Created in 1979, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (or C-SPAN as it is more popularly known) is a must for concerned citizens wanting to keep tabs on what lawmakers are doing in Washington. Since its inception three decades ago, countless hours of congressional hearings, political conventions and rallies, debates, and other public affairs events have appeared on the C-SPAN networks in a pure, uncut and unfiltered manner.

Recently, C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb sent a letter to Democratic and Republican congressional leaders requesting that C-SPAN's cameras be allowed into the final negotiations of the 2,000-page, multi-billion dollar health care bill.

Lamb's letter, which was sent to most media outlets including the blogs, said that reforming the nation's health care system affects every American and as such should be televised in order to further facilitate a transparent discussion on health care reform.

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C-SPAN, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is a must for those concerned citizens who want to keep tabs on what their government is doing in Washington. Created by cable in 1979, C-SPAN provides thousands of hours of coverage to congressional hearings, political rallies, conventions, debates and other public affairs events from across the nation in a pure, unfiltered, uncut format.

Throughout 2009, C-SPAN showed both sides of the debate over health care reform. From the tea parties to the health care rallies to final votes in the House and Senate, C-SPAN has been there. As the health care legislation inches towards final passage, it is imperative that C-SPAN continues to shine a bright light on all our government's proceedings. However, C-SPAN may not be able to fulfill its unique role to the American people if congressional leaders decide not to open the doors of government to transparency.

Tuesday morning, C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb emailed a letter to the media (including this blogger) expressing his concern a final health care bill might be written behind closed doors and away from the inquisitive eyes of the public. The letter was addressed to the Democratic and Republican leaders -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Republican Leader John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

Below is the full text of the letter along with some additional commentary:

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Oh Canada...

I was watching Dr. Robert Ouellet, the President of the Canadian Medical Association, on C-Span's Morning Edition as he took calls and questions on Canada's single-payer system. The most important thing he did was blow holes in the myths which are being actively promoted by the Right-wing health opponents. I wish everyone could be watching or listening to this and, if as is the case on Sundays, C-Span reruns this morning's program on C-Span 3 in the afternoon, then it would be worth catching it and listening.

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C-SPAN is entertaining us today with a live broadcast of the Family Research Leadership Council convention under the guise of "Campaign 2008", so, of course, I started watching it, being concerned with the next election.

What I saw, of course, had little to do with the campaign, and a great deal to do with giving a television-wide forum to people slinging invective against "secular progressives"... or, to put it bluntly, people like me.

I heard that "secular progressives" are often academics who are corrupting our universities. Gee... my wife and I teach in the Maryland Community College System and we like to hang out at programs at Shepherd University and other schools. I guess that makes us a part of those corrupt academics.

I heard that "secular progressives" are people who support the ACLU, Women's Rights and similar philosophical value structures. Gee... that's me all right.

I heard that "secular progressives" are promoters of sodomy. Gee... now it is starting to get a little weird.

I heard that "secular progressives" are bent on destroying the family and creating a social pathology of entitlements like Social Security  and Medicare. And that we are spreading a myth about "women's biological clock" which is keeping us from God's biblical calling for women to have children ASAP. Gee... now I'm confused.

And finally I heard that "secular progressives" were Democrats. Well, I am. I have a voter registration card that says so.

I guess I can't be too down on CSPAN for promoting this crap. It would sure be nice if there were a Secular Progressive convention somewhere that they could cover in the name of "Campaign 2008."

Under the LobsterScope

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Facebook announced its new open platform this week, called F8. What company has done is invite third-party developers to create modules that plug right into the Facebook interface. Facebook.com has been a stellar web app for some time, but the new Facebook is less an application than it is a social-networking environment. As of this week, the Facebook API, Facebook query language, and Facebook markup language are all documented online. For political folks, F8's practical uses are pretty exciting. Facebook claims to have 24 million active users, half of whom login to the site every day. So module developers are diving into a giant pool of engaged users who really like to live out part of their lives onlines -- appealing for everyone from fundraisers to field organizers. I've been playing around with the new F8-enabled apps the last couple days. I started by adding Project Agape's"Causes" module and then joined the "Free DC" group that benefits DC Vote. If I had wanted to, I could make a micro-contribution (or macro-contribution, I guess) to the group right through Facebook.

The question of whether Facebook was going to stay a walled-garden has been answered with F8. As a somewhat stodgy Facebook user, I'll admit that I sighed just a bit over that. Early Facebook was somehow reassuring -- you knew exactly how it would behave. It always worked. The design was clean and consistant. F8 may make Facebook a bit of mess for a while. When twice I tried to add "Net Neutrality" through the Cause module yesterday, for example, Facebook just hung on a blank template page. ValleyWag says Facebook.com was completely shut down this morning.

With F8, Mark Zuckerberg et al have ceded complete control over the environment they built. I imagine that there are some folks wondering, why would anyone do that? For one thing, opening up a system can remove constraints that hinder growth. We're seeing something similar happen with Second Life. Linden Lab has made the call to open source the servers that run Second Life, giving up control over what they call "the Grid." Why would a for-profit company do that? For one reason, Linden's success has been hampered by Second Life's enormous technical needs. Each Linden-run server can only host a handful of avatars at a time. With the distributed server load, Second Life has the chance to grow as it should. The Facebook folks, I think, have other motivations. In return for opening the doors to their system, they get the opportunity to really see if their dorm-room creation can improve social and political life. I'm naive enough to believe that these guys want to change the world. We're talking about a 22 year-old CEO who said no to giant piles of cash so that he could see what his company could become.

There are going to be bumps in the road for Facebook, and F8 is a bit of a gamble. But I think what's exciting is this turn away from the assumption that systems work better when closed and controlled. They made a policy choice in favor of participation and then implemented it in their code. Facebook has set themselves as the anti-MySpace. MySpace is a closed system. It's difficult to port content into it or extract information our of it. MySpace's approach is to resist third-party apps, like when they accused PhotoBucket of offering embedable ad-sponsored Spiderman 3 slideshows. That's not overly surprising, considering that their business model has long been based on keeping users in their bounded universe and directing money spent in that universe towards the company itself. (And that was before Rupert Murdoch bought it...)

I'm resisting the urge to spot a trend. But I do think we're beginning to see more openness in everything from license agreements and to programming architectures. Larry Lessig recently spearheaded a campaign to free recordings of presidential debates so that we can remix and reuse that content. So far, FOX has said no but CNN has said yes and Lessig is working with NBC/MSNBC on their terms. And the Open House Project and activist Carl Malamud have worked with C-Span to get them to loosen up their grip on copyright just a bit. We're starting to see some big entities start make the decision that openness is a risk worth taking.