A petition has been set up on the White House's website calling for a new investigation of the events of 9/11 by an independent prosecutor. (The petition can be found at http://wh.gov/b1N . Complete text of the petition is below.) Petitioning the White House directly is a new tool to empower more direct input to the government. While internet-based petitions are certainly not new, it is new for the White House and it has a benefit that no other online petition can claim. If enough signatures are collected (25,000), the website rules state that there will be an official response from the appropriate agency emailed to every signer. That is something no other internet petition can even come close to doing.

On the down side completing the petitioning process is not easy. First, in order to sign a petition, people must complete the account set up process at the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov). Setting up an account requires a name, zip code, and email address. And the email address must be verified (by successfully receiving and responding to an email from the WhiteHouse.gov website) before the account set up is complete. Petition signers are not directly identified on the website, however, each signer's first name, date signing, and city are shown in the signer list.