When president-elect Barack Obama announced that he was going to appoint the nation’s first CTO, technology enthusiasts as well as pundits began speculating on who might receive the position as well as what exactly it might entail.  Although no new details have been officially released, there is no shortage of ideas coming from all sides as to what the CTO should focus his time and energy on.

In an effort to give the online community a voice, the organization Front Seat has launched obamacto.org, a site where people can rank their priorities for the CTO that Obama will appoint.  The mechanism is very similar to digg’s: you can assign one, two or three votes to any of the issues that you find meaningful, and the site keeps a tally.  You can also submit new ideas and leave comments on the issues.  The current top 3 technological issues listed are:

• Ensure the Internet is widely accessible & network neutral
• Ensure our privacy and repeal the patriot act
• Repeal the Digital Milennium [sic] Copyright Act

Although we certainly like the idea of presenting the collective voice of the people to the government that will be planning our technological future, it should be noted that Front Seat is an organization dedicated to building web applications to promote civic life and is not associated with the Obama administration in any way.  What this means is that this site could be completely discarded by the national CTO.  However, given how much Obama leveraged the online community during the election, it is entirely possible that this site will be embraced by the new government and actually consulted.

Furthermore, there are sections of the site that have absolutely nothing to do with technology, such as “Obama Detroit” (how the automaker’s crisis should be handled) and “Obama’s Scalpel” (how the revision of government programs promised during the election should be handled).  Unless Front Seat creates seperate sites to drive those topics, this will dilute the primary message and lessen its value.  Even within the technology topic, there are suggestions that are highly ranked but that a technology CTO would have very little control over.  A good example of this is the desired repeal of the Patriot Act.  While that may be considered a worthwhile endeavor by some, it’s not primarily a technological issue.  You could argue that the use of technology to carry out the Patriot Act falls within the CTO’s responsibilities, but anything beyond that is a reach.

All in all, this is a promising site that has the potential to be an empowering tool to the people, but it could benefit from a more focused approach, as well as an editor.

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