True on all counts. That said, I think part of the potential for these types
of tools is that they rely on open standards and are generally indexed after
some period, such that anyone with a computer has ready access to them and
without the too-frequent ministerial roadblocks. Is there a credible
argument to be made TODAY that paper records are easier to access than the
majority of their electronic counterparts, given the requirement to navigate
the bureaucracy, fill out the required form, maybe even come down to the
city clerk or courthouse and navigate more bureaucracy and roadblocks? 

Here's a more egregious example of this. Wanna know what employees of the
City of Houston make? It's a public record. It's published in today's
Houston Chronicle in electronic format, available to anyone with an Internet
connection and a browser. Yes, that precludes some folks or would require
them to visit their local library. But think you'd get it if you went down
to the City and just asked for it as is your right as a citizen (if you live
in Houston, anyway)? 

So I agree as to the point about records being created in formats the people
can't generally read - that's why I see so much merit to the arguments
against proprietary formats even when they are as ubiquitous as Microsoft
Word or Adobe PDF (the latter of course now being an ISO standard - ISO
32000-1 - no longer being applicable!). 

Couple of thoughts about this particular case though. 
1. At least at the moment and in this particular case, the information being
transmitted is not considered "official" communications in most senses but
is rather more equivalent to a Congresscritter (CC)'s blathering on on
his/her website, or via postal mail, or on C-SPAN. There are of course other
uses that could be official, and anything transmitted could certainly be
discovered, but let me focus on the narrow case at the moment. 

2. Most constituents have no idea what their CC does or thinks on a regular
basis, in part because the message is always reviewed by ten layers of staff
or bureaucracy or both. That has its merits in some circumstances, but in
others it's helpful to understand what the CC actually thinks, free of that
filtering/spinning process. 

3. And again all of this will be indexed at some point by the major search
engines with the result that there is more, not less transparency to what is
being said/done. After all, most transparency in practice does not come from
the ability of the casual citizen to go down to City Hall and request
records - it comes from watchdogs like newspapers, advocacy groups, and the
odd gadfly (Don, this shout-out is to you!) who have the time and/or the
energy to do that heavy lifting on our behalf. And I can guarantee with my
political scientist hat on that a Congress that blogs and Twitters is MUCH
more open and transparent that the current one that hides 13,000+ earmarks
in bills after they've been debated and before they are signed - as one
tiny, minor, billion-dollar example. 

My tuppence over a very nice Wailua Wheat from Kona Brewing Co., 

Jesse Wilkins
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Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jessewilkins 

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