Vice President Cheney recently (February 27) unveiled the administration’s plans to harness the Internet to make government more responsive and accessible, focusing mostly on transactions, such as the filing of taxes, while giving little attention to the dissemination of information. Billed as one of the president’s top five agenda items, this initiative -- as detailed in a report by the president’s task force on electronic government (commonly referred to as e-government) -- will focus on four types of interactions with the federal government: citizen transactions, business transactions, intra-governmental transactions, and government (i.e., state or local) to government (i.e., federal) interactions. Citizen interactions, for example, include such transactions as filing taxes electronically, making online reservations to a national park, finding out if you qualify for student loans, or applying for government benefits online. The e-government task force has promised that citizens should be able to use FirstGov.gov -- the federal government’s web portal, which is currently being upgraded -- to find what they are looking for within three clicks of the mouse. Not surprisingly, this commitment comes as more and more people are using the Internet to interact with government. A recent Hart-Teeter poll found that most Internet users (76%) and over half (51%) of all Americans have now visited a government web site. Moreover, the poll found, Americans have a positive view of e-government, high expectations for what it can accomplish and are increasingly willing to invest their tax dollars in improvements. A previous Hart-Teeter poll in 2001 found that Americans look for government at all levels to become far more accountable to the public as the key result of e-government, the same result found in this year's poll. To begin the expansion and improvement of e-government, the administration proposes 24 projects that vary across areas of government (some of which won’t be operational until 2004 as part of a staggered deployment). Perhaps the most crucial project focuses on privacy and security, and promotes e-authentication to protect online transactions, including, for example, the signing of a document via email with an electronic signature. Recently, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham became the first-ever Cabinet member to send a digitally-signed document to the president. Yet much work needs to be done before such transactions can take place on a widespread basis between citizens and the government. If the transactional promise of e-government is to be realized, the task force points out, there must first be a clear, reliable method to protect information on individuals and establish identity. However, while the transactional side of e-government is important -- it has the potential to dramatically save time and resources for all involved -- the task force report fails to effectively promote greater public access to government information -- which in the Hart-Teeter poll the public ranked as a key tool for holding government accountable. For example, the task force does not seek to make government data more useful and accessible. This can easily be accomplished by (1) better identifying and cataloguing information that is available; (2) identifying information that is not available online and taking steps to make it available; (3) ensuring that all online databases are properly searchable; and (4) integrating or linking government databases to allow the public to view data across agencies and program areas. President Bush’s e-government strategy is not the first attempt to promote e-government. In May of 2001, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) introduced the “E-Government Act of 2001,” supported by OMB Watch, which sets up a framework and a process for moving the executive branch forward to provide better electronic access to government information. The administration, which has not yet given support to Lieberman’s legislation, should work with Lieberman so that a comprehensive vision for e-government can be achieved.