On June 6th and 7th, many of the thought leaders from the open government community attended Personal Democracy Forum 2011 at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Out of this group of big thinkers came a number of wonderful presentations, if you scroll over the image below you can see most of them from PDF '11 (apologies to those left out, there weren't videos for everyone).

Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:

Alan Fram with the Associated Press wrote about how the health insurance industry is fighting to prevent the Congress from passing a health care overhaul that includes a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. Fram cites data from the Center for Responsive Politics to show how health insurers have made $41 million in campaign contributions to current congressional lawmakers since 1989, “with more than half going to lawmakers on the five House and Senate panels writing this year’s health bills.” Since the beginning of 2008, insurers have spent $145 million on lobbying.

The New York Times' Jack Rosenthal, in writing the paper’s “On Language” column, mentioned how Andrew Raseij, Sunlight’s senior technology advisor and co-director of Personal Democracy Forum, is pushing for a federal law that redefines “public” to mean searchable and readable online. U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.) is drafting just such legislation. Rosenthal also noted how the Senate does not disclose campaign-contribution information to the Federal Election Commission in an electronic form. “That means it must be digitized by the commission, by which time the next election may well have come and gone. Transparent? Yes, but also emasculated,” Rosenthal wrote.

Federal Computer Week’s Ben Bain wrote about how the Obama administration is asking federal agencies to gear their spending plans for science and technology in fiscal 2011 toward projects designed to drive economic growth, create energy independence, improve health, and bolster security, according to recently issued general guidance. Peter Orszag, Obama’s OMB director, outlined the new emphasis in an August 4th memo (PDF). Craig Jennings, a senior federal fiscal policy analyst with OMB Watch, said the memo is an indication that science and technology will be high priorities for the administration.

Colin Barr at Fortune magazine wrote about how skeptics are questioning a claim made by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Geithner said taxpayers have made a small profit, $6 billion, on their investments in banks via the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Barr quotes Marcus Peacock, Pew’s project director of Subsidyscope saying the government isn’t doing enough to document what’s happening with the money. Peacock said government data collection projects are often “pockmarked” with omissions and outright errors, a pattern that hasn’t been broken with the financial bailouts. Despite the administration’s public embrace of transparency, it has failed to provide full and understandable disclosure of its actions in TARP, Peacock said.

The Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer editorialized about the Blue Dog Coalition’s effect on the health care debate in Congress, using Dan Eggen’s article in last Friday’s edition of The Washington Post. The editorial notes Eggen citing Party Time’s compilation of records of political fundraisers since 2008. “America has been waiting for more than 60 years for universal health care. (The) Blue Dogs wouldn’t mind if it took another 60 years to give Americans what every other advanced nation in the world now has,” the editorial says. “This is yet another example of how our current system of legalized bribery, otherwise known as campaign contributions, distorts the democratic process.”

Beth Sussman, writing at the National Journal’s “Under the Influence” blog, OpenCongress' redesign. She quotes OpenCongress’ David Moore, “You never hear somebody at a bar talking about clause 56 in H.R. 3200.” So OpenCongress “enables peer-to-peer communication about the best information on bills in Congress.” Sussman reports how the site now has an email form, so you can send an email to contact lawmakers about legislation, a tracking tool so you can compare how you would vote on a piece of legislation with how your representative has voted and a personalized list of legislation you may support or oppose. “There was a real opportunity to bring together this confusing government data with helpful data and what people were saying about it,” David said. The site aims to “make all the information about Congress more accessible to people who aren’t necessarily Congress-buffs.”

USA Today wrote about documents made public by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) that showed how Amtrak wanted to fire its independent Inspector General, who was effectively forced to resign several weeks ago. The IG and the rail carrier had feuded since it was revealed in 2006 that Amtrak had spent more than $100 million in mismanaged fees to private lawyers over a five year period, allegedly violating Amtrak billing rules.

The Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star editorialized about the need for congressional lawmakers to read legislation they are voting on. They mentioned how Sunlight is one of a number of organizations advocating that Congress put all legislation online 72 hours before they conduct a vote. The editorial called on Nebraska’s congressional delegation to support such a proposal.

Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:

National Journal's Eliza Newlin Carney wrote about how the health care industry is unleashing big money as the health care debate in Congress intensifies. She notes the blog post from Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight's senior writer, about how five of Sen. Max Baucus' (Mont.) former staff members now work for a total of 27 different organizations that either represent the health care or insurance industries, or have a vested interest in the debate. She also quotes Paul, "We thought it was important to show the public that the senators aren't crafting the policy by themselves. They have all these other connections, through relationships, that have a huge stake in this legislation." Trudy Lieberman with the Columbia Journalism Review also highlighted and linked to Paul's post and the graphic he and Kerry Mitchell, Sunlight's creative director, produced. The "study shows exactly what advocates of real and substantive health reform are up against," Lieberman wrote, adding that Sunlight provides clarity on just who has the senator’s ear.

Speaking of Kerry's graphic art skills, The New York Times' "First Look" blog includes one of his illustrations in a post highlighting great visualizations created by designers using the Times APIs that "both beautify and clarify information." Kerry's graphic illustrates the Times' usage of the word "transparency" since 1990.

David Talbot at MIT's Technology Review, in an article how volunteers are using the Web to help make the U.S. government more accountable, highlighted Transparency Corps. Talbot quoted Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs, "Government puts out a ton of data that is really interesting about what it does, but people can't understand it." Transparency Corps launch roughly coincided with the launch earlier this month of the White House's IT Dashboard, the administration's effort to chart the progress of information-technology projects in various federal agencies. The article quotes Andrew Rasiej, Sunlight's senior technology advisor and co-founder of Personal Democracy Forum, saying the dashboard may be just the tip of the iceberg heralding a new age of transparency regarding federal spending. "Once people get used to this type of information being so readily accessible, they will demand to see (it) for all other federal spending too, and then the genie will be completely out of the bottle."

Dan Eggen at The Washington Post wrote how the debate about health-care reform has been a boon to the political fortunes of the 52 members of the Blue Dog Coalition, who have become key brokers in shaping legislation in the House. Eggan used Party Time data to show show U.S. Rep. Mike Ross (Ark.), a leader of the Blue Dogs, has had a steady schedule of fundraising events sponsored by the health industry or lobbying firms that represent health-care companies. Eggen used data from the Center for Responsive Politics that showed Ross had received nearly $1 million in contributions from the health-care sector and insurance industry during his five terms in Congress. On the topic of Party Time, be sure not to miss National Journal's interview with Party Time's director Nancy Watzman.

The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise quotes data from Taxpayers for Common Sense that shows the $636 billion military spending bill passed Thursday by the House contains 1,100 earmarks totaling roughly $2.75 billion. Rep. Jerry Lewis (Calif.) inserted 19 earmarks worth more than $70 million for defense firms with Inland Southern California branches and other area institutions, according to Taxpayers.

Joe Davidson, "Federal Diary" columnist for The Washington Post, wrote about how 10 years of work paid off Wednesday when the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs advanced S. 372, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009, meant to further protect federal whistleblowers. Because of important differences between the House and the Senate on the bill, there was real concern that the legislation would flounder. But "shuttle diplomacy" conducted by the Obama White House "left those involved feeling as if they gained more than they gave up," Davidson wrote. He quoted Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, "There were genuine concerns that people worked through. It's the way you want government to work."

PC World reports on a call from the Center for Democracy and Technology to the Obama administration to answer several questions about the privacy implications of a new version of a computer intrusion detection system that can reportedly read email. On Tuesday, CDT released a report (PDF) calling on the administration to provide information about the legal authority for the so-called Einstein intrusion detection system currently being employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Resource Shelf, a daily newsletter with resources of interest to information professionals, educators and journalists, highlighted OpenCongress' redesign. "If you or those you work with have any interest in the workings of the U.S. Congress and related matters, OpenCongress is one impressive (and free) resource," the post says. "We strongly recommend taking a look at it."

Vivek Kundra, federal CIO, and Macon Phillips, White House new media director, unveiled Office of Management and Budget's IT dashboard this morning at the Personal Democracy Forum Conference in New York City. And the PDF attendees gave him a well-deserved standing ovation.

