Radical Reinvention Required to Restore Public Confidence in Government.

The Public Policy Institute released a new report as part of its Technology and the New Economy Project. Authored by Robert D. Atkinson, vice president of the institute, the report says that restoring public confidence in government requires moving forward on a radical reinvention initiative to bring government into the Information Age.

Govtech.net

In "Network Government for the Digital Age" http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=140&subsecid=290&contentid=251551 Atkinson writes that the current government is structured along an administrative model perfected in the heyday of the post-WWII, no longer suited to the 21st century.

Creating effective governance for the New Economy will require a fundamentally new approach, relying more on networks, information technology (IT) systems, and civic and private sector actors, and less on hierarchical, rule-based, bureaucratic programs, Atkinson says. In an era when the economy is more entrepreneurial, competitive, fast-moving, networked, and technology-based and less hierarchical, the prevailing model of governance should also reflect these realities. In particular, Atkinson writes, the IT revolution promises to provide new tools to transform government. Government, however, lags behind these changes.

The Progressive Policy Institute is a research and education institute that is a project of the non-profit Third Way Foundation Inc., headquartered in Washington, DC. The organization’s mission is "to define and promote a new progressive politics for America in the 21st century."

Shane , Digimarc announced today that Vermont will be the second state (after New Jersey) to use digital watermarking technology as a new layer of security in its driver’s licenses. Digital watermarking will enable law enforcement or other inspectors to immediately detect whether a license is authentic or counterfeit.

The U.S. Justice Department estimates that there were over 700,000 cases of identity theft last year which caused approximately $700 million in financial damages. Driver licenses have become a principal method of identification within the U.S. and fraudulent use of driver licenses is often associated with identity theft, fraud and terrorist activities. Making driver licenses more secure and enabling machine readable authentication capabilities that enable verification that the ID is genuine will be critical to combating the spread of identity theft and fraud and for enhancing homeland security.

Digital watermarking is a unique technology that is widely deployed around the world in printed security documents and digital content.

News provided courtesy of PriorityWatch.

PriorityWatch provides in-depth alerts, digests, and analysis on legislative and budgetary trends related to information technology in the public sector. Scanning thousands of sources, this advanced research service tracks technology-related bills and summarizes impacts of federal mandates to provide an aggregated view of legislative, policy and administrative developments throughout the United States.

http://www.govtech.net/news/news.phtml?docid=2003.05.23-52703