - all private entities.

What is needed is cryptographic authentication so that the git servers can be completely untrusted. This is also necessary to comply with the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (adopted by DC here: https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/titles/2/chapters/...). We will be rolling out such a system based on TUF in Q1 2019.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#44

Post by true_religion »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #40
amelius wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Github is just the storage medium. It's a bit like saying that the paper on which the law is printed may not be produced by a private company, which of course, doesn't make sense.

Paper -> Git. I don't think anyone has any problem with using Git as a medium. The only bookstore chain where you can find the trusted, canonical copy of the book -> GitHub. The government should host the canonical copy itself. Then, and only then, it can be replicated to any other commercial service willing to host a mirror. Be it GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, sr.ht or anything else. Git architecture is so well suited…

I do not know why it matters. Why bother adding expenseses to a government department when they can simply pay someone to do the work. Github is a private company. It is subject to the government, not the other way around...

It is really common for the government to outsource this kind of thing, and most times it results in users paying fees to the private company for access. With GitHub, no fees are necessary. So win win.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#45

Post by iamdave »

Klathmon wrote: post #15

This is such a great way of making access to the law more open and welcoming, which is a great thing to me! I haven't been able to check yet, but does anyone know if you are allowed to use this process to propose new laws or clarifications of laws more substantial than simple typo fixes? Sure, you aren't going to have non-lawyers crafting legislation, but could this be used to bring up clarifications that could impac…

I haven't been able to check yet, but does anyone know if you are allowed to use this process to propose new laws or clarifications of laws more substantial than simple typo fixes?

"You" as in you, a citizen off the street proposing a new law? Unlikely. You could use it to form the basis for a ballot initiative, I would think?

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#46

Post by baroffoos »

gamblor956 wrote: post #36
gammateam wrote: post #25

I've been wanting this for a long time, I wanted to take it further though: I want draft laws, I want to see all representatives as contributors and be able to see their contributions and changes to draft laws. the House should have a master branch that submits pull requests to another repository, the other chamber having one too The Governor/President gets to approve PR's from that jurisdiction It would become SUPER…

They have what you describe, and moreover such a thing has existed in paper form since th this country was formed. Real time access to laws as they are drafted is a Really Bad Idea. Good ideas need time to incubate. The system you want would lead to the sound byte version of legislating.

I can just imagine shitty news websites exploding over someones draft/brainstorm and hyper criticism of unfinished work.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#47

Post by Svexav »

gammateam wrote: post #25

I've been wanting this for a long time, I wanted to take it further though: I want draft laws, I want to see all representatives as contributors and be able to see their contributions and changes to draft laws. the House should have a master branch that submits pull requests to another repository, the other chamber having one too The Governor/President gets to approve PR's from that jurisdiction It would become SUPER…

I agree but politicians shouldn't be the contributors. Representatives don't actually write the laws. I'd like to see the name of the staffer or lobbyist who wrote the text. Also, it should be a federal crime to falsify the name of the author or make changes for someone else.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#48

Post by baroffoos »

dgreisen wrote: post #35

Hi all, I'm a co-founder of Open Law Library, the non-profit that built the platform DC uses to codify and publish their laws. We were so excited when we saw a member of the public make a PR. I'm happy to answer any questions.

This is really awesome and I hope to see something like this come to my country.

One thing I was wondering is how you would deal with more tricky issues/pull requests. Obviously we probably won't see people writing whole new laws in the pull requests editor but what if it was something like a sentience was written in an unclear way and someone opened an issue asking for it to be clarified or maybe they made a PR rewriting it to make more sense while still keeping the intent the same?

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#49

Post by eletious »

dgreisen wrote: post #35

Hi all, I'm a co-founder of Open Law Library, the non-profit that built the platform DC uses to codify and publish their laws. We were so excited when we saw a member of the public make a PR. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Kind of out there, but what prevents modification of the law from bad actors? Git history plays a part but is it possible for someone to edit a change and play all the subsequent changes on top of it, with the hope that nobody notices the sha change?

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#50

Post by baroffoos »

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #2

> My edit wasn’t substantive. This sort of “technical correction,” as lawyers would call it, didn’t need to be passed by the Council and signed by the Mayor. Okay, so they didn't "change the law." It's a cool story but not a fan of clickbait titles either.

They didn't change it if you think of the intent of the law and the words it was written with to be different things.
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