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Many thread-readers seem to be concerned about not knowing the proceedures for court and the law as it is written for their state. It is to you, that I write this recommendation for your consideration.

Your legislators, federal, state and municipal can and do most assuredly rely on one thing;

YOUR IGNORANCE

Your ignorance of what it is they do or say in public meetings as your representitive. They calculate that you are far too busy to expend the time to keep track of what they do. They know that few can expend the time and expense of digging into what laws they pass and resolutions made in public meetings by having to go to city hall or to the State capitol.

Some of your representitives may actually be seriously attempting to represent your interests. However, the reality of it is that your representitive is far more likely to be looking after HIS or HER OWN INTERESTS.

All over America, whether its municipal, state or federal, it seems its always the same people and/or their family members running for public office. Representitive offices are handed down to children. Its almost as though lineage is a requirement for public office. If this continues, America could very well end up with a PEERAGE. The very thing for which America's Founding Fathers risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to fight against.

One of the reasons for the myasthma America now finds itself in is IGNORANCE.

We don't know. We don't know what our elected representitives are doing. We don't know what laws they are passing or what laws are already on the books. We don't know the minutes of their meetings. We invest far too much trust in people who have time and again proven themselves to be completely untrustworthy.

There is a solution in my opinion, and its a reasonable and cost-effective one. On a municipal level, it would be suitable for all towns and cities with populations over 10,000 people.

That solution is for you to work diligently to pass a state and municiple law to make it become punishable by law (a felony) if ALL state and municipal laws and public meeting minutes are not published online in plain ASCII text or STANDARD HTML format in a timely fashon on web servers which are not permitted to log any visitor or viewer information.

The reason for the anonymity is to protect the citizen's rights. Being tracked by server logging is something one might expect in communist China. Server logging of visitors wishing to read laws and public meetings minutes for your state or municipality is not acceptable in America. In this day and age, in most reasonably sized municipalties and likely in all State legislatures all laws and public meeting minutes are already electronically transcribed.

This recommendation attempts to transcend any and all political boundaries of people who wish to reside in representitive democracy. Our Constitution guarantees us a Republican form of government. We should ensure that same guarantee is available to our children, our grandchildren and future generations.

Being able to access what your municipal and state legislators do in legislative chambers or in public meetings will ensure that their actions are accountable to any member of the public who wishes to inform him or herself.

This may be done already in your municipality and all laws, procedures and minutes of public meetings are electronically transcribed. If they are not, lobby to ensure they are and are kept in a STANDARDIZED format such as plain ASCII or STANDARD HTML which does not require ANY third party encoding or decoding. Above all else, ensure the copyright on published information ensures and protects your freedom to do with the information what you wish.

So I would ask any reader if it does not exist already, lobby your state and municipal bodies to pass a law that ensures that any and all existing and future laws and public meeting be made available in pure ASCII text or in STANDARD HTML format online and that public notification be made to announce the URL of that unrestricted location.

If your state or municipal laws, procedures and public meeting minutes are already online in a STANDARDIZED format such as pure ASCII or STANDARD HTML, you should inform yourself of where they are and make sure others in your community know as well.

Don't let your legislators keep you ignorant ! Demand accountability ! Insist on LAWS, MINUTES, AND PROCEEDURES ONLINE.

OK... now that I've got that off my chest, I feel better.