Twittergate
From Sunshine Review
July 2008
In July 2008 it was found that Texas Congressman John Culbertson was using the social networking website Twitter to communicate his actions on the house floor to his constituents. This action was deemed illegal by some because twitter only allows 140 characters per "tweet" thus rendering impossible to put an official disclaimer that the tweets were coming from the congressman himself.
The scandal has been dubbed "Twittergate" by the media.
The congressman, who is a Republican, was joined by his colleague Democrat Tim Ryan in defending his actions and demanding that, in order to make government more transparent, members of congress be allowed to tweet from the house floor.
The pair have set up a website Let Our Congress Tweet which is pushing for congress to change its rules about Twitter.
