U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

74–926 DTP WASHINGTON : 2001

FIRSTGOV.GOV: IS IT A GOOD IDEA?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

OCTOBER 2, 2000

Serial No. 106–271

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

JIM TURNER, Texas

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. RUSSELL GEORGE, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

RANDY KAPLAN, Counsel

BRYAN SISK, Clerk

TREY HENDERSON, Minority Counsel

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on October 2, 2000 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Barram, David, Administrator, General Services Administration ............... 10

Bohannon, Mark, general counsel and vice president, Software and Information Industry Association ........................................................................ 80

Brewer, Eric, founder and chairman, the Federal Search Foundation,

co-founder and chief scientist, Inktomi Corp .............................................. 18

Katzen, Sally, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management

and Budget .................................................................................................... 3

McClure, David, Director, Information Technology Management, U.S.

General Accounting Office ............................................................................ 25

McDermott, Patrice, information policy analyst, OMB Watch ..................... 40

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Barram, David, Administrator, General Services Administration, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 14

Bohannon, Mark, general counsel and vice president, Software and Information Industry Association:

Letter dated June 23, 2000 ...................................................................... 81

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 87

Brewer, Eric, founder and chairman, the Federal Search Foundation,

co-founder and chief scientist, Inktomi Corp., prepared statement of ..... 20

Fleisher, Michael D., CEO, Gartner, prepared statement of ........................ 111

Katzen, Sally, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management

and Budget, prepared statement of ............................................................. 5

McClure, David, Director, Information Technology Management, U.S.

General Accounting Office:

NASIRE study ........................................................................................... 120

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 28

McDermott, Patrice, information policy analyst, OMB Watch, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 43

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FIRSTGOV.GOV: IS IT A GOOD IDEA?

MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Horn and Turner.

Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director/chief counsel;

Randy Kaplan, counsel; Ben Ritt, professional staff member;

Bonnie Heald, director of communications/professional staff member; Bryan Sisk, clerk; Elizabeth Seong, staff assistant; George Fraser, Rachael Reddick, and Trevor Pedigo, interns; Trey Henderson,

minority counsel; Jean Gosa, minority clerk; and Michelle Ash, minority professional staff member.

Mr. HORN. A quorum being present, this hearing of the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology will come to order.

On Friday, September 22nd, the President unveiled FirstGov, a

centralized Web site that allows anyone with a computer and

modem to one-stop shop for information on the government’s 27

million Web pages.

By accessing FirstGov located at www.FirstGov.gov, computer

users can locate a wealth of government information and services.

A single search can produce information on subjects from Social Security benefits to the latest advances in health care. Businesses can

find the government’s most recent procurement opportunities, and

prospective applicants can search for Federal grants. By the end of

this year, nearly 40 million Americans will communicate with the

government electronically. That demand will undoubtedly swell as

even more people join the information age.

FirstGov is an important step in making government information

and services available to the public 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

FirstGov and electronic government in general, offer the potential

to revolutionize the way citizens and businesses interact with their

government. The benefits of this instant communication are plentiful, but the challenges are equally profound.

To be successful, government information must be current, wellorganized and readily accessible. Citizens and businesses should

expect government Web sites to offer the same quality and service

found on many business Web sites. They must be confident that

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their on-line communications are secure and that personal information is fully protected. The government’s electronic infrastructure

must be planned and managed carefully to avoid risking the loss

of billions of taxpayer dollars.

Equally important, we must bridge the digital divide so that all

citizens have access to this new electronic environment.

The FirstGov Web site uses technology developed by Dr. Eric

Brewer, who is co-founder of Inktomi—and I don’t know how fast

I am to say that, or do I spell out each syllable? Which is it?

Mr. BREWER. You got it right. Inktomi.

Mr. HORN. Inktomi Corp., and a professor of computer science at

the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Brewer, who is with us today, has offered his search technology to the FirstGov project at no cost for 2 years.

Dr. Brewer, I understand you flew all night from Japan to be

with us, and I welcome you and thank you. I am looking forward

to learning more about this new project and its potential for providing citizens with a greater opportunity to communicate with their

government.

I welcome all of our witnesses today, look forward to your testimony; and I now yield time to the ranking member, the gentleman

from Texas, Mr. Turner, for an opening statement.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

FirstGov is the first-ever government Web site to provide the

public with easy, one-stop access to all on-line Federal Government

resources. This site will bring government closer to the people, expand the reach of our democracy and make government more consumer friendly.

Launched on September 22, 2000, FirstGov allows users to

browse a wealth of information, everything from researching at the

Library of Congress to tracking a NASA mission. It also enables

users to conduct important business on-line, such as applying for

student loans, tracking Social Security benefits, comparing Medicare options and administering government grants and contracts. It

is expected that this monumental breakthrough in one-stop shopping for government services will help Americans across the country and around the world find information and resources quickly

and easily.

As an advocate of e-government, I commend the administration

for making this effort; and I am pleased to see FirstGov.gov up and

running. The Internet offers us unparalleled opportunities to literally put government at the fingertips of the citizens. While the

private sector has been quick to capitalize on the new opportunities

created by the digital revolution, it is widely acknowledged that the

Federal Government is behind the curve.

Projects like FirstGov.gov show that we are making an effort to

head in the right direction. Hopefully, this is just the first of many

steps the Federal Government will be making in order to ensure

that 1 day ‘‘dot gov’’ is as commonplace as ‘‘dot com.’’

Again, I commend the chairman on holding the hearing to bring

this important step forward to the attention of the American people, and I welcome each of our witnesses who have come here this

morning.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much.

The tradition of the committee on Government Reform and its

subcommittees is to swear all witnesses as to the knowledge they

give us. So if you will stand and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. HORN. The clerk will note that all the witnesses have affirmed.

We will now start with the Honorable Sally Katzen, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management and Budget.

STATEMENT OF SALLY KATZEN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR

MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

Ms. KATZEN. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Turner, I am delighted to be

here again.

FirstGov, the Federal Government’s new and most comprehensive Web portal, is a timely and important topic for the government

and the Nation; and we are glad that you convened this hearing

to explore its great potential so soon after it was launched.

As the chairman noted, FirstGov is a piece of a much larger effort of this administration to bring the American people electronic

government. Much of my written testimony is devoted to the administration’s work in this area, but in the interest of time, let me

move to the specific subject of this hearing.

Last December, the President issued a memorandum on electronic government. It called for the establishment of a one-stop

gateway to government information available on the Internet, organized by the type of service or information that people are seeking

rather than by the agency. That is FirstGov.

But the roots of FirstGov predate that memo. For several years

now, a dedicated team at GSA has been doing the spade work on

what was then known as WebGov. The President’s memo accelerated the process. In the very early spring, the President’s Management Council gave it enthusiastic support.

Shortly thereafter, we were approached by Internet entrepreneur

Eric Brewer with the offer of a powerful search engine and data

base that he would develop. That offer was a major catalyst in

bringing all government information together in a way that the

American people can find quickly and easily. We chose the name

FirstGov to signify the citizens’ first click to electronic government.

In June 2000, the President announced FirstGov in his first-ever

Webcast address to the Nation, challenging government and industry to finish creating it in 90 days. Exactly 90 days later, some

would say in Internet time, the President announced the launch of

the site.

The site, located at www.FirstGov.gov, provides a single on-line

portal that connects Americans to one of the largest and most useful collections of Web pages in the world. It allows users to search

all 27 million Federal agency Web pages at one time, and it has

plenty of room to grow because it can search half a billion documents in less than a quarter of a second and handle millions of

searches a day. This is somewhat mind-boggling but true.

Both the Director of OMB and I have given special attention to

this project, and I sit on the governing board of FirstGov. GSA AdVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:47 Sep 26, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74926.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ministrator Dave Barram will give more details on some of the arrangements.

The initial response to FirstGov has been largely favorable. Initial estimates show that during the first 4 days, about a quarter

of a million people visited the site. More interesting, Web traffic at

various agency sites increased with the launch of FirstGov. The Department of Transportation reported a large increase and also

cross-agency sites, including disability.gov, reported a nearly threefold increase.

In addition, the on-line customer feedback we received is widely

supportive. Of roughly 700 messages received by FirstGov in its

first week, the vast majority were both supportive of the site and

excited about the opportunity to make the site better through their

comments.

Finally, to demonstrate the support for FirstGov among IT professionals, there was a conference last week of State CIOs, Chief

Information Officers, and the States said they thought FirstGov

was a tremendous advance and asked how they could work with us

to become a part of it.

FirstGov is, in my mind, a revolutionary step in the way this

government provides information and services. A visitor need not

know what agency provides student loans to get information on

student loans. The search engine as well as the topic directory can

provide this. And FirstGov partners may offer yet a third way to

access the information in a way that fits the user’s needs.

Moreover, the site will get better over time. The search engine

will learn which pages are the most useful to the citizens and display them more readily. The topic index will grow and encompass

those sites most commonly looked for and accessed by the public.

