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.

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!

Midnight tonight (Eastern Time), Wired is officially launching "Data.gov Is Coming — Let's Help Build It," a wiki designed to find and identify important and valuable data sets held by the federal government, and to make them available and usable. Yesterday, in an email to the Open Government Google Group, Alexis Madrigal, staff writer at Wired, announced that it’s already live at http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Open_Up_Government_Data.

Madrigal wrote that Vivek Kundra, the newly appointed CIO of the federal government, “seems like an ally -- as do his superiors -- but we want to hold them to their claims about wanting to open up government data.” Wired designed the wiki to be a place to report where government data is locked up by design, neglect or misapplication of technology. And they want us to point out the government data that we need or would like to have. Based on how the wiki evolves, they will follow up with government agencies to see what their plans are for that data and track the results. Madrigal wrote that they hope to combine the best of new social media and old-school journalism to get our hands on government data.

Wired’s wiki dovetails nicely with two projects that Sunlight has been involved with. Our friends at OpenTheGovernment.org and the Center for Democracy and Technology, with the help of Sunlight Labs, set up Show Us The Data - The Most Wanted Federal Government Documents. They too are asking the public to help identify government documents, reports, or data sets that should be made available online. They’ve asked people to “vote” on what sequestered docs they most want to be freed. The voting ends Monday (tomorrow), so quickly go check it out. They will release a list of the 10 docs that received the most votes during this month’s Sunshine Week. Federal News Radio interviewed Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, about the program.  As Patrice said in the interview,“Openness makes us stronger.” Michael Smallberg at POGO blog writes that the project's goal is to identify the documents and databases the public most wants access to through interactive voting and collaboration. They will produce a final report recommending documents and data that the federal government should make easier to find and use.

And last month, Sunlight launched Our Open Government List (OOGL) to gather meaningful feedback for President Obama’s Open Government Directive. We wanted to add a public element to the crafting of this Open Government Directive that is itself transparent, participatory, and collaborative. We encourage you to submit ideas for what the Directive should address, and to vote for your favorite submissions.

We are determined to hold the president and his new CIO to their promise of an open and transparent federal government. So far, so good. But we’ve got to keep the pressure on.

Christopher Dorobek, managing editor of Federal News Radio and author of DorobekInsider.com, is reporting that they’ve confirmed that President Obama is set to name the immensely talented Vivek Kundra, Washington, D.C., government’s CTO, as the next administrator of e-government and information technology within the Office of Management and Budget. Good news indeed.

But a whole lot of questions remain as to how the whole picture will be painted.

For instance, there are currently three White House IT-related positions, with a fourth being the proposed CTO. The administration has done little to explain what the various IT offices have responsibility over. Dorobek writes that he sees four pockets of government IT expertise: A Congressional Research Service report, published last month,  illustrates  how “murky” things remain and how the four key positions on this arena -- the e-government administrator at OMB; OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and the proposed Obama CTO will divide up responsibilities and work together.

Dorobek says: “Frankly, one of the problems has been that there hasn’t been enough of a coordinated, strategic approach to technology, information technology and data, and this seems like an opportune time to make all those lines clear.”

Dorobek points to NextGov’s Jill Atoro as suggesting that Virginia’s secretary of technology, Aneesh Chopra , might be Obama’s CTO pick.

Staying tuned here.