The 2010 Census forms are arriving in mailboxes around the country. But why is there no option to submit your response online?

Senior Analyst Daniel Castro evaluates President Obama's Open Government initiative

ITIF identifies strengths and weaknesses of the open government initiative and recommends how to make more effective use of technology.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson will speak at The Atlantic’s "State of the Union for Technology" event

In the digital world a decade is a long time, yet federal government websites are using the same restrictive policy on “cookies“—small data files stored on a user’s computer—established during the Clinton administration. In thisreport, ITIF looks at the origins of this federal government policy, the current uses of persistent cookies, and proposes a new framework for the use of persistent cookies on government websites given current trends in e-government. The goal, ITIF argues, should be to loosen the restrictions on the use of cookies and balance privacy against other equally important goals such as usability, accessibility and transparency.

The first two waves of the IT revolution offered state and local IT leaders amazing opportunities to make government more efficient, improve services and increase transparency. Today, an emerging third wave is making it possible for governments to solve pressing public problems in fundamentally new ways.

In the October 2008 issue of the Communications of the ACM, ITIF Senior Analyst Daniel Castro debates the merits of paper-trails with activist David Dill.

This report shows how IT is the key enabler of many of today’s key improvements in our lives and society—from better education and health care, to a cleaner and more energy-efficient environment, to safer and more secure communities and nations.

In the United States the 2010 Census will be the most expensive in history, costing taxpayers more than three times what they paid for the 2000 Census. Recently, the Census Bureau made headlines when it announced that it would need another $3 billion to pay for a failed IT project. Yet technology should not be blamed for the cost overruns and technical problems at the Census Bureau, but rather poor technology leadership. As ITIF Senior Analyst Daniel Castro notes in this WebMemo, this most recent failure by the Census Bureau is evidence that the United States is no longer the global leader it once was in using IT for e-government. Most notably, the United States is one of the few nations not allowing its citizens to submit their census forms online.

Despite heated debate about the security and accessibility of voting technology, at the end of the day all sides agree that they want better voting systems. But what will the voting systems of the future look like? At this event, the lead scientists of two of the most innovative voting systems will unveil their most recent research and provide attendees the opportunity to participate in hands-on demonstrations of their technology. In addition, computer security expert Dr. Alec Yasinsac will present an overview of Operation BRAVO – a pilot project designed to bring a secure remote voting solution to the approximately 2 million overseas military and civilian voters who would otherwise be unable to vote.