The dashboard was built to monitor more than $70 billion in government information technology spending, showing all contracts within every agency, and is one of the features of the redesigned USASpending.gov, re-launched early this morning.

During the presentation, Kundra mentioned that launching a platform that will allow the government to tap into the best thinking and the best ideas. And Phillips added that it’s just the beginning. Kundra also admitted that announcing that the federal data will be available online to the public has spurred government bureaucrats to start cleaning it up, proving the rule that sunlight is the best disinfectant. The initial dashboard is for IT expenditures only. And I’d add, however, that if you want the data on the government investments in General Motors or AIG you’ll need to go to SubsidyScope.com.

In the question session, Andrew Rasiej, PDF co-founder and Sunlight senior technology advisor, asked Kundra if we should redefine “public” as “searchable, accessible and readable online. Kundra replied with an affirmative absolutely “yes.” As Jay Rosen, N.Y.U. journalism prof,  tweeted, “What we've been watching with CIO Vivek Kundra at #pdf09 is the undoing of the opacity agenda of the Bush years, right before our eyes!”

NextGov.com’s Gautham Nagesh noted today that the site’s new visualization tools are a definite improvement. “It's now possible with just a few clicks to see how much money an agency has invested in IT projects and what percentage of those projects are behind schedule or over budget,” Nagesh wrote.

We are told that OMB will be holding a press conference this afternoon at 3:30 (Eastern Time) to highlight the redesigned USASpending.gov and the IT dashboard.

Check it out!

Personal Democracy Forum kicks off Monday in New York. This will be PDF’s sixth event, with this year's theme being "We.gov,” as in all the ways that we, the people are using technology and new media to transform politics, campaigns, media, governance and civic action. This is one conference I never miss willingly (I think I've only missed one!) and I'm honestly not that much of a conference-goer. I think of it as my annual "brain food." I can't wait.

A “two-day tech + politics brainfest” is how Tim O’Reilly described PDF last week.  PDF will be tracking the state-of-the-art online politics, exploring government 2.0., looking at the new tools for organizing that are being used, as well as looking at the future of political journalism, blogging and networked media.

I’m excited to see old and new friends, many who are keynote speakers. A radically truncated list includes emerging technology expert (and Sunlight board member) Esther Dyson; senior fellow at Demos and PDF senior editor Allison Fine; now-former Washington Post “White House Watch” blogger Dan Froomkin (Dan posted his last earlier today…A must read!); New York State Senate CIO Andrew Hoppin (I blogged about him earlier today); journalism prof and Buzzmachine.com blogger Jeff Jarvis; Obama administration CIO Vivek Kundra; Craigslist founder (and Sunlight board member) Craig Newmark; law professor Beth Noveck; “Here Comes Everybody” author Clay Shirky; campaign re-inventor Joe Trippi and “The Cluetrain Manifesto” co-author and blogger David Weinberger. Really there are too many good people coming and speaking to mention

Congratulations, in advance to Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry, PDF’s co-founders, and Sunlight’s senior technology advisors. It’s going to be a very exciting couple of days.

Maybe you can join at the last minute.

The New York State Senate’s chief information officer Andrew Hoppin and his team have been making tremendous strides in opening up the inner workings of the chamber to the public, and are well on their way to achieving levels of transparency and accountability not before seen by any American legislative body, state or federal.

That in and of itself is worthy of great praise. However, they are fulfilling their mission while pitched partisan warfare is being waged over who controls the chamber. Not knowing who your boss is and whether you’ll have a job tomorrow is undoubtedly distracting, to say the least. But as Craig Newmark, wrote on his blog, “Looks like they're getting it done, despite all the drama in NY state politics.” Earlier this week, The New York Observer’s Gillian Reagan highlighted the work of Hoppin and his team revamping the Senate's Web site and services in order to “bring back-door conversations and government data and empower constituents.”

Last month, I blogged about how the NY Senate is building an array of online services that will offer citizens a much clearer window into how the chamber functions and invites their participation, including information such as bill text, budget plans and lawmaker’s expenditures and funding reports. It includes a public database of legislation that’s searchable by bill number, sponsor, committee or keyword. And they’ve added a Plain Language Initiative that translates legal and political jargon into more readable text. The site now includes a weekly calendar, “What’s happening now?” and “Find my senator” functions, info on senators, a listing of committees, data on issues and legislation, photos and videos and a blog.