Ultimately, as agencies put more information on-line, FirstGov will

be the catalyst for additional agency and cross-agency portals that

continue to break down the existing stovepipes and lead to a real

transformation in the way the government delivers information

and services.

Most importantly, citizen feedback will lead our efforts to make

our information and services more available on-line. The public will

point our way, and through their direction we will give them a

comprehensive and responsive electronic government that expands

opportunities for their participation in our democracy.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about FirstGov

and for your support in this area. I look forward to answering your

questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Katzen follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Our next witness is the Honorable David Barram, the

Administrator of the General Services Administration. Mr. Barram.

STATEMENT OF DAVID BARRAM, ADMINISTRATOR, GENERAL

SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

Mr. BARRAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Turner.

I want to add my appreciation to you for providing this opportunity

to explain the power of the elegantly simple idea that is FirstGov.

I believe FirstGov is a singular achievement and one that will keep

getting better—in fact, it must get better.

This administration has been devoted to making a government

that works better and costs less. I believe we have done that. In

that context, we had to do FirstGov. By now, the American people

have come to expect that kind of productivity of us.

In my comments today I would like to briefly describe the three

modules of FirstGov and then explain the least well-developed and

least well-understood part of the FirstGov partners.

The first module, and most visible, is the main portal called

FirstGov.gov. Behind that portal is the second module, a powerful

searching and indexing technology provided to us by Fed-Search,

the foundation created by Dr. Eric Brewer. The third module is our

idea of offering continuous, direct access to the index behind

FirstGov to a cadre of interested FirstGov partners, rather than

giving it to ourselves as a proprietary government resource.

The FirstGov.gov portal was developed by the government following the letter and spirit of all competitive procurement processes

using a fixed-price contract and, as Sally said, in 90 days—an

amazingly short 90 days. When you sign on to FirstGov.gov, up

comes this simple, elegant, easy-to-look-at, mainly blue and white

page that has already received accolades in focus groups and

through feedback directly to FirstGov. It invites you to find what

you want in the way you want and when you want it because it

is open 24 hours a day.

You can click on a topic, such as learning, and get to a page with

a whole list of excellent government Web sites about learning. You

can click on Congress and get to Thomas or to the House Web sites.

You can click to a site where you can be directed to State and local

government sites.

You can click to one of the periodically changing featured sites.

Right now, we are featuring ‘‘severe weather’’ and ‘‘school stuff.’’ Or

you can decide you just have to say something to your government

to give us feedback, and if you want to search by keyword we have

a comprehensive index waiting for your search query.

That index was built by Dr. Eric Brewer’s Fed-Search Foundation. A few people seem to be skeptical of the Fed-Search-government relationship. I would like to see us get over that, and soon.

Eric Brewer is here today, and you can hear the Fed-Search story

directly from him.

Eric Brewer and Dave Binetti, who is the president and CEO of

Fed-Search, have been magnificent partners throughout this effort.

At every turn when we presented them with one more need of government, they gave it to us because they wanted to do this right

and wanted to be sure that it was above reproach. Those who subscribe to the ‘‘don’t believe what I say until you see what I do’’

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credo will like Eric Brewer. He is what he said he was, a private

citizen simply interested in giving a gift, a very generous gift, to

his country, a gift that will help strengthen our democracy.

Fed-Search uses the Inktomi technology to do its searching and

index. In a few weeks, they spidered—searched—all publicly available government Web pages and indexed the 27 million pages. FedSearch will keep the index updated.

The third part of FirstGov is the FirstGov partner idea.

As we were developing FirstGov we knew that most Internet

users had a favorite portal, or a small group of portals, they almost

always used. Something like 85 percent of users navigate the Web

via the big three—Yahoo, AOL, NetScape or MSN. In addition,

there are over 200 other portals serving the increasingly large base

of regular users. These portals have flourished because they innovate and provide a service to their customers. They get their customers the information they want, their customers want, in the

way they want it, at the speed they want it; and the portals that

survive will survive because they get better and better.

So we figured we should design FirstGov to be attractive to these

successful portals and thereby allow our ultimate customers, the

American citizens, more choice. We believe FirstGov.gov is good,

and we plan to keep it at the state-of-the-art. But citizens are used

to picking from their own personal views of the best. They should

have that choice, rather than being forced to use only the government-provided site if they want quick access to all government information.

We had some conditions, though. These conditions resulted directly from concerns some citizens have expressed about the ‘‘wild

west’’ character of the Internet. One condition is that citizens

should have free first use of all government information. The FedSearch index has all the publicly available government pages, all

27 million pages. Through FirstGov, the first use of government information will be free to all citizens.

Another condition is that no individual can be tracked while

browsing government pages. We require that security must be excellent, and there can be no advertising on pages displaying government Web sites. You get all that when you log on to

FirstGov.gov, and that’s what we will require of any FirstGov partner’s portal.

All these things led us to the idea to allow other portals, public

and private, to become FirstGov partners. We would like them and,

therefore, their customers to have access to the results of a search

in Fed-Search should they so choose, rather than being forced to

rely exclusively on their own proprietary and incomplete data

bases.

When you want to search for government information on

FirstGov, there are four ways to go.

One is the most obvious. Any portal, whether or not a partner,

can point to the FirstGov URL and when the user clicks that user

is transported to the FirstGov.gov portal. That’s the same as if you

typed in the URL on any browser.

The other three are simply three ways any independent portal

can join the FirstGov world and demonstrate to its customers that

it subscribes to a basic set of principles governing the privacy and

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quality of those accessing government information. The independent portal benefits by being able to provide better service to its customers, the FirstGov brand benefits by having more people know

about and use it, and the American people benefit by knowing they

can count on certain safeguards while navigating government information.

In the three models, each portal agrees to the FirstGov conditions. Along with the protections, the agreement provides, it sets

a high standard for access to government information and transactions that benefit all involved.

In the first of the three models, the bronze model, the portal puts

a FirstGov logo, or words, with a link to FirstGov on the portal

site. Clicking there takes the user directly to the FirstGov.gov

page, the government page, and she proceeds as if she had come

there originally. This level of partnership is at no cost to the partner.

The second model, silver, has a FirstGov search box, where the

user can enter a word or words directly from the partner’s page,

with the promise of a keyword search. The keyword is processed by

Fed-Search, and results are returned to the user on a FirstGov

page displayed on the user’s PC. Now the user is in FirstGov, the

government portal. This service is free from Fed-Search. There is

no cost to the partner.

In the third model, gold, the portal displays the search box as

though it were on the portal’s own—as though it were the portal’s

own search box. When the results are returned, they appear as

though they were on the portal’s own search return page. The portal retains the option to advertise on the search return page, providing a revenue stream for the portal. But let me be clear. When

the user then clicks to the government site from that portal, that

user is now in the government site and all those conditions that

government sites have prevail.

For this industrial-strength access and customized formatting,

the portal pays Fed-Search a nominal charge to process the search,

a sum designed to simply cover costs. The portal provides its own

bandwidth to Fed-Search, and Fed-Search provides proprietary

software, engineering support and training to the portal, guaranteeing optimal performance of the portal. The portal still adheres

to FirstGov principles.

As of Friday—and in my testimony I think I have 178 companies—that number is now 226, I believe, companies and nonprofits

have already shown serious interest in becoming FirstGov partners. They know the conditions, and they see the value. We are

pleased because we feel this validates our initial thinking that offering access to the index could result in innovative, new, citizencentric business models that were not previously feasible.

The FirstGov partners program is not a mystery. It is just what

I described and has been for weeks. When we first introduced the

idea, we listened to the concerns and excitement from all quarters

and have responded by modifying the partnership concept and conditions substantially to make it the best we could.

Mr. Chairman, I consider this a proud moment for the Federal

Government. I hope you do, too. In just a week, FirstGov has captured the imagination of tens of thousands of people. By now, citiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:47 Sep 26, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74926.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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zens have likely made over a million visits to the FirstGov.gov portal. Many have told us how much they like it and a few things we

should get better at.

Thank you again for your constant attention to the efforts of so

many to making a better government. It makes it easier for people

to do what they need to do and uses their money wisely.

Mr. HORN. Is that the statement?

Mr. BARRAM. That’s my statement.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Barram follows:]

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Mr. BARRAM. I would like to do a quick little demo.

Mr. HORN. All right. Go ahead.

I want to ask Ms. Katzen, you have to leave when?

Ms. KATZEN. 11:05.

Mr. HORN. OK. 11:05. Because I want to make sure we have

enough for 20 minutes of questioning before you leave. So I will

have to interrupt some of the presenters, but go ahead, Mr.

Barram.

Mr. BARRAM. Let me take just a minute.

What you see up on the screens on the two sides of you, and up

front you can see it on yours, is a picture of the FirstGov page. I

trust many of you have already seen it. It looks good, and it is very

functional.

Do something, Bill, anything.

