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

Thursday’s launch by the Obama administration of Data.gov, the repository for all the information the federal government collects, generated a number of good press mentions. Vivek Kundra, President Obama’s new Chief Information Officer, built and manages the Web site, which developers can access data to create applications for the Web and handheld devices. The Washington Post's Kim Hart wrote about the launch and quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, saying it "demonstrates the acceptance of the notion that providing raw data is inherent to establishing trust in agencies." Ellen said that the administration is redefining public information. "To be truly public, it needs to be available online. That's a dramatic shift." Hart also quotes Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, saying most federal agencies have not traditionally emphasized openness. "It's not what Congress has told them to do in the past, and it's not their culture. There's going to have to be some real pressure on agencies to do this." Hart also mentions Sunlight Labs' Apps for America 2 contest, and writes that it is modeled after the Apps for Democracy contest started by Kundra when he was the District of Columbia's chief technology officer. Richard Waters at the Financial Times (subscription required) wrote about the launch and the contest, and quotes Ellen saying the launch represents "a sea-change in how government views its information."

Wired's Kim Zetter and Wired Science's Alexis Madrigal both have articles about Data.gov that mention Sunlight and the Apps for America 2 contest. Madrigal also quotes Ellen, “Data.gov says that our information is your information,” and that “it represents this enormous change in attitude about what public means. It means it’s online. It’s means it’s available. I think it’s a dramatic breakthrough in the role of government.”

Federal News Radio's Jason Miller produced a story on Data.gov, and includes an mp3 of his interview with Kundra who mentions the Apps for America 2 contest. Chris Dorobek, co-anchor of Federal News Radio's afternoon drive program, interviewed Ellen about the launch and posted the audio. Jon Gordon with American Public Media's "Future Tense" interviewed Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, about Data.gov. Clay said the site represents "a good first step" by the administration.

Daphne Eviatar with The Washington Independent reported on the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) sending Congress a letter asking that it provide better supervision of the government’s $1.25 trillion mortgage-backed securities purchase program. POGO is concerned with potential conflicts of interest of having private fund managers advising the government on the program while also advising private clients on how to invest in similar assets. “(Potential) conflicts of interest could have a wide range of consequences, including financial losses for the American taxpayer, an unfair competitive advantage for the fund managers, and the continued erosion of public confidence in the government’s ability to stabilize the financial system,” POGO warns.

In a post on the blog of the Bill Moyers Journal, PBS journalists Bill Moyers and Michael Winship wrote about the influence being exerted by health industry in the debate over reforming national health policy. They cited Center for Responsive Politics data showing the health sector has spent more than $134 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009. Speaking of health care reform, USA Today’s John Fritze wrote about former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle (S.D.) remaining a key player in the health care debate four months after tax questions prevented him from serving as Health and Human Services secretary. Fritze quotes Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, saying Daschle’s private citizen status raises questions about what Daschle is advocating for and who he is representing when he meets with Congressional lawmakers behind closed doors. "It's like being a senator or being in the administration without having any of the restrictions," Melanie said.

Politico's Kenneth Vogel reported on how at least a dozen lawmakers and political committees held fundraising events in conjunction with Monday night's sold-out Bruce Springsteen concert at Downtown Washington’s Verizon Center. Vogel quotes Nancy Watzman, director of Sunlight’s Party Time project, as saying rock concerts are not an uncommon venue for political fundraisers. “Democrats do it and Republicans do it. They tend to have different musical choices, though,” Nancy said, conceding Monday’s cluster of Springsteen fundraisers are “quite a number for any particular concert, but that speaks to Bruce being The Boss.” Vogel wrote that Nancy is herself a Springsteen fan, and paid about $100 to see his recent concert in Denver. “I probably didn’t get as much bang for my buck, though, because I can’t call up a member of Congress now and say, ‘Hey, remember when he played "Born to Run?" Well, I have this bill I want to introduce.’”