One aspect I find especially cool is the Markup function that allows the public to comment on legislation that is under consideration, in essence a New York version of Sunlight’s Public Markup.Note that they are using a Creative Commons license. (Sunlight’s senior technology advisors, Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry, are advising the Senate on their transparency redesign.)

This is really great work under the most challenging of political circumstances.

Within the past week, the New York State Senate has taken some impressive steps toward conducting its business open and online. Earlier today, the Senate launched its new Web site that offers citizens a much clearer window into how the chamber functions and invites their participation. The site now includes a weekly calendar, "What's happening now?" and "Find my senator" functions, info on senators, a listing of committees, data on issues and legislation, photos and videos and a blog. One aspect I find especially cool is the Markup function that allows the public to comment on legislation that is under consideration. This function is a New York version of Sunlight's Public Markup. (Sunlight’s senior technology advisors, Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry, are advising the Senate on their transparency redesign.) And here's a link to an article from The New York Observer about the launch.

Here's a short video of Malcolm A. Smith, Senate majority leader, introducing the site:

The new Web site launch comes on the heels of strong voices in the Senate calling on Gov. David Paterson to be transparent in how the state spends the federal stimulus funds. Last week, Republican lawmakers, citing a "total lack of oversight and accountability" with regard to the stimulus, called on the governor to adopt a comprehensive plan designed to ensure greater transparency in the spending of stimulus dollars. And earlier this week, 16 Democratic state senators sent the governor a letter calling on him to create an independent auditor to monitor the distribution of stimulus funds. And this all comes after a coalition, calling itself the NYS Stimulus Oversight Working Group, in April, called for the creation of an independent stimulus monitor (pdf).

Back in late February, John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director, testified before the State Senate’s Temporary Committee on Rules Reform about the need for states to be open and transparent in their spending of stimulus funds. In his testimony, John promoted standards for transparency that can and should be applied generally to any legislature, and should be examined in the context of state-level disclosure reform.  And he proposed eight questions we at Sunlight believe the New York State Senate should be asking:

1. Is public information online?  Any data deemed public should also be available online.  Government serves the public poorly when it fulfills disclosure requirements by keeping binders in the basement of a public building. Government should post online in a timely manner procedural information, such as bills, committee schedules, transcripts, reports, or calendars to allow lawmakers and citizens to participate in the legislative process.  Rules should require such information to be posted online by those responsible for its creation: lawmakers, the leadership, or committees.

1. Are databases accessible in bulk?  Public databases should allow for advanced access through both bulk data download and programmatic interfaces (Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs).  Limited level of access forces programmers and analysts to examine public data through a needlessly limited viewpoint, effectively spurning complex or creative scrutiny.

2. Is public data accurate and descriptive?  Legislative information must be accurate to maintain its public utility. Votes data, journals, and transcripts should accurately reflect reality, and chambers' rules should enforce this requirement.

3. Is technological infrastructure insulated from political abuse?  Professional qualified staff should create and maintain legislatures’ technological infrastructure with reliable funding and insulation from political concerns.  Committees for technological coordination, inspectors general, and public advisory boards can all provide effective steps toward promoting competent technology infrastructure.

4. Is ethics disclosure sufficient? Public trust is undermined when legislatures fail to enforce the disclosure of ethics information.  Financial disclosures, campaign finance disclosure, taxpayer funded expenditures, and ethics investigations should all be publicly available, in real time, and online.

5. Are individual lawmakers, committees, and leadership offices able to take advantage of online tools?  Just as non-profits, businesses, and other governments can set a useful example, individual staffers and lawmakers will often set good example if they can confidently engage online.  Legislatures should provide the technological support and legal guidance necessary for online engagement to flourish.

6. Is the public well served by the legislature's disclosure? Legislatures often fail to meet even basic needs of constituents, answering questions like "Who is my representative?" or "Where can I find this bill?" Citizens should have a clear mechanism or contact point for transparency feedback, to help identify shortfalls, and develop better disclosure procedures.

