Karl Fogel from the Subversion project had an interesting idea about government... perhaps its about time that we mandate our laws to be created inside a version control system. This could be an ECM system, or a source control system like Subversion, or something specific to government. In any case, it would help us track who made which change to which law, and when.

What I love most about Subversion is the blame feature... when something crazy goes awry, you bring up the source code and run blame. This will show you which user (or lawmaker) is responsible for which changes to the code (or law). If somebody snuck-in some untested code (or a $100 million kickback to a lobbyist), they won't be able to hide it too well...

In the image screenshot of blame in action, we see that there are four revisions of the file (8, 12, 13, 14), and the user "padma" is responsible for every change. This is similar to Microsoft's Track Changes feature... but since laws are high in content and low in formatting and photos, a plain-text specific tool might be a better match.

Of course, them Congressmen are tricksy... you'll need specific laws that only a Congressman gets access to the system to create a bill, and must have daily commits, and all amendments must be branches off of a bill to be merged in when voted on. I believe it will also be essential to have these be accessible over the web, so everybody can see not only who made what change, but what changes are being considered.

It would also be good to mandate a minimum time delay between when it was written, and when it can be voted on... not to mention syndication feeds and subscriptions so watchdog groups can instantly monitor proposed changes and proposed bills.

Heck, if Congress is making Wall Street follow Sarbanes Oxley, then its only fair to have some level of accountability in Washington as well...