He just typed in the words ‘‘Social Security,’’ and up came a list

of results. He is clicking on the first one, and it takes you to the

Social Security page and the top 10 most requested services from

Social Security on-line. So click, click and we were there.

Now he is back at the FirstGov home page. He clicked on featured subject under severe weather and got to the second page

under severe weather and is looking for Hurricane Keith, I think.

This is a NOAA page, National Hurricane Center. So we are into

the Department of Commerce’s NOAA’s page now, and there it is.

It is still down there circling around the Yucatan, not a place to

be.

We could do 2 hours of this. That’s enough. You get the idea. We

will have it available. If there are other questions you can ask

about, we can find it. Find out how many times you are listed, Mr.

Chairman, in the government Web pages.

Mr. HORN. Just so they aren’t in Federal prison pages.

Dr. Brewer, it is a great pleasure to have you here. You have a

very distinguished record. Please make your presentation, and that

will help round out on the positive side.

STATEMENT OF ERIC BREWER, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN,

THE FEDERAL SEARCH FOUNDATION, CO-FOUNDER AND

CHIEF SCIENTIST, INKTOMI CORP.

Mr. BREWER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Turner. I am

really glad to have this opportunity to speak to you today about the

Federal Search Foundation.

The free flow of information is a basic tenet of American government. Freedom of speech, our judicial system and even the basic

principles of capitalism all revolve around the free flow of information. The Internet is the greatest tool for this flow in the history

of the world; and, as such, it can be the most potent ally for the

citizens since the Constitution itself.

The mission of the Federal Search Foundation is not just to build

a government search engine but rather to catalyze an Internet-enabled government. We seek to empower citizens with comprehensive, unbiased information and interactive services that make government more responsive to the public. The creation of a comprehensive search engine and its inspiration of the FirstGov portal

are the first steps toward this goal.

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Early in my career as a faculty member at UC Berkeley, I received Federal assistance in the form of a DARPA research grant.

This grant led to novel search technology, which led to Inktomi, an

Internet infrastructure company, and then led to the Federal

Search Foundation. Thus, in creating the Foundation, I am giving

something back while I also hope to promote truly American values

of open, participatory democracy. In fact, I hope my whole generation of Internet entrepreneurs finds equally meaningful ways to

give back to society.

But, by design, the gift is only a catalyst. The FirstGov site was

not built by me, nor by Inktomi, nor by Fed-Search. It was built

by the government itself, which is the only reason that FirstGov is

an important step toward an Internet-enabled government.

The effects of this catalyst continue to grow. In addition to the

FirstGov site, we have seen increased focus by all three branches

on their Internet presence, an increase in the quality of government sites, and an increase in traffic and feedback. The feedback

has been overwhelmingly positive. In fact, much of the feedback

thanks us for sites that existed before FirstGov, such as the NOAA

site. We simply brought them to the public.

I hope that others, private and public, will continue the momentum and put their own government-related services on-line, leading

to the same kind of diversity that we see for television, radio, and

print media. In fact, the Fed-Search Foundation hopes that our

mission as catalyst will be complete in a few years and that we can

simply cease to exist. To me, the most valuable and personally rewarding part of the gift is the confidence it gave Federal employees

that they could build a great site and that they could do it on Internet time.

The Internet is a deeply American phenomenon, not because of

its origin but because it reflects our values. It is the ultimate expression of freedom of speech, it is fundamentally open, and it has

transformed our economy in the classic American way, by enabling

individuals to achieve their dreams through inspiration and hard

work.

I am fortunate to be one such American. I am honored to be able

to give something back. But, I am even more honored to be able

to help the government achieve the kind of deep understanding and

use of the Internet that will promote these values well beyond the

information age.

Thank you for your time.

Mr. HORN. We thank you again, Dr. Brewer. That’s very generous of you, and we will get into some of those questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Brewer follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Our next presenter, as we always have at these hearings, the very able staff of the U.S. General Accounting Office. So

we have this morning David McClure, the Director of Information

Technology Management of GAO. Dr. McClure.

STATEMENT OF DAVID MCCLURE, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING

OFFICE

Mr. MCCLURE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Turner, it is a pleasure to be

here.

FirstGov represents, I think, an important milestone in evolving

toward Federal electronic government. There is no question about

that. Portals like this are being used with increasing frequency at

all levels of government.

As is evident from some of the information searches that have

been presented this morning and in some of the testimonies that

are being presented to you today, FirstGov is not yet overly context

sensitive. As is the case with commercial Internet searches, the

queries on FirstGov can yield hundreds and even thousands of

URL references, some of which may not necessarily be relevant to

the information or services that the user is looking for.

However, I think it is very important to point out that the capability, the search capability, is not the end game for FirstGov. It

is an evolving concept, and we would expect many opportunities to

emerge for increasing the capability and the functionality of this

site.

Not all issues associated with running FirstGov today and on a

permanent basis have been settled, and I just want to briefly mention four of those issues to you.

The first of them deals with maintaining the security of the

FirstGov Web site itself. Computer and network vulnerabilities

swell to immense proportions in the Internet age. The opportunities to create and cause problems for the site accentuate the need

for careful, coordinated information security planning.

Based on the available information and discussions we have had

with GSA, FirstGov representatives and even representatives from

Inktomi, there are good security measures that have been put in

place for the FirstGov site. However, there are several elements associated with a comprehensive security program that are lacking.

These include the establishment of a comprehensive computer security plan, adequate coordination of security measures being supplied by the different contractors that are being used for the operation and maintenance of FirstGov, and completion and independent validation and verification of risk assessments on the site.

These are fundamental computer security steps.

FirstGov represents one of the most important national sites on

the Internet today. Given its visibility and its importance, we

would urge that these kinds of security measures be put in place;

and indeed, in conversations with GSA, we are confident that a

great deal of action has already been initiated.

A second challenge deals with taking reasonable, practical steps

to ensure that FirstGov does not enhance abuse of the government’s information resources. We cannot ignore the assistance that

such a tool provides to those with malicious intentions who reguVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:47 Sep 26, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74926.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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larly conduct tedious electronic reconnaissance of Federal Web sites

in search of information that can assist in their wrongdoings.

FirstGov search results provide perhaps the most comprehensive

index of all information on the U.S. Government’s public Web sites.

Commercial search engines commonly index only a fraction of the

government sites and pages. The search engine, to be perfectly

clear, does not search classified or for sensitive information on government sites. That’s not its purpose. But it is imperative that

agencies provide effective frontlines of defense by ensuring that

their own public Web sites do not post or facilitate access to inappropriate information, and it is also important that FirstGov itself

provide an effective reinforcement by considering formal policies

and procedures to routinely check, identify questionable or sensitive materials and removing them as quickly as possible from the

FirstGov index.

The point here is not to make FirstGov a governmentwide monitor, for computer security or privacy. It is a logical extension of

what we would consider practical steps that can be put in place.

The third challenge deals with alleviating concerns that have

been raised about the impact of the government’s relationship both

with the Federal Search Foundation and with official partners that

are being established in the private sector. In 2 to 3 years, when

an open, competitive bidding process is expected to occur for

FirstGov, its systems operations, its development and its maintenance, it is important for everyone to understand how the transition will take place from the current arrangement to that new situation. It is also important that policymakers throughout the government have assurances that the Federal Government has adequate control of how official data from its Web sites are being collected and used now by the Federal Search Foundation and by

whatever vendor or private entity assumes control of this project

in the future.

With respect to the official sponsors or partners to FirstGov, the

board may simply need to explain the advantages it sees behind

why these partnerships are essential to FirstGov’s success, given

the controversies that can emerge with these kinds of relationships.

The fourth challenge lies with extending, tailoring and coordinating access to government information. FirstGov is a mechanism

that should be adaptable to changing technology and to changing

needs of users. In its present form, there are other government

data bases and information that can be indexed, more so than the

public Web pages that it currently searches. These are just issues

that need to be addressed as the site continues in development.

Surveys also indicate that an increasing number of Internet

users prefer to tailor their views of information based on their personal needs and preferences. In the public sector, legitimate privacy concerns and policies prohibit these practices which are conducive to the type of electronic interaction and Web page

customization that you might want to see in the government. So

these are, again, issues that need to be brought to everyone’s attention.

So let me say, in conclusion, that the FirstGov effort represents

a significant achievement toward enabling electronic government.

Larger issues do indeed loom on how to sustain the site as a perVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:47 Sep 26, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74926.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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manent feature of the Federal Government, and it takes on even

greater significance in today’s Internet environment.

An overall management strategy and blueprint for setting expectations, showing direction and demonstrating results would be very

helpful to see. However, this plan should also be flexible to allow

for creative approaches to accessing information and responding to

the dynamic technology changes in today’s environment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I will be happy to answer any

questions.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. We will get further testimony, I am sure,

from you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McClure follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Dr. Patrice McDermott is the information policy analyst at OMB Watch, and then we will have two more witnesses, Mr.