7. Are lawmakers and their staffs able to do their jobs? A useful proxy for public access can be lawmakers’ offices themselves.  If lawmakers and their staff are missing an essential piece of information, or relying on expensive subscription services to do their jobs, then citizens are certainly being shut out. Lawmakers should have a similar forum for addressing technological issues, without fear of political reprisal.

As Ingrid Drake writes at POGO’s blog, a strong legislative branch is necessary to provide oversight of the executive branch, as is diligent citizen watchdogging, I would add.  Ingrid reports that the folks at POGO are hearing reports from the Empire State that “information about available stimulus funds is currently being shared mostly with entities that already have long-standing ties to state government through existing grants and contracts, or other existing relationships.”

Congratulations to Andrew, Micah and the Empire State Senate for their new and more transparent Web site. And kudos to the folks in New York working on bringing oversight and accountability to how the state spends the stimulus. The rest of the states should do the same.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:

Sunday evening, BlogTalkRadio posted an episode of “Talking Gov2.0,” where Clay Johnson, Sunlight Lab’s director, discussed Sunlight, Sunlight Labs and the Apps for America contest. Speaking of Apps for America, Clay announced the winners on Monday. And Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb wrote about the contest, and included a screencast of the winners.

Victoria McGrane with the Politico wrote about the lack of online disclosure of campaign finance data by candidates for the U.S. Senate, and the efforts to rectify this through S. 482, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. She mention’s Sunlight’s Pass S. 482, and extensively quotes Lisa Ronsenberg, Sunlight’s government affairs consultant, about the need for the Senate to join the 21st Century.

The National Journal reported on data from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) that shows last year’s top 20 Political Action Committee contributors to federal candidates poured a combined $22 million into lobbying efforts from January through March -- an increase of nearly 20 percent over the same period in 2008.

Anne C. Mulkern with Greenwire (subscription required) used Capitol Words to look at the use of energy- and environment-related words by congressional lawmakers. The New York Times re-posted Mulkern's piece.

CongressDaily’s Carrie Dann reported (subscription required) on a new study conducted by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) that shows short-term lenders have dramatically increased their spending on lobbying and campaign contributions since 2004. The industry is trying to defeat a bill that would cap annual interest rates on consumer loans at 36 percent. The Los Angeles Times used CRP data in reporting that Sen. Christopher Dodd (Conn.), the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, has received over $44,000 from the industry in the first quarter of this year. The Times quoted Sheila Krumholz, CRP’s director, saying that it’s hardly surprising that payday lenders would be contributing heavy to Dodd now.

The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel reported on a recently-updated Federal Contractor Misconduct Database by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) that shows Lockheed Martin Corp., the nation’s largest defense contractor, is the number one offender. The group found Lockheed linked to 50 cases of civil, criminal or administrative misconduct since 1995.

Steve Coll at The New Yorker wrote about following the stimulus funding. “Like ornithology, it turns out that stimulus watching involves a larger, more passionate subculture than might initially be expected,” Coll wrote. He highlighted OMB Watch’s budget-and-tax-policy section that “often produces wonky stimulus-related tracking.”

The May edition of the Washingtonian magazine will include a feature on the Washington, D.C., region’s technology leaders, dubbing them “Tech Titans.” The feature will include Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, as one of the region’s tech leaders. The magazine’s Web site includes a video with several short statements by the tech leaders featured, including Ellen discussing her favorite gadgets and using technology to bring government transparency.

Bara Vaida at National Journal's "Under the Influence" highlighted a blog post by Nancy Watzman, Sunlight's Denver-based consultant, about the 170 fundraising invitations for 2009 events the Party Time campaign has collected so far.

National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" aired the first of a two-part story by Andrea Seabrook on the federal government's data being opened up via technology. The first part aired Thursday, and it centered on Recovery.gov, the Obama administration's site that's tracking spending by the economic stimulus plan. For the piece, Seabrook interviewed Ellen, Clay, Greg Elan, Sunlight evangelist, and Andrew Rasiej, Sunlight technology advisor. Seabrook has lead us to believe the second installment, which is scheduled to air during this afternoon’s edition of “All Things Considered,” will center more on the work of Sunlight. The program begins at 4:00 pm (Eastern Time).

