[someinternetguy]

From what I've seen this is how the response has been to every petition thus far. They basically give an overview about the topic and some historical information but really say nothing and promise nothing. It's the equivalent of setting a trashcan in your office and putting a sign on it that says "Complaint Department".

[farnsworth]

Yep. "If enough people care, we'll copy/paste a press release." But what else could we have expected? That they'll drop everything, gather the experts, and rethink the past N decades of policy just because enough people on the internet clicked a button? Just another reason that the type of mass democracy that people keep saying that the internet will bring won't work without some Big New Thing for how people interact. There are still too many people and too many ideas.

[sv123]

Would be humorous if this petition got the necessary signatures to get a response: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/actually-ta...

[thoughtsimple]

Thanks. It won't make any difference but I still love it.

Everyone please sign this petition. The sign up process sucks but it will be worth it to make the Obama spin machine have to respond to this.

[hugh3]

It's not that hard for the Obama spin machine to respond to this. "Blah blah blah, of course we take all suggestions very seriously. In fact we have already done [something unrelated]. We thank you for your interest. Give us money."

[cabalamat]

Exactly. The UK government did this a few years ago, and every response amounted to "we're going to do it anyway".

[mcantelon]

The Obama administration is pretty much the Bush administration with better PR.