Jim Abrams with the Associated Press wrote two articles about the earmarks House lawmakers are requesting to add to the transportation bill they will take up this summer. In the first article, Abrams quotes Bill Allison, Sunlight’s senior fellow, saying the collective disclosure is way ahead of where it was just three years ago. “But they could still be doing it better." Bill said that the Transportation Committee process falls short of a new requirement in both the House and Senate Appropriations committees that members post earmark requests online before they submit them. Also, there is no central location for posting requests, making them difficult to find on Web sites, Abrams wrote. In the second article, Abrams reported that the lawmakers are requesting $136.3 billion in earmarks. He recounts Bill's criticism about the absence of a central location for posting earmark requests, which makes them more difficult to locate. With the help of some other Sunlight staffers, Bill had dug through the earmark disclosures last week and built a easy-to-access database. His work motivated Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor at the Washington Examiner, to name Bill "One of the unsung heroes in the nation's capital." Eliza Krigman, writing at the National Journal's "Under the Influence" blog, also highlighted Bill's work. Krigman wrote that "Sunlight's 'Real Time Investigations' staff did the yeoman's work of scrolling through member's Web sites searching for transportation earmark requests through yesterday's deadline."

Thanks and see you next Friday.

Today, May 8th, marks the 125th birthday of Harry S Truman, our 33rd president. He once said, "Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix." Amen, Mr. President.

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

Monday morning, Tom Lee, a technology director at Sunlight, appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” taking questions about Recovery.gov, the Web site set up to track spending under the federal government’s economic stimulus program. Tom is working on SubsidyScope, a project of The Pew Charitable Trusts, that looks at the role of federal subsidies in the economy. Below is the video of the segment:

Speaking of Recovery.gov, Matt Kelley with USA Today reported that the Web site won't have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next spring — halfway through the program. Kelley quotes Greg Elin, Sunlight’s chief evangelist, saying people accustomed to getting easily searchable information quickly could be frustrated. "If we have to wait until October to get the information or to the end of the year to get a powerful recovery.gov site, the Obama administration will have missed an important opportunity."

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, in an op-ed titled "Ways to Protect Our Democracy," highlights the work of Sunlight and Sunlight Labs, and mentions the Apps for America contest. Vanden Heuvel quotes Gabriela Schneider, "This is the next generation of civic engagement…We see it as a way to revitalize democracy. The transparency work is a catalyst for the greater democracy reform movement."

The U.S. Senate announced this week that it was going to start publishing roll call votes in XML, an online format that’s easily reusable by other programs. XML allows the data to be manipulated and organized in such a way that public interest groups can get a much more thorough picture of Senate voting patterns. In writing about the move, the Politico’s  Victoria McGrane quoted John Wonderlich, Sunlight's policy director, as saying the Senate’s decision was “spectacular.” The Examiner newspapers editorialized that the move signals the Senate had finally joined the 21st Century. As encouraging and important as this step by the Senate is, I’d hold off on that designation until senators start disclosing campaign finance data online and in a timely manner.

The New York Times’ Stephanie Strom highlighted the campaign to get Congress to release to the public Congressional Research Service reports, highlighting the efforts of Open CRS, Center for Democracy and Technology, OpentheGovernment.org and Sunlight.

Jeanne Cummings at the Politico wrote about “lobbyist contact” disclosures posted on government department and agency Web sites. She made note of a review conducted by Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight’s senior writer, that found only 14 of a possible 29 departments and agencies have created Web pages to disclose lobbyist inquiries. On March 20, President Obama issued a memo to all agencies involved with the distribution of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act requiring them to disclose all communications between lobbyists and agency officials. John Fritze with USA Today wrote that Obama’s effort to make lobbying more transparent has shed little light on the behind-the-scenes, special-interests lobbying thus far. He quotes Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, "We're looking to have more disclosure, not less. If this was supposed to give us more disclosure, why is it that you're not seeing lobbyist communications?"

Mother Jones' Jonathan Stein profiled Lisa Rosenberg, Sunlight’s government affairs consultant, terming her "K Street's worst nightmare" and "the lobbyist lobbyists hate." He wrote that Lisa is "not your average influence peddler," but does the "unthinkable" by lobbying for more oversight and regulation of lobbying. Stein quotes Lisa, "I have no friends...My lobbyist colleagues are cringing at the things that I do."