Bohannon and Mr. Fleisher.

Dr. McDermott.

STATEMENT OF PATRICE MCDERMOTT, INFORMATION POLICY

ANALYST, OMB WATCH

Dr. MCDERMOTT. Good morning. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Turner, for the opportunity today, the fourth anniversary of the signing of the E-FOIA, to testify on FirstGov, the Federal Government’s new Web portal.

My name is Patrice McDermott. I am a policy analyst at OMB

Watch, a nonprofit research advocacy organization that works to

encourage a more open, responsive, and accountable Federal Government.

For more than 15 years, OMB Watch has been calling for improved public access to government information, and we have encouraged the Federal Government to make use of the new electronic technologies to assist in that improved access. But even

though the Internet has grown increasingly ubiquitous, the Clinton

administration has done little to make access easy for the average

citizen—until now.

FirstGov is an enormously important first step, actually a giant

leap, in harnessing newer information technologies to make the

Federal Government more accessible to the public. We applaud Dr.

Brewer for his commitment to democracy and information access,

and we applaud the administration for listening to and responding

to our criticisms during the developmental stages of FirstGov.

We also wanted to recognize, as Ms. Katzen did, that FirstGov

is built on the significant groundwork that was undertaken for several years under the auspices of WebGov, an effort with appreciable input from many people both inside and outside the government.

While credit should be given to the President for his leadership

and his team for getting the task done, this should, as others have

noted, be recognized as a first step. Our submitted testimony describes improvements that still need to be made to FirstGov. In

that, we also raise a number of important policy issues raised by

FirstGov, including its relationship to the Federal Search Foundation, that have not been fully addressed and must be resolved.

Our review of the FirstGov site can be summarized as follows:

The search engine is very fast and very impressive, but, as Mr.

McClure noted, to get search results relevant to user requests often

requires significant work. Indeed, we often found government information for which we were looking more easily through other search

engines, and in some cases the information was not retrieved at all

through the FirstGov search engine.

Second, the directory of topics is also a great first step but also

needs significant work. The topics need refinement, and procedures

for their being kept up to date need to be established. I know that

OMB and GSA have some plans for this, but it can’t depend just

on what happens in the agencies.

The privacy statement on FirstGov is very clear and useful. Unfortunately, however, when you click on some other government

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sites from FirstGov, cookies are being sent in a number of cases.

Although OMB has issued guidelines, strong leadership is needed

to help agencies uniformly comply with privacy protections. The details of some of those sites are in the printed testimony.

Opportunities for feedback for the public to comment on various

aspects of obtaining government information are readily at hand.

This is great. While these comments should prove very useful,

there is still a need to conduct focus groups with different types of

users to identify ways to improve the portal.

As has been noted and will be talked about also by Mr.

Bohannon—the subject of his testimony I have seen—the concept

of certified partners were confusing in earlier presentations about

FirstGov and is no clearer now that FirstGov is public. As the portal is now operational, that is, the rush to get it done in 90 days

is over, GSA should not rush into these partnerships without public

debate on what is to be achieved and what a partnership truly entails.

Some other issues about the site. Information about FirstGov

itself should be improved, which could be done through FAQs—frequently asked questions. An example of useful information is how

often spiders are set to crawl agency Web sites. The frequency determines how current information on FirstGov is at any point and

very likely relates to a problem of phantom URLs that we and others have encountered. Also, there are questions of what are the criteria for establishing links; what the criteria for establishing the

priority of what appears as search results.

As I have said, the Web portal is a major accomplishment. However, there are a number of major policy issues created or highlighted that have been left unattended. These include, is a privileged relationship being created? This has been addressed by Mr.

McClure, and SIIA will address it, and we share many of the concerns.

Access to what? FirstGov needs to address a number of access

issues. It does not include an easy way to find current, timely information, as searches do not capture the context of important government data bases such as Federal Register and WAIS data bases.

And it will not find nor will it notify users of the vast amount of

government information that exists only in print, nor of the records

of the Federal Government. FirstGov should be an important part

of a comprehensive effort to maximize access to government information.

Permanent public access. FirstGov’s ability to retrieve pages

highlights the problem of Web pages that might be here today and

gone tomorrow. It is possible that Fed Search’s index data base

could help facilitate permanent public access, but technology could

not solve the policy problems that exist.

Privacy. As I have noted, a number of Web sites yield the

cookies——

Mr. HORN. Ms. McDermott, we are going to have to bring the

gavel down on the next three, and you are one of them, if we are

going to get questions, because that’s the only way we can get it.

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They are all anxious to leave.

Dr. MCDERMOTT. I understand. I thought I had it down to 5 minutes, but I didn’t.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. McDermott follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Mark Bohannon—and we can get back to a lot of it

afterwards. Mark Bohannon, general counsel and vice president,

Software and Information Industry Association.

STATEMENT OF MARK BOHANNON, GENERAL COUNSEL AND

VICE PRESIDENT, SOFTWARE AND INFORMATION INDUSTRY

ASSOCIATION

Mr. BOHANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Turner, for

the opportunity to testify today on the FirstGov project.

We do not come here today believing that either we have all the

answers or that there is a one-size-fits-all solution to this tremendous challenge that Ms. Katzen, Mr. Barram, and Dr. Brewer are

trying to undertake. Rather, our concern, which you find in our testimony and our recommendations, necessary steps to improve the

project, are actually drawn from the unique vantage point of over

1,000 companies in 33 countries who are developing the backbone

of access to the Web, developing unique applications that meet a

variety of consumer, educational, business and governmental

needs. Our members also include many of the longstanding publishers in the off-line and digital world. We are providing services

and products that meet virtually every market and every area

imaginable, including those incorporating information from government sources.

I also want to emphasize that the vision of e-government that

has been discussed today, the longstanding policy of this administration and as reinforced by Ms. Katzen, is one that SIIA shares

and is at the forefront of encouraging both in the digitization of

government and in the provision of services.

We also want to note that we are very pleased that Director

Sally Katzen has been given a leadership role in reviewing on a

governmentwide basis all of these e-government initiatives, particularly looking at the possibility which we have growing concerns

about, that there is increasing competition by the government in

the provision of electronic and commerce service.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Turner, we have stated our concerns on a

number of occasions, and we would be glad to provide that information for the record.

In our prepared testimony for this hearing——

Mr. HORN. Without objection, that will be put in the record at

this point.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. BOHANNON. Our testimony has been presented for the

record.

We also want to note that Mr. Barram was very, very kind and

gave us a very, very thoughtful response to our earlier comments

to GSA. With this background and with additional information, it

is important to understand that we want to focus on FirstGov as

a system, not merely as a portal, what one sees up front. Quite

frankly, we could get 10 experts in a room and have 15 opinions

about what the portal would look like.

Our focus really is on the system and the implications for ensuring that there is access to all government information on a timely

basis, consistent with legal and public policy principles.

This is a very unique venture by every measure, and we commend Dr. Brewer for stepping up. It is not always easy to work

with the government.

It is also important to understand that out of this there is a special exclusive relationship between the General Services Administration and with the not-for-profit Fed-Search Foundation. In this

exclusive position, the Foundation will build, operate and maintain

the search engine. They will also be responsible for indexing all

U.S. Government Web sites. This task is not merely technical nor

ministerial. It will, in fact, determine what citizens see about their

government. It will also determine what are priority queries and

results in this process.

Access to this index and, for that matter, any aspect of FirstGov

can only be done by being a certified partner. In our view, imposing

those conditions, regardless of which level you are at, is inconsistent with Federal law and policy, including the Paperwork Reduction Act, which prohibits agencies from restricting or regulating the

use, resale, or redissemination of public information to the public.

Moreover, to be a gold or truly certified partner, in our view, also

requires you to enter into a number of agreements with the FedSearch Foundation. These dual negotiations, we need to be cognizant of, create a ripe opportunity for confusion. It also raises

questions about whether we are all benefiting from a gift or, in

fact, reimbursing costs that we just do not understand.

It also, based on the information we have today, might raise the

possibility that many of the existing redisseminators or other access providers may have to change their business models, their customer relationships, but again these are questions that many of

those who are interested in participating are raising but yet we do

not have information at this point to answer these questions.

With the time remaining, let me quickly focus on our recommendations.

First——

Mr. HORN. Well, could we ask that the things that Ms. Katzen

should be addressed to, if you feel it hasn’t been here, we will get

back with you, but I don’t want us to go without questions by both

Members.

Mr. BOHANNON. That’s fine. I would like to get back to our recommendations.

Mr. HORN. All right, fine.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bohannon follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Mr. Fleisher, I will give you 1 minute on this, and

then you can have all you want after we are done, and then we will

get back to it.

Mr. FLEISHER. Why don’t I actually save you that 1 minute, and

why don’t you get to the questions that you want to get to, and I

can come back to my thoughts.

Mr. HORN. All right. We will give you plenty of time.

