Talking to the White House

You may have heard by now about the White House's "We the People" project.

Petitions is a page on the White House's official site that allows people to create or sign a petition about an issue that is important to them.
Explains the site:

The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. We the People provides a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. We created We the People because we want to hear from you. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.

It's easy to get involved.  You create a WhiteHouse.gov account, thereby agreeing to the terms of service, and off you go.  You can sign an existing petition or create a new one.  Even without an account, you can view the existing petitions and responses.  The Administration says that it will issue an official response to petition that gets 25,000 or more signatures; past responses have been issued to petitions with fewer.  (The site notes that this threshold may change as appropriate to site usage.)

"We the People" has been in national headlines across the media for the past few weeks because of a number of petitions asking for peaceful secession of various states.  There's a number or counter-proposals to those as well.

But, in between those sensational petitions are some for other issues, such as GMO-labeling, adoption credits, and other items that appeared on state ballots this year.

Past responses are also available for review, including the recipe for some White House beer brews, approaches to controlling online piracy on an open internet, and interstate raw milk commerce.

Overall, I give it a thumbs up for adding some transparency and easier interaction with the Administration.  Certainly worth a visit.