Modify the law using GitHub's pull request function Its whole story is open to the public

In Washington, the capital of the United States, the law is managed using GitHub. Joshua Toberell, the founder of the service promoting legal open data "GovTrack", from the mistake of typographical errors to correcting using the pull request function will be released at Ars Technica, an international news media It has been.

How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-the-law-with-a-github-pull-request/

One day, he discovered that the reference to the text was incorrect when Toberra was investigating the law. The problem became a sentence "The Ministry of Public Government gives advice on the implementation of I in chapter 5 of Chapter 2", but the text to actually point to is the II in Chapter 5, II .

The law of Washington is published on GitHub . The law on GitHub is not a copy but an official source of information, and the texts that can actually be viewed on the official website of Washington, DC are generated using the ones on GitHub. In other words, if you modify the text on GitHub, it will also be reflected in public institutions. To GitHub, there is a "pull request function" that issues a request saying "I want you to incorporate better code because I wrote a better code", so Tobera will use this function to request a correction did.

The pull requests that Toberell actually issued are as follows. I am rewriting the text "I" to "II" and adding a comment with "type mistake".

A couple of days later, Congressional officials accept pull requests ... ...

The provision of the Washington DC government site, which is generated based on the data on GitHub, has also been automatically fixed.

Torabler says, "Technical modification of this kind is unnecessary of the passing of Congress and the signing by the mayor, and it is not necessary to sign a formal hearing, expert testimonies, stakeholder negotiations, voting by elected representatives "But it is a landmark event for the government and legislative openings," he said. "By publishing the law at GitHub, Congress quickly disclosed the law, the citizens are up to date This method is superior in searchability and it is government innovation in that citizens and lawyers of judicial relief organizations who can not use high cost legal investigation methods become accessible to justice " I am talking.