Ms. Katzen, some of these only you can answer, and that is the

privacy situation. How many agencies have a privacy policy now?

Ms. KATZEN. Virtually all. We had sent out a memorandum earlier in the year requiring agencies to post their privacy policy on

their Web pages, and GAO their report approximately 2 or 3 weeks

ago. I think it was something like 9 sites out of 2,700 that did not

actually have the privacy policy posted, and we have been following

up with those agencies. So I would say virtually all is an understatement.

Mr. HORN. Now is there one basic approach to this in the agencies or are they all different?

Ms. KATZEN. Well, there are differences, but the fundamental

proposition is that personally identifiable information should not be

made available without the consent of the individual, and unlike

the commercial sector, the government is subject to the Privacy Act

of 1974, which sets in place the rules and regulations for privacy

information being disseminated.

There are routine uses and other kinds of procedures that have

been in effect for the last 25 years, where agencies will let people

know when personal information would be used, and those are published in the Federal Register, and there is an entire process on

that.

The issue that Ms. McDermott raised and that came up this past

summer was the use of persistent cookies. These are not chocolate

chip or oatmeal raisin. They are software devices.

Mr. HORN. Let’s translate that for the layperson.

Ms. KATZEN. I was going to say, they are software devices.

Mr. HORN. I love pricking bureaucracy.

Ms. KATZEN. It is not my term. It is industry’s term, but these

are software devices that track users over time and over different

Web sites. Now, there is a reason for this. If you don’t have this

kind of a device, you don’t know whether somebody is coming to

your site 12 times or if 12 different people are coming to your site.

You also heard from Mr. McClure that he would like at some

point for us to be able to get back to individuals to give them updated information. That means we have to know who they are. But

our position is that, unlike the commercial sector, we should not be

tracking individual information. You should not have to reveal who

you are or have some record kept of who you are to access government information.

So one of the conditions that Mr. Barram talked about in our policy on partners, and one of the policies of the Federal Government

and Mr. McClure raised, is our adamant position that persistent

cookies are inappropriate. Where we find them, we take them

down.

Mr. HORN. Let me move from privacy, which we can talk about

with the Administrator, to the fee structure 2 years from now.

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What is the administration anticipating that the options might be

and has any guidance gone from OMB to GSA? How are we thinking this through? It is a very generous offer that Dr. Brewer

makes, but 2 years can go fast and pretty soon is everybody going

to be billed $1 or something to get information from the government?

Ms. KATZEN. No. Our anticipation is that as technology continues

to improve and as FirstGov proves itself, this will be something

which Congress, in its infinite wisdom, will choose to appropriate

for so that we can have the funds necessary.

The actual processes to date has been the funds needed to set up

the first page, the portal, and to administer the site—which cost us

$1 and there is $165,000 a month to maintain the site over the

next 2 years—that was achieved by a pass-the-hat. I said that we

took this to the President’s Management Council—the chief operating officers of all the major agencies, usually the deputy secretaries—and it was enthusiastically supported and agencies made contributions to fund the maintenance of the portal for the next 2

years out of existing funds because we did not have any appropriations for this at this time.

The search engine itself was donated by Dr. Brewer, and his arrangement for 2 years from now, or it is almost 3 years, will be to

leave a lot of options open for how we would proceed, and Dave

Barram can talk about the kinds of things that we are thinking.

Two years from now there will be a new administration. It will also

be, most importantly, after the system has been tested. It will depend on whether it works, if it is well received and it needs to go

forward, and don’t want to lock anything in now, but there are a

variety of options available.

Mr. BARRAM. Let me add to that. We, as Sally said, we passed

the hat and I think in fiscal year—and in fiscal 2001 we are going

to pass the hat to cover the costs we have still to go in 2001, but

for 2002 we should be getting an appropriation. That’s one point.

Second, as Sally said, when we get—the agreement we have with

the Fed Search Foundation, which is an independent, private, nonprofit foundation, is that what they are doing, the kind of technology they are using, will not be such that it is proprietary and

can’t be assumed by someone else.

So we will have an open bidding process that will begin. The

process will begin 6 months before the end of the period, which is

two, two and a quarter years, or whatever. I forget. I don’t know

exactly the date, but 6 months before that we will begin the process

to figure out where we go from there.

And we will—another really important thing is we will have been

knowing, understanding, collecting information on the costs to do

it. That’s one of the things that Fed Search has agreed to, that they

will make open the costs of running it so that we can have an open,

fair bid.

Now here is something else that we all should always keep in

mind. Internet time is an amazingly new experience and in 2 years

I am not going to sit here and try to predict what life will be like.

I don’t know how old Inktomi is but they have come from not very

long ago to an amazing place in the world, and technology is growing dramatically, so we don’t—there is no point, I don’t think, in

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spending a lot of time figuring out what the technology is going to

be in 2 years, as long as we have the right process for someone

else, or even Inktomi, to take this over. As long as it is there, that’s

what we have set up.

Mr. HORN. Mr. Barram, I am going to yield the rest of the questioning of 10 minutes to my colleague from Texas, Mr. Turner. So

go ahead.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I want to thank Dr. Brewer for the contribution that he

has made. I can see you have provided us with something that

moved us forward on a much more rapid basis than we ever could

have done without your contribution. To think that this was a 90-

day project and that it succeeded on that timetable is truly amazing.

I do know the sense and motivation that you have, as all of us

do here in public service, and you have taken your talent and have,

in your way, attempted to give back some of what you have been

so fortunate to receive. So for that we are very grateful.

Mr. BREWER. Thank you, Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. I know that some of the questions that were raised

today are the kinds of issues that this committee and all of us

would be wise to diligently pursue, because obviously your intent

in making this gift of a search engine to the government has a limited timeframe on it, and understandably so.

But understanding how slow sometimes the government does

move, we would be best advised to be sure that we are prepared

to deal with the problems that we face and to make the transition

that you expect government to make and that has been agreed to

by you and the GSA.

I might just ask you, by way of overview, having heard some of

the comments here today, some of the questions that were raised

regarding the partners and the arrangements with partners, some

of the issues regarding whether or not others may at the appropriate time be able to bid on an equal footing to continue this operation of the search engine, to just share with us your general overview and thoughts about the direction you see this as the primary

donor of this project.

Mr. BREWER. I would be happy to. To start, I think maybe the

first place to start is to realize that it has a fixed lifetime in part

because I want it to be done the right way through a normal procurement process that is fair and even and internal. It should not

be something done outside the government. It should be done by

the government itself.

Second, I would point out we have no special relationship with

the government. The things we are doing is basically visiting Web

sites to collect information to build a data base. Many other companies can and do that now. We are just doing it as a foundation, so

that we can donate it not only to the government but to libraries

and schools and other groups.

In fact, the government has no obligation to use the Federal

Search engine data base. They can use their own or create a new

one whenever they like, and I would love to see that. There is no

attachment to us being the solution. I think my only attachment

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is to getting the process started, which I am happy to say we have

done.

So there—in my mind there is no special privilege that we have,

that we are using public information that anyone else can go get

from the same Web sites that we get it from.

Finally, I think it is worth pointing out that we have been a bit

more practicable than that. We have agreed not to affect the requirements for the procurement process so that we are not affecting what the requirements are in any way. We will stay out of that

process, and we have also agreed to continue to run our data base

not only until the decision for replacement has been done but until

it has been put in place, so that there is no pressure on anyone to

hurry up and make a bad decision. So, in good faith I think we will

run it as long as necessary to get all of those things done.

At the same time, I would like it to be aimed for 2002 because

I think it is one of those things where we ought to focus on keeping

the momentum, and if we set it at 5 years nothing would get done

for 3 of them. So let’s—it should have a fixed time line. That’s definitely part of the design.

Mr. TURNER. Could you give us some sense of what we are likely

to be facing in terms of cost? I know from the testimony that we

have heard already, the cost of maintaining the Web site itself, I

believe, Sally, didn’t you say it was $165,000 a month?

Ms. KATZEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TURNER. Which has been raised by the agencies pooling their

resources.

Obviously, I am sure the agencies would prefer a direct appropriation to take care of that some time in the near future. But in

terms of the cost, the estimated cost of taking over and operating

the search engine, what range are we talking about?

Mr. BREWER. It is a little hard to tell at the moment because it

depends on two things that are very hard to predict. One is the

number of documents on-line, government documents, which at the

moment is 27 million, but my hope is that number will increase

dramatically. That will raise the cost pretty much proportionately

with the number of documents on-line. The other one that is hard

to predict is the amount of traffic. In some sense, the more popular

the site is, the more effective it is, the more traffic it will have and

the more it will cost to operate.

So the underlying costs are tied directly to traffic and data base

size, neither of which is predictable. That being said, I expect in

the 2 years that it will cost me on the order of $5 million to $10

million. That includes some subsidies from both Inktomi and Sun

Microsystems, and I obviously hope to raise money from many

other parties and in-kind contributions, all the normal things that

a charity would do.

