It’s sort of tradition in this country that our representatives in Congress are always at least 10 years behind the rest of us when it comes to technology. (The Internet is a “series of tubes.” anyone?) Lately, though, our fearless Senators and Representatives have been moving faster than usual to embrace social media websites.

Quickly grasping the obvious benefits of Facebook —the massive fundraising potential and abundant candid pics of good-looking interns — members of Congress are now working to amend the arcane rules that govern their official work to make it easier to “hang out” on these social sites without violating the rules.

Two weeks ago, the chairman and ranking members of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration issued a letter spelling out conduct on sites like Facebook. The giant super-poke to Senate colleagues from chairman Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and ranking Republican Robert Bennett (Utah) provided a list of rules to live by when using these sites, some clearer than others.

“The rapid evolution of new Internet-based media and the creation of third-party websites and tools present fresh opportunities for Senate offices to serve their constituents and the public,” the June 3 letter began.

The rules in question are known as “franking” rules, originally created to govern the use of mass mailings by members of Congress to their constituents at the government’s expense. The franking privilege allowed them to put their signature in the place where a stamp would normally go. Since that time, modes of communication have become significantly more complicated and the franking rules have tried to keep up.

Already several members of the Senate host profiles on Facebook, so it was imperative that the Rules Committee put their policy into place. Back in 2007, Facebook launched a profile template specifically for politicians, and last fall, it conducted training for members of Congress.

A major concern of the Rules committee is that official Senate business be kept separate from “political, commercial, and promotional activities.”  Members are not permitted to talk about legislation under consideration on the same page that they are asking for campaign donations. This crucial ethics rule is ingrained into all Members, but the introduction of third-party websites to the communications mix makes for more of a minefield than the previous setup of only official .gov pages.

In fact, the use of third-party websites as a campaign tool has clearly become an accepted and necessary method of obtaining contributions.

Other concerns of the Rules committee involve data collection and advertising on websites. As anybody who uses sites like Facebook knows, there is a lot of personal information freely shared. Below the surface, even more data on site visitors is often available. The Rules committee letter states that “Members are strongly cautioned against having an official presence on sites that may use such data for political or commercial activities.” And while it’s a minor annoyance for regular folks like us (no, I don’t want to see how much belly fat I can lose!), advertising, if wrongly or insensitively placed, can be an embarrassment or worse for Members of Congress.

The Rules Committee is currently in negotiations with Facebook and Twitter to accept the terms of excluding all “promotional, commercial, or partisan advertising and commentary from Member sponsored webpages." An agreement already exists with You Tube.

The funniest part of the letter from Schumer and Bennett was this: “No official resources -- office funds, staff time, equipment, space -- may be used for the creation or maintenance of political, commercial, or promotional material on these sites.” Right, like no staff ever wastes any time on Facebook. Ever.

Will Facebook and other third-party communications tools launch elected officials truly into the twenty-first century? This remains to be seen. A few early contributions from our Senators and Representatives have indicated a less than stellar grasp of appropriate behavior. But at least we’re heading in the direction of allowing members to participate in public discussions in places where the public is actually discussing.

Related Stories:

Government and Public Officials Use Twitter too.

Op-Ed: Whoa, Slow your roll Government 2.0, Twitter can’t do it all.

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