[caption id="attachment_16115" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Photo: jdlasica from Flickr"][/caption]

For many, the "live web" was a meaningless concept until the aftermath of the 2009 Iranian presidential election when protesters used Twitter as a means to push messages past the censors to the web in real-time while grabbing headlines across the globe. When you can learn about an event as it's actually happening, waiting an entire news cycle for the media to type up the latest makes the information feel about as stale as yesterday's paper.

Live streaming video takes this instant digest of news to an entirely new level, one that will have a lot of impact on accountability in politics. From town hall meetings to rallies to protests, live video creates a visual record of our elected politicians and allows citizens to participate in events from afar without filtration.

Here at Sunlight we've taken live streaming and added further context with Sunlight Live. We've covered the recent GOP meeting with business lobbyists, financial reform and the health care debates.  Using Ustream, we've added contextual content and data streams and a way for the audience to interact with each other, providing further context to the debate.

Of course if you want to take the initiative and get local, services like Qik, Ustream and Kyte allow you to stream events to the web.  All you need is a smartphone and a clear view.

Live streaming services are becoming more and more accessible to the general public and when used with the right combination of tools can provide for a powerful approach to accountability.

Be sure to check out Party Time, Sunlight’s project to track parties thrown at the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions as well as fund raising activities by all lawmakers running for Congress that happen all year round in Washington, D.C. and beyond. By accessing the site, you can find out where the parties are, view the array of invitations that go to lobbyists, Political Action Committee (PAC) representatives and others around Washington, D.C. and beyond. You can see who is hosting these parties, how much money it costs to go, where and when the party is and what people are going to be doing there.

Nancy Watzman, Party Time’s director, is streaming live Qik videos where she will record the action as she attempts to crash some of the parties, including the Blue Dog's invite-only party hosted by AT&T. (Pardon our initial technical difficulties…You’ll notice we are providing a different angle on the conventions.) You can also follow her Twitter feed, where she is reposting her videos. By accessing delicious, you can follow all of Party Time’s mentions in the media. You can also follow New Media coverage of the convention at the Big Tent site, named after the literal big tent where you’ll find Gabriela Schneider, Sunlight’s communications director, assisting bloggers and other journalists cover the parties.

Ben Pershing at the Washington Post writes, "If a party stages a protest on the House floor but no one can see or hear it, does it make a sound?" Yes, it makes a tweet.

After adjourning for the annual summer recess, House Republicans took to the floor to protest the failure of the House to hold a vote to allow offshore drilling. Since the protest happened after adjournment was announced, the House cameras and lights were turned off. While Republicans shouted from the floor and journalists hurried to see what was happening, GOP Rep. John Culberson was tweeting away the happenings from the floor. Culberson even let some other lawmakers take over his account including Roy Blunt, Adam Putnam, John Shimkus, Tom Price, Ted Poe, Virginia Foxx, and John Shadegg. Culberson's tweets marked yet another moment where Twitter broke a story before it could make it to the news.

Culberson is also Qiking the event. Pretty cool stuff.

But, Twitter isn't the only angle to this story. These lawmakers aren't simply taking to the floor to demand help for gas consumers, they are pushing a central facet of the oil industry's legislative agenda: offshore drilling. Just yesterday it was announced that, yet again, ExxonMobil broke the record for largest quarterly profit pulling in $11.7 Billion.

And as many can predict, the oil industry is very liberal in its contributions to the campaigns of congressmen who support their agenda. Let's start with the lawmakers who are mentioned as on the floor by press accounts and Rep. Culberson's tweets:

That's a lot of money on the floor of the House right now.