Trying to blog about the "Real ID" bill

Just had an interesting phone conversation.

I called Rep. Sensenbrenner’s office again to try to get answers to my questions about the “Real ID” bill, or H.R. 418. This time I was told that office policy is that no questions are answered over the phone, but only via letters, which would take a couple of weeks. (See previous BBA posts here and here.)

“But,” I said, “what if a member of the press – which I’m not – had questions about a bill? You don’t make members of the press wait for a couple weeks, do you?”

“Then they’d talk to the appropriate Press Secretary.”

“Well, have you made allowances for bloggers yet?”

“Hold on, I’ll see.” After a couple of minutes,

“I can transfer you to the press secretary of the House Judiciary Committee.”

So, I left a voice mail message explaining that I'm a blogger with unanswered questions.

We’re still at the edge of this new territory; blogs aren’t MSM (thank goodness), but what are we? Here’s an article addressing the issue pretty well in terms of press credentials for bloggers at the Democratic convention last summer, and here’s a blogger’s perspective on that same event.

As far as talking to the press secretary, I’m not even saying I should be allowed to. After all, what if every blogger – all four eight million of them – wanted to do the same thing? That’s a clichéd argument against doing something, but it's not unreasonable.

Also, I’m not a journalist, and don’t pretend to be. I’m not even a journalist wanna-be.

But I am a citizen, with questions, and a blogger, with a means of sharing information rapidly. This bill may be voted on sometime soon in the Senate; shouldn't we be able to have our questions answered before then?

I did my homework of reading the bill, searching for information online, and finally calling my representative’s office. My questions still couldn’t be answered.

So we’ll see if being a non-credentialed citizen blogger helps.