Internet-sarcasm-savvy Senators Tom Coburn and Claire McCaskill introduced a new bill this week called the “Let Me Google That For You Act.” Really. The bill could also have been called #cancelNTIS. Let Me Google That For You, for the uninitiated, is a site you can use to mock your friends whenever they ask you a simple question they could easily answer themselves with any web browser. It’s a good way to make yourself feel superior and your friend feel like an idiot.
Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla) is well known for his Wastebook reports, annual documents that detail the unwieldy and often absurd expenditures made by the federal government. Now, Coburn and a bipartisan group of policymakers have come together to propose a new bill aimed at a single agency, the National Technology Information Service (NTIS), they view as outdated and unnecessary. The bill, snarkily named the “Let Me Google That For You Act,” sets its sights on the NTIS for charging for technical reports that anyone can Google for free. The NTIS was established in 1970 within the Department of Commerce as a resource for the country’s government-funded technical, scientific, engineering, and business data.
