| Description |
We the People gives the Obama Administration a way to connect with the public on the issues that matter most to them. This
online platform allows anyone to create or sign a petition asking the Administration to take action on an issue. If a petition
gets enough signatures, the White House issues an official response. Since its launch, 7.2 million people created more than
11.6 million signatures on more than 178,000 petitions - and more than thirty percent of these users signed petitions that
reached enough signatures to receive a response. Beyond the sheer volume of participation, We the People demonstrates the
Administration's responsiveness to concerns of the public, even if they are outside the scope of current issues that the Administration
is tackling. In many cases, petitions posted on We the People have helped spur discussions of important policy issues at the
White House and across the Administration, and serve as a catalyst for change. The Administration has announced new directions
in policy, or engaged with people who have an interest on a particular matter, through We the People. Last year, the Administration
began surveying people who received a response from the Administration after a We the People petition. Of the respondents
surveyed, even when petitioners disagreed with the response, they indicated that they appreciated the opportunity to petition
the White House and hear their government's response: - eighty-six percent would create or sign another petition on We the
People; - sixty-six percentsaid the Administration's response was helpful to hear; and - fifty percentsaid they learned something
new as a result of our response. Moreover, as the Administration pledged in the Plan, the White House announced a new step
in the evolution of We the People in August 2012: making the platform open source so that any government in the world, from
sovereign nations to small towns across America, can take the We The People source code and put it to their own use. The Administration
is continuing the movement toward openness by developing a new We The People Application Programming Interface (API), to be
rolled out in two phases. First, the White House plans to introduce a Read API that allows individuals to request data from
We the People that they can in turn use to build programs and applications. Second, the White House plans to launch a Write
API that allows individuals to collect and submit signatures from their own platforms, without directly sending users to We
the People. Both will make the platform more responsive and useable for the American public. The Administration had several
discussions with civil society representatives in the last year to inform the implementation of this commitment. Moreover,
in February 2013, the Administration invited twenty-one programmers, data scientists, and tech experts to the White House
for a "hackathon" to spend a day working alongside seven members of our own development team building tools using a beta version
of the We the People Read API, identifying bugs, and contributing example code to a software development kit. Participants
devised working prototypes of numerous projects - including an embeddable map that shows the geographic support for any single
petition, a time-lapse visualization of zip codes where petitions are being signed, an embeddable thermometer that shows progress
toward crossing the signature threshold for any given petition, and a range of data analysis tools. Some of these projects
will be released as open source code, and others will be incorporated into We the People itself. This hackathon helped the
White House team find ways to make the Read API more flexible, better documented, and easier to use - in preparation for when
it is officially released.
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Building on President Obama's desire to hear directly from the American people, the White House has announced that it will
launch "We the People" to give Americans a direct line to voice their concerns to the Administration via online petitions.
This is a tool to enable the public to create and sign petitions on a range of issues. If a petition meets a public signature
threshold, it will be reviewed by White House policymakers, who will consult relevant Administration officials and provide
an official and public response. More information can be found at http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/WeThePeople.
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