Mr. TURNER. It is obvious that the cost far exceeds just the cost

that we have talked about already that the government has provided by pooling the $165,000 a month, is that right, Sally?

Ms. KATZEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TURNER. Have you all looked at any estimates? Is there any

way to try to determine what kind of costs we may need to be prepared to appropriate?

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Mr. BREWER. The plan is to do exactly that as we gather more

information, and I think we have the time to do that well.

Mr. TURNER. OK.

Mr. BREWER. Also, there is a certain inefficiency in the fact that

we are completely keeping the systems completely separate, and so

I think there would be some cost reduction if you actually did do

a full procurement and did it with one contractor.

Mr. TURNER. I would like to hear some comments from any of

you who would like to address this issue. Obviously there are reasons for government sites to be accessible at no charge, and yet we

all know the primary way of funding many of these sites is through

advertising. Give me, if you will, from your perspectives, the pros

and cons of operating this site solely at government taxpayer expense versus the merits of perhaps—or if there are merits of considering some source of private outside revenue for support of this

type of site.

Sally, I will start with you.

Ms. KATZEN. Yes, sir. Well, the Paperwork Reduction Act makes

it quite clear that government information should be made available to the citizens at no cost. It was the taxpayers’ money which

generated the data in the first instance and they shouldn’t have to

pay twice to get it back. That philosophy has governed our approach to making government information as widely accessible as

possible at no cost.

The presence of advertising is viewed as a cost by those who are

distracted or disturbed by the boxes that flip up or the frames that

are created around the Web pages to entice people to do certain

types of activities that are commercial in nature.

Information is, I think, at the heart of our democracy. It helps

us know better what it is that the government is doing and to appreciate in some instances the complexity of that. As we move into

an information age from an industrial base on manufacturing, it

does produce certain challenges, and things like privacy that the

chairman mentioned and security are terribly important concerns

as we have these interconnected networks. But the technology is

really giving us a key and it is opening the door here for us to be

able to have much better dissemination of information.

We just don’t believe, and we think the Congress has spoken eloquently on the subject, that it should not be paid for.

Mr. TURNER. So that includes any form of consideration of advertising on this site of any type, in your view?

Ms. KATZEN. That is in my view, yes.

Mr. TURNER. Does anyone have a contrary view? No one?

Mr. BREWER. It is certainly worth pointing out that many of the

partners would be able to have advertising, and I think as long as

there is one primary source of government information, it is OK if

there are others that are more economically minded and may be

more biased.

Ms. KATZEN. They could have advertising on the gold model that

Dave is referring to.

Mr. BREWER. And the silver model.

Ms. KATZEN. And the silver model, on their own pages, because

they are creating value added and that’s their compensation for

their value added. But as to the underlying documents, which are

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the government’s property, those are to be accessible without

charge.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Let me just ask and maybe we pursued it but not

enough, if the data bases are not in the public domain, what impact does that have on the control of FirstGov and access to government information?

Ms. KATZEN. Well, actually the data base is in the public domain,

because what the search engine does is spider documents that the

agencies in the first instance have determined to make on-line. Dr.

Brewer’s hope is that agencies will put more documents on-line,

but right now the agency makes the determination, puts them online, and then the spider picks them up and brings them into the

data base. Those are all public documents, and any citizen can go

to the FirstGov page and get access to any of them. It is absolutely

free and it is in the public domain. That is not an issue.

If others want to add value, if they want to do this in a different

way by asking questions rather than by keyword search, if they

want to use a different model, and there is a number of them and

we would like to see as many models bloom as possible, we are

hoping that universities will do so. We are hoping that the private

sector will do so—we have done a lot in this administration on public-private partnerships, and this is one place where we think there

is a golden opportunity. We are going to give it to you straight, and

they can add whatever value they want in whatever size they

want, but the data are all in the public domain. And that’s why I

disagree with Mr. Bohannon about the Paperwork Reduction Act.

I think that it is quite clear that this is not a violation.

If I could just add one more thing, sir, before regrettably I do

have to go, I agree with a number of the comments that have been

made about what things we have to think about as we mature the

system. I am particularly sympathetic to the call for clarifying or

explaining how the partnerships work, and how the data base will

be developed over time and 2 years from now. It seems that no

good deed goes unpunished. When we first started on this process,

Dave Barram put together in his own PowerPoint an explanation

of what this thing could look like, and to get feedback we put it

out; in response, we got all of these questions and concerns that we

now understand how they could have raised those questions, but

that was not what we had been planning. It was not what we were

thinking about.

The speed with which we have tried to put this up and get it

started, and this is just a start, has meant that we have spoken

our language, maybe bureaucratic, maybe technical. We have used

shorthand for what we are thinking, and I agree completely with

the need to go slowly now to clarify.

Mr. HORN. Now on that point, is it OMB or GSA that would develop a strategic plan that included anticipated capabilities, costs,

revenues and responsibilities?

Ms. KATZEN. This would be the responsibility of the FirstGov

board on which I sit and Dave Barram sits, as do several other

members of the PMC, the President’s Management Council, and

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formation Officers Council. That board has been meeting more than

some of us would like, and we are going to continue to do that.

Mr. HORN. You are going to expose Dr. Brewer to bureaucracy.

They don’t have that in Silicon Valley. They are doing things.

Mr. BARRAM. But he might have it at Berkeley, though. He may

know about this.

Ms. KATZEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. You are quite welcome. Thank you for coming.

Mr. BARRAM. Can I just add one thing to what Sally said. She

answered your question about who had the documents, the public

domain. What the Fed Search Foundation does is bring back full

text copies of all 27 million pages into a data base, and from that

people can search. They are simply copies of all the data on the

government’s pages. So when you are given a—when you ask a

question, it comes back and says, you will find what you want at

the URL of, and you go to that and now you are in the Federal

Government page, which is in the public domain.

So for a moment these pages, the copies of these pages, are in

Fed Search’s possession, if you will, but anybody can get to those,

the originals of those pages, and does.

Mr. HORN. Dr. Brewer, let me ask you this question: As I understand it, the search engine donated by the Federal Search Foundation includes a massive index data base. Now, who owns this data

base and can anyone gain access?

Mr. BREWER. Let’s see. It is a bit complicated, frankly. The data

base, although it contains public documents, is in fact a separate

and new creation done by a private foundation with private funding. So technically the Fed Search Foundation has created this

piece of intellectual property.

That being said, we want people to use it. Therefore, we give it

away, not only to the government but to libraries and schools and

in particular to anyone else the government tells us to, a module

of constraints which I will get to but roughly that was the premise

of the partner program. We are in some sense agnostic about the

definition of the partner. We simply want to have the government

decide what an appropriate partner is rather than us having to decide.

So the thing that is, I think, subtle is because this is a privately

owned data base. In fact, we are not allowed to give it to other corporations and we are not allowed to subsidize their business. That’s

specifically against the rules about charities.

So we can give it to them at cost, which we are happy to do, but

we cannot—we cannot subsidize their businesses. So if they go

through the government sites, FirstGov or any other government

site, then they can have it free because we are subsidizing the government or the library or the school. If they want direct access to

do their own portal with this information without going through

the government, they can do that but now it is a relationship to

an ongoing business and we cannot subsidize them.

We will provide it at cost, but that’s really our only issue.

Mr. HORN. Well, they are patented or copyrighted, the software,

or what? How does that work?

Mr. BREWER. In practice, the data base doesn’t—isn’t of any use

outside the servers that it runs on. So when you actually do a

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query, the query has to physically travel to the data base and then

get returned. This is how all Internet search engines work. So

there is nothing special about this from the Fed Search Foundation.

When we say give access, what we really mean is we will have

a connection, a network connection, to their servers and they can

send us traffic to our computers that will send them the answers,

but these have real costs. There are real computers that the stuff

has to run on. There is band width we have to pay for. We have

our own suppliers that have their own restrictions that we have to

follow, but those are, to some extent, those costs.

Mr. HORN. What kind of security do you have against that process so that when our unfriendly people that are engaging our networks all over the world, what can you do to stop that or slow that

down?

Mr. BREWER. I would say two things. First, the most important

perhaps is that this is—we only have public information. So in

some sense the penalty for security violations is mitigated by the

kind of information that’s in the data base. That being said, we

take very seriously that the data base has to be secure, and these

are the same constraints that existing search engine portals have,

and I think our experience with groups like AOL and Yahoo has

been educational and I don’t see any reason why the security measures taken in those situations wouldn’t work well here. So we do

take it very seriously; firewalls, private access, the whole nine

yards. But I do have to admit I find some comfort in the fact that

it is already public data.

Mr. HORN. Well, do you see your colleagues in Silicon Valley, be

it East, West, North or South, working on something of diversion,

shall we say, when that type of signal gets in when they really

shouldn’t have access? And how are those doing? It seems to me

there will be millions of dollars made that way if somebody can figure out how to divert the entry systems that we see, whether they

are in the Philippines or Latvia. We had a whole number from

around the world a few weeks ago before this committee, and it is

happening everywhere.

