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

Last Saturday afternoon, C-SPAN broadcast an interview of Ellen Miller, Sunlight's executive director, discussing how the Internet is being used to provide transparency in the workings of government.

The Associated Press used data from the Center for Responsive Politics Chevron Corp. spent more than $12.8 million lobbying the federal government in the first half of this year, in an attempt to influence pending climate-change legislation and taxes targeting oil producers. So far this year, the oil giant has almost matched the $12.9 million they spent lobbying in all of 2008.

The Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker, the searchable database that allows users to easily follow the money and connect the dots within records of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) database, launched this week. ProPublica and Sunlight teamed up on the project that allows anyone to quickly learn what foreign governments are lobbying whom, how often and about what. Alex Knott with CQ Politics covered the launch and quotes Ellen saying how information contained on the site shows how effective lobbyists can be. "While it brings needed transparency to these filings, it raises the question of what lobbyists for health care, energy and other interests -- who disclose far less information -- are up to in Washington," she said. In this morning's "In the Loop" column, The Washington Post's Al Kamen highlighted the Tracker. "What? You don't have a registered foreign agent working for you?" he asked. "Everyone's got one. Even the Dalai Lama!"

Katherine Mangu-Ward, senior editor of Reason magazine, writing at The Wall Street Journal, penned a column titled "Transparency Chic," where she highlights several efforts by private groups and individuals to pry open government information. "Tech celebs like Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales have flocked to the Sunlight Foundation, which uses the Internet to improve meaningful access to government," she wrote.

ABC News' David Wright reported on the health care debate and includes a quote from Bill Allison, Sunlight's senior fellow, about the special interests attempts to influence the health care debate. Bill explained who's working for who: "Insurance companies battling providers. Drug companies battling insurance companies. Hospitals going to war against nursing homes. All kinds of institutions are looking to protect their interests."

McClatchy Newspapers editorialized about how the Obama administration is continuing some of the opaque practices of the Bush administration despite promises to the contrary. They cite Ellen's blog post from last week about the need for the White House to list presidential signing statements on its Web site in an easy-to-find manner as an example. A number of McClatchy papers ran the editorial, including The (Colorado Springs, Colo.) Gazette.

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.

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

Various media outlets and bloggers, including the likes of CNET.com, the Associated Press, the National Journal, Lawrence Lessig and Craig Newmark, have covered and congratulated the Center for Responsive Politics' (CRP) for making its data records from OpenSecrets.org free for anyone to download. The Journal's "Tech Daily Dose" column reported that more than 120 people had downloaded bulk data within the first 24 hours of CRP opening up its archives.

The Washington Post's "The Reliable Source" column highlighted Capitol Words, which "slices and dices the entirety of the Congressional Record for your searching pleasure," they write. McClatchy's David Lightman reported that, in light of the financial crisis, words you would expect to be used by congressional lawmakers often, such as recession, bailout, stimulus and deficit do not crack the top 30 most frequently uttered terms so far this year. And Daphne Ritter with the New York Post looks at the top words used by several lawmakers from the Empire State's congressional delegation.

Alice Lipowicz with Federal Computer Week used OpenCongress data in writing about how only 10 congressional lawmakers (four senators and six reps) post their daily schedules on their official Web sites. New York Newsday editorialized about how Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) is blazing a trail in her congressional career by posting her schedule and personal financial disclosure reports online. "While (congressional lawmakers are) at it, they should make sure that information is easy to locate, archived and searchable, so that watchful voters can track, over time, the lobbyists and interest groups bending an official's ear," the editors wrote.

Last week, Ryan Singel at Wired's "Epicenter" blog wrote about Sunlight Labs' contest Apps for America, and asked his readers to vote for their favorites. This week, he reported back on the response he received, and issued what he terms the "Epicenter Reader's Choice award."

Speaking of Sunlight Labs, both Craig Newmark on his blog and Andrew Pratt at Science Progress praised the Labs' pre-design for the yet-to-be-launched Data.gov, the site that new White House CIO Vivek Kundra has promised will be an easy-to-use central repository of federal bulk data. "This is precisely the kind of work I've argued that the nonprofit and advocacy sphere needs to be engaged in right now," Pratt wrote.

The San Francisco Examiner editorialized about how Congress should exercise its oversight authority and find out where every last federal bailout dollar has been spent. The Examiner gives props to Anu Narayanswamy's Real Time Investigations expose' of the identity of senior U.S. Treasury officials who are also members of the Troubled Assets Relief Program's Investment Committee -- a small group that makes big decisions about which banks receive how much of our money.

