For a federal government that has at all levels talked about transparency, I find it disturbing that many of the federal websites are completely unusable with Tuesday's shutdown. Well, except for those that are now political propaganda sites: whitehouse.gov blaming Congress and house.gov and senate.gov as soap boxes for Congress members blaming the White House.
Sites like FTC.gov and USDA.gov are full of useful information that citizen tax dollars have built. Why would a transparent government shut citizens out of these websites? They are our websites!
I understand that submitting information, requests and whatever to these websites will result in nothing happening from furloughed workers. But either leave those pieces up with a warning or shut down specific submission forms. Static information about our government and society should be made available to citizens.
A transparent government doesn't lock out information. This is political grandstanding. As citizens we demand access to information gathered and collected for our benefit using our tax dollars. Open these sites up and do it now. Stop acting like 4-year olds who don't want to share their toys.
Dan Clawson
Layton