Joshua Zumbrun at Forbes.com wrote about six ways Uncle Sam can help rescue newspapers. One of his proposals is for the government to help ease newspapers into nonprofit status, citing the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity as examples of nonprofit organizations that are already making an impact.

Thanks, and see you next Friday!

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

David Herbert with the National Journal (subscription required) wrote about the grades new media experts from across the political spectrum gave the Obama administration’s Web presence. The experts gave WhiteHouse.gov an average grade of C+. Although they mostly see it as an improvement from the previous administration's site, many noted that it remained a one-way forum and suggested it be opened to allow comments and other interactive features. Herbert quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, "This occasional use of interactive tools" is impressive, but "90 percent of the time the site is pretty straightforward, as it was under [George W.] Bush." Recovery.gov, the administration’s site where citizens can monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds, fared even worse in the Journal's poll, averaging a C. The most common gripe about the site, Herbert writes, is that it's "the view from 30,000 feet," as Micah Sifry, senior technology advisor for Sunlight and Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) co-founder, told him. Without providing on-the-the ground details, Recovery.gov offers taxpayers few tools for staying on top of where their money is going, reviewers said. Recovery.gov has competition in the form of privately-operated Recovery.org, which has "more granular data and a real search tool, which one assumes we'll eventually see on Recovery.gov," Micah explains. "I don't think it's fair to compare this site to other Web sites yet, as it's just weeks old," Micah added. "Let's take another look in three to six months, OK?"

Chris Lefkow with Agence France-Presse gained a different take by interviewing academics, technology analysts and nonpartisan groups on the administration's technology efforts. Lefkow writes that they all said the first "tech president" is off to a good start. Lefkow quotes John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director, "their first pronouncements are very encouraging,” and added that the challenge, however, is going to be the implementation. Andrew Resiej, Sunlight’s other senior technology advisor and PDF co-founder, said the administration been doing as much as it can to fulfill its promises in regards to transparency and technological innovation. “However they've been constrained by decades of industrial-age rules and regulations and procurement protocols that are handicapping the speed at which they can implement that vision," he said.

Declan McCullagh at CBS News' "Political Hotsheet" blog also wrote about how President Obama's follow through on his transparency vow is receiving mixed reviews. In the post McCullagh highlights how Sunlight's Our Open Government List is allowing users to vote on what's most important to see in the 120-day review. McCullagh reports that the winner so far is formal data standards, which would allow programmers to extract government databases to be incorporated in their own applications. McCullagh also mentions that Sunlight hosted TransparencyCamp.

Dan Eggen at The Washington Post wrote about how some of the nation's largest defense contractors, labor unions and trade groups are forging an alliance to try to stop the Obama administration from cutting certain weapons programs. They are arguing that the proposed cuts would threaten 100,000 or more jobs. Eggen cites Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) data to show the defense sector’s influence in Washington, where it gave nearly $26 million to congressional candidates last year and spending $150 million on lobbying.

The New York Times republished Robin Bravender’s piece from Greenwire exploring President Obama’s regulatory actions taken during his first 100 days in office. Bravender quotes Gary Bass, OMB Watch’s executive director, "In most instances, the administration has moved away from a presumption of government secrecy to one of government openness, and Obama has scrapped some of the most damaging revisions of the regulatory process that Bush and his team imposed on the nation." The article highlighted OMB Watch’s “Advancing the Public Interest through Regulatory Reform” report (pdf), which is one of two reports, both released on Tuesday, assessing the Obama administration’s work on government transparency and regulatory reform at the 100-day mark. The second report, titled “21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda” (pdf) looked at the administration’s follow through on transparency and openness. Overall, the reports state that the president and his team have made significant progress in both the right-to-know and regulatory areas, but much more work needs to be done.

Carol D. Leonnig with The Washington Post reported that U.S. Rep. John Murtha (Pa.), chair of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, got the Pentagon to spend about $30 million on “the little-used airport named for him so it can handle behemoth military aircraft and store combat equipment for rapid deployment to foreign battlefields.” Most of the improvement, Leonnig writes, were funded through appropriations approved by Murtha's subcommittee, and have not been used for their intended purpose. The article includes comments by Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.  "Nobody wants to say no to Congressman Murtha or make him mad because he controls defense appropriations," she said. "Murtha wanted an airport, and he knew he could get one. It's like he's a billionaire, except it's not his money."