The Washington Independent's Elana Schor reports on an analysis they conducted of House and Senate fundraising during the current election cycle compared to the previous cycles. Despite the economic downturn, their analysis showed significant upticks in campaign giving. Schor quotes Bill Allison, Sunlight's senior fellow, "For the average citizen, the election is over and they're not even going to think about it for the next four years." But the donors "who are paying close attention," have a vested interest in what Congress does -- or does not -- pass into law this year.

Thanks, and see you next week!

TransparencyCamp, the unconference event that iStrategyLabs and Sunlight co-sponsored two weekends ago, was a huge success.

We made a highlight reel of the weekend --  interviews with many of the participants, including me  and Craig Newmark, scenes from various sessions. We want  to share with those who attended and those who couldn't make it :

The spirit generated 10 days ago lives on.

There are multiple ways to stay involved, whether you attended in person, virtually or not at all at the time. Check out the TransparencyCamp’s community page, where you can find videos, photos, community groups, free stuff and more. Here’s a list of ways to stay -- or get -- involved: 1. See what people have said about Transparency Camp on our delicious feed. 2. Join the Google Group. Currently there are  206 members who have added 86 messages. 3. Check out the full list of related community groups you can join. 4. Join our Transparency Breakfasts: The Sunlight Foundation is hosting what we hope will be an ongoing series of 90-minute “working breakfasts” to talk about plans, ideas, tactics and strategies for making the federal government more transparent. Bagels and coffee will be served. RSVP is required - sign up now by following this link: http://bit.ly/110oep. 5. I <3 Transparency happy hours: Sunlight will also be hosting a series of happy hours for transparency activists...With the next one happening on Friday April 3rd. 6. Follow and participate in the Twitter stream #TCAMP09. 7. Check out the camp's Flickr photos and group. (Thanks to Sunlight’s Avelino Maestas for setting it up.) 8. And here’s a link to a blog post I wrote at the conclusion of the camp on what people had been saying on Twitter about the event. Join us in keeping the spirit alive by continuing the communication and collaboration.

As we wait for Obama to name his new CTO, some encouraging news on the federal IT front is breaking. Candi Harrison, writes at her blog that Bev Godwin, director of USA.gov, will be joining the White House as director of online resources and interagency development on the New Media Team.  Candi writes that Bev knows the Web manager community, and she will bring that knowledge to the table when decisions are being made. “You couldn’t have a better, more savvy and more capable advocate,” she writes. “This is great news.’

Nancy Scola at Tech President concurs. “With this and other appointments, team Obama is turning the White House into social media's center of gravity in Washington, which is a distinct change from the past.” And Craig Newmark is also excited. “I, for one, welcome our new (Web content) nerd overlords.”

Let us second (third? fourth?) these acclamations for this appointment. We've worked with Bev a little and she and her GSA team have been focused, savvy, and smart about the institutional barriers they will confront as they try to fulfill the President's promises on transparency, open government and collaboration.

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and Sunlight board member, has written a thoughtful piece on service and volunteerism for The Huffington Post. The catalyst for Craig's piece is the reference by the Barack Obama platform, outlined at Change.gov, to their volunteerism plans as "a craigslist for service." Craig uses this opportunity to outline possible aspects of "a craigslist for service" from his point of view, such as offering to help an established charity, or use sites like VolunteerMatch.org, DonorsChoose.org and Kiva.org to find ways to donate your time and money in useful and thoughtful ways, along with other ideas.

He advises the Obama administration to remain serious about national service. He suggests that they  set up an national online tool to place those willing to serve where they might do the most good, and commit to a private/public partnership where citizens would pledge publicly to some form of service. And for the general public, Craig encourages Americans to commit to serve, and then register that commitment online at the volunteer site. He also suggests all of us to get educated on at least one major issue and get involved. And finally, he says we should encourage our friends, family members and co-workers to get involved in some form of volunteer work. Craig writes, "I feel that we're entering a new time of civic engagement, where people can help others out in small or big ways. Let's get going."

Craig sez:

ProPublica launches.

The site has some nice features: Scandal Watch, 7 different RSS feeds, and a nice "breaking on the web" feature. Definitely keeping my eye on this. And I am preparing for Google Reader overload.