Mr. BREWER. I am not quite sure I understand—we don’t actually run the Web sites themselves so we don’t operate the FirstGov

Web site. The servers we own have very few parties that can connect to them and, in fact, one obviously being the government, but

we don’t get traffic directly from end users and that makes it much

easier to secure.

So all the traffic of Fed Search today comes through the FirstGov

portal and we have a direct connection with them and can authenticate that connection to know that it really is traffic from them.

In fact, that’s part of the cost of adding partners that don’t want

to go through FirstGov, is that we have to then set up a direct connection with their servers for the same reasons, to ensure the security and that again has real costs that we simply pass on.

Mr. HORN. So you are saying that despite your system that gets

access to them, you are saying that those hackers could not get into

the governmental computers that way, or could they?

Mr. BREWER. When you actually visit—so when you see a result

page, a set of links, that information has already left Fed Search,

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is now being displayed by a server, in this case the FirstGov server.

So the information is actually there, not at Fed Search, and then

when you click on that link you go directly from the FirstGov server to the branch or agency server. You do not go back to Fed

Search at any time during that visit. So we have no effect, positive

or negative, on the security of particular government Web sites.

Mr. BARRAM. Let me just add a comment. You will remember

that when Bill did the demo, you saw the FirstGov page. That’s

FirstGov. That’s a government run thing on servers that are contracted by the government, with appropriate security. When he

typed in Social Security, that search went to Fed Search and back

came a list on FirstGov.gov again. So from Fed Search, the lists

came back to the government page. When he clicked on the top

choice, it went to a Social Security site with all the security around

there.

It is now two levels away from the Fed Search search engine.

Mr. HORN. So you don’t see a problem, and if you do, it is up to

the government agency to worry about it and not the process here?

Mr. BARRAM. You know, Eric has described what security they

have, and it is important that we—they have that security, and

there are a limited number of people who have pipes into the Fed

Search engine. The bigger security questions of course are at the

agency, and in a much less way at FirstGov, but the real issues on

security are, I think, at the agency level where all the Web pages

are managed.

Mr. HORN. Do any of our colleagues on this side, the ones that

have raised some questions, do you want to ask those and we can

get an answer to them and complete the record?

Mr. Fleisher in particular, I feel we have passed you by a little

bit, but your firm has a very distinguished position with this subcommittee. You were our first witness in April 1996.

Mr. FLEISHER. Thank you. I think the key reason for me being

here today was to focus on our findings on the digital divide. I don’t

think those are 100 percent tied into the detailed level of questions

you are asking about FirstGov.

My 2 cents on it, my firm’s 2 cents on it, is that FirstGov is a

good, powerful, first initiative for the government. We are excited

to see the government doing what we advised the private sector to

do, which is go out there and build something and get feedback

from your constituents, your clients, your customers, and then

adapt and iterate. That’s a pretty important process in the Internet

world, and we are excited seeing the government doing it that way.

Mr. HORN. Any other thoughts, Mr. Bohannon?

Mr. BOHANNON. Well, if I might have a chance to respond. I

think there has been a tremendous amount of very useful clarification and information provided by all the witnesses. Let me try to

address a couple of points that have been made.

First of all, it is very, very helpful from Ms. Katzen and Dr.

Brewer to point out that some aspects of the data base may be in

the public domain right now. We still go back, I think, to recognizing that as this unique gift was provided to the U.S. Government

it is still nonetheless a special exclusive relationship between GSA

and the Fed Search Foundation. If, in fact, there is a genuine offer

by the Fed Search Foundation to make both the data base of origiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:47 Sep 26, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00112 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74926.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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nal URLs, as well as any index that has been further developed

based on any particular technology available at cost, we are very

willing to sit down and discuss that.

The problem right now, and this is, I think, at the heart of why

we need to sit down, get a strategic plan, understand what everyone’s responsibilities are, is that right now you are being given two

choices. You can either become a certified partner or not, and we

clearly have concerns that the only way in which this information

will be disseminated is if you agree to both GSA’s and the Fed

Search Foundation’s conditions.

With all due respect to Ms. Katzen, we do not believe that the

Paperwork Reduction Act should be interpreted merely by saying

if one document is available with those conditions the law is met.

We believe that the Paperwork Reduction Act applies to all government information, not just a couple of examples that can be pointed

out.

Clearly, and we have a number of recommendations which you

can read in the testimony, I think we need to have a very real discussion with the Fed Search Foundation, with GSA, about making

sure that bulk access to the index which has been enhanced by the

Foundation is available, in our view, under existing government

rules, at marginal cost. We need to sit down and make sure there

is access to that without having in every instance to meet the conditions that have been imposed by GSA, nor inherently to rely on

the technological implementations that may, in fact, be offered

right now for access. I think that is a real discussion that we need

to have. I think that will go far toward addressing a number of concerns making sure that there is independently available information that is not designed in a particular way that may affect what

citizens see.

I think that is one very, very important discussion that is worth

focusing on. We appreciate very much the opportunity to have this

clarified because it has been very helpful and this will allow some

of the companies who do have a lot of interest, who are members

of our association, to know more about what kind of business deal

they are getting into.

I think that’s the kind of information that we need to the strategic plan, making sure that the way the GSA is implementing this

is done consistent with legal parameters, with the goal of ensuring

a diversity of information sources. That is what is in the public interest here, and we appreciate the candid answers today.

Mr. BARRAM. Can I make a couple of comments in response?

Mr. HORN. Sure.

Mr. BARRAM. I appreciate Mark’s both recognizing this as a valuable beginning—and I can assure, and I think he knows, that we

are very eager to talk with anybody, and this association is especially important because of the number of—because of the companies involved and their involvement in this whole industry. We

have absolutely no intention of not communicating in the most

thorough way we can. We have tried—if we have been a little bit

less than fully thorough with—I don’t know if you put those words

together—but with them, it is only because of the kind of time

pressure we have been under to get there, but we have listened

carefully to their concerns all along the way.

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And as he noted, as I have noted, this is the beginning. What

this looks like 12 months from now, we are going to look back and

ask ourselves, what was all that stuff about in October 2000 that

we were scrambling about? So we are going to be partners on this,

as you are and all of us, as we go ahead.

Mr. HORN. Well, when you started with that question I was going

to praise you for all the good contracts you get at the GSA and we

take advantage of them in Congress, just as they do in the executive branch, when it comes to airplane tickets, communications

with computers and telephones and all the rest of it. So you do a

great job with your team.

Mr. BARRAM. Thank you. Let me just make one more quick comment. We have talked a lot about GSA today and I want to make

sure everybody does understand there is a board of directors at

FirstGov that is made up right now of 11 people from a number

of different agencies. We have been doing a lot of the work at GSA

and we are housing it at GSA. We are the right place to do that,

but this has been an interagency involvement, driven by the PMC.

So for shorthand, you can use GSA. Think of it as the FirstGov

board that is setting policy and at times into the deep details.

Mr. HORN. Any other thoughts here, Mr. Fleisher?

Mr. FLEISHER. No.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you very much for coming. Sorry it was

sort of disjointed to get your testimony.

Mr. FLEISHER. No problem. Happy to be here.

Mr. HORN. I looked at your document and that’s wonderful.

Mr. FLEISHER. If we could just be sure that would get into the

record that would be terrific.

Mr. HORN. All of these automatically go into the record the

minute we introduce you.

Mr. FLEISHER. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fleisher follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Dr. McDermott, any other thoughts? And then Mr.

McClure is the wind up.

Dr. MCDERMOTT. I think the only thing we would add is that we

heard today, and we have heard previously, that anybody can spider government agency Web sites to the depth that Fed Search has

been allowed to, and that has, from what we hear—we haven’t

tried doing that, that has not been the experience of outside government entities that want to do that.

We have also been told that nobody else wants to do that to the

depth that Fed Search has, and I don’t know if that’s true, but we

would want to have a question addressed whether that is the case

that anybody could go into that depth as frequently as it seems

that Fed Search is being permitted to do it, and if GSA or whoever

facilitated this for Fed Search would also be willing to facilitate it

for other entities, private sector or nonprofit.

Mr. BREWER. I would be happy to address that. We have got

every single document by spidering. There is no document data

base we didn’t get any other way than by going to visit the Web

site ourselves. So anybody can do this. You don’t even need to be

a corporation. A grad student can do it.

We did warn agencies that we would be visiting the sites, but

that’s actually not required on the Internet. People can visit as

much as they want.

Dr. MCDERMOTT. But we have heard that agencies block outside

government folks from coming in and spidering because of system

demands, for all sorts of reasons, that we have been told that by

Web people.