Robert O'Harrow Jr., writing at The Washington Post's "Government Inc." blog, writes about a new report from the Inspector General for TARP, which says the bailout is growing more complex and costly, and is operating with no clear leadership. O'Harrow highlights and extensively quotes from Anu Narayanswamy’s Real Time Investigations report that found the program is shrouded in secrecy, making it difficult to determine who is managing it.

USA Today published an editorial about how the federal government, when faced with the option of making information public or hiding it, is predisposed toward concealment. Federal Web sites are usually full of data, the editorial says, but are also notoriously hard to navigate. It mentions Google's new tool, Google Public Data, it launched this week to make it easier to search federal sites. Congressional sites can be even more inscrutable, they write, and mentions and links to Sunlight’s Senior Fellow Bill Allison's Real Time Investigations report regarding U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers disclosing their earmark requests, and how many responded by burying the links or posting unreadable pdf files. Kim Hart with The Washington Post also wrote about Google’s new tool, and quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs director, saying he’s encouraged by it.

Joab Jackson with Government Computer News wrote about how through mashups and Web apps, third parties are remixing and making innovative use of government agencies' information. Jackson quotes Clay as saying there are a lot of developers who are eager to get access to government data. "The nongovernmental sector will likely always have more talent and artistic capability than inside the government," Clay said. The article discusses Sunlight Labs' Apps for America contest, as well as Sunlight’s role in developing OpenCongress.org, OMB Watch’s FedSpending.org, CRP’s OpenSecrets.org and EarmarkWatch.org. Jackson also highlights Josh Tauberer's work at GovTrack.

Federal News Radio interviewed Clay about Data.gov, new federal CIO Vivek Kundra's soon to launch central repository for government data and research, and links to Sunlight Labs' mock up of the site.

Thanks, and see you next Friday!

Here’s an example of what you can learn when you dig into federal recordsl...USA Today reports that the federal government, as part of the stimulus package, will be sending over $300 million to 61 housing agencies that auditors have been repeatedly cited for mishandling government aid. A review of the summaries the agencies are required to file with OMB revealed that the delinquent housing agencies were receiving stimulus funds. The stimulus package includes $4 billion to create jobs while fixing up rundown public housing. This constitutes a major increase over the $2.5 billion the federal government usually spends annually maintaining public housing.

Here’s the full list of the questionable housing agencies receiving stimulus funds.

The report says that federal authorities have promised to keep a close eye on how the agencies spend the money. Like me, I imagine you would normally find this statement not all that reassuring.

This may be a case where more transparency not only exposes misconduct, but should prevent it from occurring in the first place. If the public is watchdogging the federal watchdogs, they should be more motivated to monitor the receiving agencies. Sound complicated? Just think 'transparency as the best disinfectant.'

I'm delighted to have had an OpEd piece published in USA Today today:

How powerful is the Internet in getting crucial safety information out to the public? In one case, that information went out 707 times per minute. That's how often, on average, people seeking information about salmonella-tainted peanut butter clicked on a website and widget sponsored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over a six-week period a total of nearly 44 million hits.

In light of the unfolding scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, USA Today ranks the states on their level of corruption with some surprising results. They determine the ranking by comparing the states' public corruption convictions per 100,000 residents from 1998 through 2007. Surprisingly enough, the rating system determined that North Dakota has been the most corrupt state over the past decade. And Illinois, a state who's last governor was convicted in 2006 for corruption and now its current chief executive was arrested Tuesday only ranks as the 18^th most corrupt. USA Today includes an interactive map that tells you for each state the number of convicts over the decade, its population and the per capita convictions.

The paper interviewed the director of the North Dakota Center for the Public Good who gives some context. He said that North Dakotans know their public officials better than many larger states, and as a result are better at rooting out corruption when it occurs. Also, he said the state has encouraged bad government practices in some cases by weakening disclosure laws. Plus, the state does not require candidates for state office to disclose their campaign expenses.