Well, they don’t, but whether they should or not is a different question. Still, I would say “no”. That’s way to specific to put in the constitution.
And even though you have the right to petition, that doesn’t guarantee a response.
Pardon my ignorance, but must it be a letter written with a quill? Is it spelled out what the constitutional method should be?
You must be allowed to petition the government, but the government doesn’t need to furnish you with the means for doing so. It just can’t prevent you from developing your own means. Quill pen or typewriter or website (one that you set up).
#1. Good for you.
#2. Hardware, hosting space, admin functions. I don’t know how the site is setup, how it is run or who runs it but a million (especially when a government agency is doing it) ain’t all that much for a website that handles a reasonable amount of traffic.
You need servers. Considering that it is a national site, multiple servers in likely a load balanced configuration. If you really want it to be robust, the servers are in physically separated locations.
You need rack space. Depending on how it is setup, you may have to pay for that rack space. If it is in a government run data center, there is the cost of the power, environmental control systems and onsite personnel. Oh, and physical security.
You need storage.
You need firewalls.
You need load balancers.
You need network folks to get it on the internet.
You need a security team to keep it secure which requires monitoring.
You need app developers and and DB teams to create and manage the systems once they are up.
You need to test any changes that are made to the site.
You need web design folks to create/update the site.
You may need licensing, depending on what back-end software you are running.
You need hardware refreshes. The site was launched in 2011. Either the site is due for a hardware refresh or one has happened recently.
That is a short list as to why a million isn’t all that uprising.
#3. Consolidate into one or two data centers.
Move physical servers to virtual machines.
Move the systems to the cloud (though I am not convinced this is a money saver yet).
Move to open source OS, DBs and apps.
Outsource the development and maintenance to a third party.
Once again, this isn’t an exhaustive list. However, saving money long term isn’t terribly hard if you don’t mind some up front expenses.
Slee
I am equally unconcerned that the Rothbardians do not have access to the president. That should be lowercase btw.
Sure have fun.
You act like it should be accessible from every beer-soaked and Cheeto-stained couch in America.
This decision is not endangering anyone’s right to petition the government.
This strikes me as the equivalent of a “the second amendment only covers flintlocks” argument.
Does the First Amendment guarantee the right to petition the government via the internet? Of course not, it was enacted in 1791. But the Constitution does guarantee a right to petition the government and in 2017 the internet is the obvious means by which that is accomplished. No President has any business putting obstacles in the path of people exercising their rights.
I’m not acting like it; I’m openly stating it as a fact.
The people have a right to petition the Government. It says so in the Constitution. And that means everyone; people sitting in corporate boardrooms and people sitting on stained couches alike. Homeless people living in the streets who can’t afford an envelope or a stamp are entitled to petition the government. Access to the government should not be limited.
Can’t add to this, but it needs to be acknowledged.
When Obama was president, he had his staff prepare a daily collection of letters sent to him, from average people. The letters were selected by staff, but they were not selected to all be one-sided. A cross section of opinions were presented. This helped him keep grounded, to know how the populace felt, at least as well as could be done.
I’m sure Donny Two Scoops fired the entire staff that did that.
Nah, they now look forfavorable articles that mention Trump by name. Makes him feel all gooey inside.
No. The right to petition the government as originally conceived does not have anything to do with the flowery egalitarian stuff you have tacked onto it. Everyone has the right to put a modicum of effort into a petition.
But no right to deliver that petition to The Powers That Be?
Yet another issue on which we disagree.
To put it in perspective, suppose the government enacted a law requiring everyone who owns a gun to have a permit. And required that those permits be stamped annually. And said the location where you could get your permit stamped was a single office in Washington DC.
This wouldn’t be the government prohibiting gun ownership. Everyone would be able to own as many firearms as they want. But I think most people would agree that it would be placing a substantial obstacle to owning a firearm.
In my opinion that’s wrong. The government should be restricted not only from prohibiting the exercise of constitutional rights; it should also be restricted from placing artificial obstacles to make it unnecessarily difficult for people to exercise their constitutional rights.
Can you cite the source of this fact? That is, that the government is required, constitutionally, to set up an email or internet account for the purposes of receiving petitions?
For extra credit: Upon the invention of the radio, was the government then required to set up a radio receiving station so that the citizens could petition it via radio broadcast? Or, was mailing a letter considered adequate and no radio receiver needed to be set up? Was the government in violation of the constitution prior to 2011 when Obama set this web site up?
There is no new obstacle, only the removal of a privilege. The right still exists as it has for most of US history.
In the gun example, there is a new obstacle, one that wouldn’t have been even considered at the drafting of the constitution.
I don’t see how this move does not allow delivery of a petition to the government.
I guess we can strike down all those laws requiring a permit to hold a demonstration. It’s amazing that no one has thought of this “right” before and challenged it in the courts. And since homeless people must be able to petition the government at no cost, we need to provide them with pens and paper, as well as stamps, or give them a computer with internet access. Or a radio so they can broadcast to the constitutionally required radio receiver at the WH and in Congress and in the SCOTUS.
My preferred method is semaphore flags, so I assume I can require that the WH station someone at the residence ready to receive a semaphore message at all times. And Trump needs to buy my flags for me, too!!
I doubt they give a shit what people like you and me think.
Breaking news 1/22/2018
Mysterious fire guts White House mail room. Repairs expected to take years.
I predict the new website will give an instantaneous response to each petition according to the following algorithm
1)Count the number of petitioners from each state.
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If the majority come from states that Trump won then Goto 3 otherwise go to 4
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Print("Yes of course we're already doing that Big League. Believe me it will3) be the best thing you've ever seen, you will be amazed. No one could ever <<insert petition title here>> as well as I will.") -
Print(“This is a terrible idea. Very low ratings. You are a loser for even considering that. FAKE NEWS!”)
Isn’t the electronic petition basically a scene from Bruce Almighty? People’s political prayers are sent to the WH server in hopes they are answered.
I’m sure The Donald will answer each and every one of them. And the answer will be no.