Mr. BREWER. I believe that we follow the same blocking restrictions. However, if there is stuff that we have crawled that for some

reason you can’t get to, it is not that hard to get the raw files. But

I do want people to understand that we are going to do it one way

and if you want to use our servers, you can do it at cost if you are

a business. If you want to do it a different way, go do it a different

way. There is nothing stopping you.

Dr. MCDERMOTT. It was just a question.

Mr. BREWER. I would be happy to help remove any such boundaries. Again, this is a catalyst.

Dr. MCDERMOTT. This is not aimed at you.

Mr. BREWER. Yes. I think it is definitely worth a discussion, but

you have a lot of options here. You can partner. You can do it yourself. You can get it from us at cost, but we are in fact, you know,

still just a charity and we can’t subsidize other businesses, and in

some sense they are not entitled to the data base. We are giving

it to them because that furthers the goals here.

Mr. BARRAM. Let me just add one thing to that. You know, there

are a number of search indexes that have collected government

pages. They just don’t have all 27 million. You know, the example

I have used is that there may well be a page that a scientist somewhere put up that describes how he created garlic flavored ice

cream. If you are a commercial Web search engine, you may think

I don’t think I want to spend any time chasing that down because

my customers don’t really care. So economically, you are going to

have many fewer pages.

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Mr. HORN. Usually, we can’t hear the witness. Not only is it

cookies, it is balloons popping.

Mr. BARRAM. So anyway, there are a number of search engines

out there that have searched a number of government pages. We

just have them all through this mechanism.

Dr. MCDERMOTT. I just wanted to say—— Mr. HORN. Let me ask Dr. Brewer this. In 2 years when the Fed

Search Foundation dissolves, would a new contractor have to develop this data base from scratch?

Mr. BREWER. I am happy to discuss it with them but in practice,

yes, because they will have their own software systems and the

data gets stale anyway. It is not like you can take a snapshot of

it and say this is it, here it is. It changes every single day. But I

think, you know, there are ways you could help that transition, but

it really depends on who it is and what system they are using. But

again we did it in 90 days. They could do it in 90 days, too. It is

not insurmountable.

Mr. HORN. Mr. Fleisher, in your written testimony you mention

that a number of the public and private policy initiatives are currently addressing the digital divide. Could you provide a couple of

specific examples of that?

Mr. FLEISHER. I think in particular there has been a focus on trying to get publicly available Internet access through libraries and

kiosks, and I think that has been a key public policy focus. We believe that is a good first step, but just as you can understand

how—and a number of studies have shown how when children

have Internet access at home they do better in the school than

when they have Internet access only at school. The same is true

for the adult population.

Mr. HORN. When I saw that, I thought wouldn’t it be wonderful

if the child comes home from school, can press the buttons and get

access that there would be a literacy program, perhaps, for their

parents? It seems to me that would be a worthwhile educational

endeavor because a lot of them are completely illiterates, not just

in what they are doing with the computer—they can do that with

a few things—but their own lack of literacy and that would really

help a lot.

Mr. FLEISHER. We believe that anything that we can do to find

the 50 million U.S. adults that we believe in the next several years

will still be without access and help those people have access to the

myriad of programs, whether it is FirstGov or others that will become available, is, you know, one of the most important tasks at

this point. Those people will truly be left behind because, as you

point out, it is the new illiteracy.

Mr. HORN. Yes.

Mr. McClure, do you want to wind it up?

Mr. MCCLURE. Yes, I have just two comments to make, Mr.

Chairman. One is in response to a question you posed a moment

ago about the importance of security. Again, in my written statement and in my oral statement, I was making reference to security

provided on the FirstGov site. I do agree with Mr. Barram that obviously the protection of the agency sites is the real site of activity

where you want stringent computer security measures in place. As

FirstGov evolves, and it could indeed become the central portal for

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the U.S. Government for the citizen to access government, it is

critically important that security, even of the FirstGov site itself,

be maintained so that it is reliable, it is stable and it is not subjected to any kind of obstruction or tampering.

Also, the data base that is maintained either by Fed Search or

by some other private entity contains a voluminous amount of government information, and as other contacts are made with that

data base which are potentially going to take place in the future,

the security of that data base will be important. It is not a trivial

matter or task, regardless of the fact that it is publicly available

information already.

I also wanted to mention to Mr. Turner in his question a moment

ago about the use of advertising, there are two studies that we can

submit to you for the record. One is from NASIRE, who you have

testify rather regularly in front of this committee, representing the

State CIOs. They have conducted a study which I think is very useful for the committee to look at on the use of portals in State government. Most State portals are being maintained and built by the

State governments themselves. There are others that are maintained totally by vendors. Of those that are being maintained by

vendors, transaction fees are commonly being allowed to be used to

pay for the cost of the operation and maintenance of those sites,

and I think that information is just good to have in front of you.

The second is a study that has just been released by Professor

West at Brown University, in which they focused on a survey of

1,800 public Web sites, State, local and Federal, and they found in

roughly 2 percent of those Web sites advertising is allowed. This

would be obviously the State and local sites.

So advertising is taking place on government Web portals at the

State and local level; again, a reference point and perhaps the two

studies can shed some information.

Mr. HORN. Well, without objection we will have those studies put

in the record at this point.

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Mr. HORN. What have you learned in looking at those? Because

there has been a big discussion within the educational systems K

through 12, should there be advertising in the classroom, this kind

of thing.

Mr. MCCLURE. We haven’t really looked at it to any great extent.

It is something that obviously I think is worthy of people to examine and see how advertising policies are being pursued and the

ramifications of it. Quite honestly, I think it is a growing topic of

importance as they look at the funding for those portals in the future.

Mr. HORN. Does the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Turner, want to

wind it up?

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to get

some comments perhaps from Dr. Brewer, maybe Mr. Barram, to

give us some sense of where this may lead us. I have the sense this

was just a first step. Obviously we have access now to information

from all agencies of government at one site through this search engine, and yet the ultimate goal is to make government more consumer friendly to allow the citizens to do business with their government over the site, and how do you view this as an element of

moving us down that road more rapidly than we otherwise would

be able to go?

Mr. BREWER. You are right to ask both of us. I can speak to our

part. I think the most important thing here is that we have now

got agencies thinking about how they appear on the Web, how they

want to be found and how they want to interact with the citizens.

Frankly, that has never happened before, and I think that’s just incredibly powerful.

So there are lots of things I think that could be better about

FirstGov and Fed Search and the sites themselves. It increases in

relevance, a more longterm relationship with citizens rather than

just their each individual visit. Of course, that has privacy implications so it has to be done with their knowledge. But I think that’s

the kind of trust you want to build with the citizens, where they

do trust you with some of their private information because they

want you to know who they are.

So I think it is a very powerful road we can follow, but it starts

with people caring, people in government and other places as well,

caring about how citizens interact with the government. I think

this is the most important effect of FirstGov so far, and in the longterm its main effect will be this just getting people to ask the questions. I think where the answers go, I don’t know but, boy, I am

glad we are asking the questions.

Mr. BARRAM. Can I add to that? On Flag Day of 1996 at GSA

we gave everybody access to the Internet. We decided to do it and

did it in a month or 2 months. Many people said what is that all

about? And if you look now 4 years later, the people of GSA who

have been using this technology, because it was the tool in the last

part of the 20th century and now in the first part of this one, it

was essential to the kind of productivity we wanted. People are

doing the same things better but much more—and quicker, but

much more they are doing totally different things; interacting, communicating, playing, being productive in totally different and better

ways.

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So agencies are going to get better, as Eric said. I think we will

see a real push toward more citizen-centric interaction, interface

with their government and this will be a major tool.

I was in Oregon this weekend for a wedding for my nephew, and

one of my other sisters-in-law home schools her three children and

she is very excited about FirstGov as a way to get to lots of information quickly. Her kids are very good at using this technology

and it is a wonderful tool for them.

I am not sure I thought about that 90 days ago. So we are going

to see lots of things like this happen where people are able to use

the technology better and get to the government information better,

and I think we will be very happy about that.

The most important thing is for us to do it, make it better and

learn what people need and make it available.

Mr. HORN. Well, Dr. Brewer, we thank you for your generosity

and for getting some action in this area, and I am sure it will be

followed throughout the country.

I want to now thank the staff that put this hearing together from

both the majority and the minority. J. Russell George, staff director, chief counsel; and to my left, your right, for this particular

hearing Randy Kaplan, counsel; Ben Ritt, detailee from the General Accounting Office on our staff; Bonnie Heald, director of communications; Bryan Sisk, the clerk who moves those mics around

and gets our ears back in sync; Elizabeth Seong, staff assistant;

George Fraser, Trevor Pedigo, and Rachael Reddick, interns. You

can see in the summer and fall we get a lot of great interns, almost

at nothing, but experience is a lot. With the minority staff, Trey

Henderson is the counsel for Mr. Turner; Jean Gosa, minority

clerk; and the court reporter this morning is Mindi Colchico. We

thank you for all you have done over the years with us.

So with that, we are now adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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