Update: Seabrook's second installment can be seen and listened to here.

Thanks, and see you next week!

Weekend before this most recent one, Government 2.0 Camp took place here in Washington and by all accounts it was a huge success. Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum and Sunlight’s senior technology advisor, led a panel discussion about what the meaning of transparency is in the Obama administration. During the discussion, Andrew and the participants came up with "Top 10 Measurements for Transparency." And it’s quite a comprehensive list.

Here’s a photo of the board they were taking notes on:

Here’s a short video of Andrew quickly running through the measurements:

Ten Measures for Transparency Success from Gov 2.0 on Vimeo.

Here’s a quick outline of the 10 measurements:

1.    Open data: The federal government should make all data searchable, findable and accessible. 2.    Disclose spending data: The government should disclose how it is spending taxpayer dollars, who is spending it and how it’s being spent. 3.    Procurement data: How does the government decide where the money is getting spent, who gets it, how they are spending it and how can we measure success. 4.    Open portal for public request for information: There should be a central repository for all Freedom of Information Act requests that are public to that people can see in real time when the requests come in, how fast the government responds to them. 5.    Distributed data: The government should make sure it builds redundancy in their system so that data is not held in just one location, but held in multiple places in case of a disaster, terrorist attack or some other reason where the data is damaged. Redundancy would guarantee government could rebuild the data for future use. 6.    Open meetings: Government meetings should be open to the public so that citizens can tell who is trying to influence government. All schedules should be published as soon as they happen so that people can see who is meeting with whom and who is trying to influence whom. 7.    Open government research: Currently, when government conducts research, it usually does not report the data it collects until the project is finished. Government should report its research data while its being collected in beta form. This would be a measure of transparency and would change the relationship that people have to government research as it is being collected. 8.    Collection transparency: Government should disclose how it is collecting information, for whom are they collecting the data, and why is it relevant. The public should have the ability to judge whether or not it valuable to them, and giving them the ability to comment on it. 9.    Allowing the public to speak directly to the president: Recently, we saw the president participate in something called “Open for Questions,” where he gave the public access to ask questions. This allowed him to burst his bubble and be in touch with the American public directly is another measure of transparency. 10.    Searchable, crawl able and accessible data: If the government were to make all data searchable, crawl able and accessible we would go along way in realizing all the goals presented at the Gov 2.0 Camp.

I wanted to note all this for posterity. We'd love to hear you comments and thoughts about it.

David Robinson, associate director of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy, has an interesting post at the center's Freedom to Tinker blog about the best way government should present data. David proposes that government should release its information in a form nobody wants to read via XML files that are  "machine-readable" but are largely indecipherable to the human eye. It would be up to journalists, activist organizations and individuals to decipher and present the data in ways citizens can understand. This would spawn the creativity that would allow "a thousand mashups bloom," he argues.

Government releasing data in XML format, in many cases, would be a step in the right direction. No question about that. One of the great maxims of Web 2.0 is that when it comes to data and information, content is king. The act of making data available opens up all sorts of possibilities of sharing, remixing and the like. But why should government stop there? Why shouldn't government agencies make an effort to make their data more easily understood by the average citizen? David is proposing a false argument, I believe. Who is advocating that government should be the "only source for interaction" with its data? Why either/or? Why not both?

There have been some very clever displays of government data. Take ProPublica's interactive graph of where all the money is going in the proposed stimulus bill  published earlier this week, for example. Another is Sunlight's own Capitol Words, where, for every day Congress is in session, Capitol Words visualizes the most frequently used words in the Congressional Record, giving you an at-a-glance view of which issues lawmakers address on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

Andrew Rasiej, Personal Democracy Forum founder and Sunlight senior technology adviser, has said government should put the Sunlight Foundation out of business by fully embracing Web 2.0. I won't hold my breath but I wouldn't be unhappy with the situation. Government should be in the business of devising methods of both serving up its data and communicating its  so that the citizens it serves can use it as they see fit.