The White House blog recently wrote about Obama's trip to India and mentioned that US-based organizations could learn from Indian organizations using technology to improve accountability and transparency. I agreed. Now is a great time for the US government to recognize that there are  transparency policies all over the world that we Americans could implement or, at a bare minimum, learn from. Here are just a few foreign governments that have policies we wish would improve what we have state-side:

You get a dataset! And you get a dataset! Everyone gets a dataset!

There is always progress to be made and the presumption to make data public and online (with teeth!) is an important cultural shift we hope to see soon. Just last week the United Kingdom took an unprecedented step to publicize all government spending over 25,0000 pounds. As governments around the world tighten their belts we think making the books fully transparent will allow citizens to be better informed about where their tax dollars go and how to move forward. Here in the US there is the Data.gov site (which could be greatly improved) and we are encouraged that the culture is shifting as we see folks like the United Nations, the World Bank, Russia, Spain, Finland, Australia and many others hopping on board.

Publicly Funded Research Papers Available to the Public

The Congressional Research Service, often referred to as 'Congress' think tank', is a well-respected non-partisan branch of the Library of Congress that regularly publishes reports exclusively for members of Congress and their staff at a budget over $100 million. The Sunlight Foundation and others have long advocated for these reports to be public (meaning online), but they remain inaccessible to the general public.

Many foreign governments have publicly-funded think tanks similar to CRS, but they make the reports free to the public and accessible online. The United Kingdom has the House of Commons Library Research Papers, Canada has a nice list with categories on the site of their Library of Parliament Research Publications, and Australia publishes their reports (going back to 1993!) on the Parliament of Australia's Parliamentary Library website. Australia even has official research reports published on the state level by the websites of Victoria and New South Wales.

Imagine that.

Creating Better Disclosure Surrounding Resource Management

The US could learn a thing or two from other resource-rich countries about disclosing online searchable production, leases, costs, audits, and safety reports. This important non-proprietary information keeps the public informed about the safety and financial status of our natural resources. We hope the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) that replaced the Minerals Management Service (MMS) will take the necessary steps that many countries have already taken to improve online reporting in this sector.

The Revenue Watch Institute and Transparency International recently rated the top 41 oil, gas and mineral producing countries countries in terms of their government disclosure record [pdf link]. The United States came in at 11th place, behind Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ecuador and others. This ranking assessed revenue transparency more than safety records, but it is an important metric to recognize how much the US government could continue to learn. Let's see less of this and more online disclosure like Angola.

Expanding and Enriching Visitor Logs

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has a portion of the official website dedicated to transparency initiatives including some substantive items that we would love to see in the US. We appreciate what the White House has done with releasing visitor logs, but a glance across the pond shows that Number 10 is posting details of meetings, hospitality, gifts and overseas travel across all departments and high level staff. Impressive stuff when you compare it to the White House offerings.

Online Disclosure Forms

The Australian equivalent of the Federal Election Commission, known down under as the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), has a great online system to research financial documents relating to the elections.  It includes a nice financial disclosure and donor search function that is quite similar to the FEC version (both obviously don't hold a candle to Sunlight's illuminative version), but after some more research I discovered that they allow those who have to file* to do so through disclosure forms online!  We didn't venture beyond the sleek registration page, but it gave us goosebumps to see other countries approaching our vision of real-time online disclosure. We would like to see this type of online filing possible for lobbying, elections or even meetings - it would certainly ease the eyes of our reporters who often have to dig through .pdf image files.

• In Australia the political system requires candidates and Senate groups, registered political parties and their associated entities, and donors and third parties to lodge disclosure returns. Swoon!

It would be impossible to ignore that each country listed in the items above has a unique political system, but these examples serve as great starting points for policies that could work here, now. The Sunlight Foundation will continue to encourage dialogue on these important issues and hope that the US government learns from non-profits and governments all over the world.

Bribes, congressional wives, lobbyist children, far-flung countries, and jet-setting congressmen. Add it all together and you're reading the ingredient label of a old fashioned congressional scandal, circa 2004-2006. Hot off the shelf is the investigation into former-Rep. Curt Weldon's dealings with Russia companies with ties to Vladimir Putin's inner circle.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal added new dynamite to an investigation that led to FBI raids on Weldon's offices, the lobbying offices of his daughter - a lobbyist, and the offices of her employer, the shady Russian energy giant, Itera. One of Weldon's ex-staffers, Russell Caso, is currently cooperating with the Feds after pleading guilty for failing to disclose payments made to his wife from a firm "helping American businesses operate in Russia." That firm is now identified as the International Exchange Group, an organization with deep ties to Weldon.

The Journal tells the story:

International Exchange was founded by Vladimir Petrosyan, who claimed to have ties to the Kremlin, according to Louisiana lawyer Claude Kelly, who also was involved with the firm. Mr. Kelly said in an interview that Mr. Petrosyan introduced him to top Russian officials including Alexei Alexandrov, a member of the Russian Parliament. Mr. Petrosyan, who left the U.S. in 2006, couldn't be located for comment.

In his 20 years in Congress, Rep. Weldon, who speaks Russian and made many trips to Russia, often sought to strengthen relations between the U.S. and Eastern Bloc nations. One person who dealt with Mr. Petrosyan said he used a business card with the House of Representatives seal that identified him as an adviser to Mr. Weldon.

Mr. Weldon, who served on the Armed Services Committee, promoted International Exchange Group, describing it in a Sept. 22, 2004, House speech as "comprised of senior [Russian] military, intelligence and political officials." The group was "established by President Vladimir Putin's plenipotentiary representative to the Duma...[and] includes the key people who are personally friendly with Putin," including the deputy chief of the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, Mr. Weldon told the House Committee on International Relations on March 9, 2005.

Mr. Petrosyan, who was the "general secretary" of the group, "met frequently and sought official action from" then-Rep. Weldon, the Caso plea statement alleges. Mr. Weldon directed Mr. Caso to seek U.S. government backing for projects involving biological and chemical weapons and he "made presentations to various executive branch agencies, including to high-level officials in the Departments of State and Energy and the National Security Council."

As it turns out, Weldon was successful in his work for IEG. At Wired's Danger Room blog, Sharon Weinberger and Nathan Hodge report that a government agency did in fact award a $100 million contract to IEG. They also report on how Weldon found himself in the middle of this corrupt scheme. This is what Weldon told them back in 2006:

I had a group of Russians approach me two years ago, three years ago through David Vitter, a U.S. senator. He was then a house member. One of David’s best friends from childhood is a lawyer named Claude Kelly. He said, David Vitter said, "Spend some time with these guys: they have some ideas about Russia and they want to talk to you." They bring a delegation; Vitter with them. They introduced themselves as representative of a man, Kotenkov. He worked in the equivalent in West Wing. [Aleksander] Kotenkov sent them over here to establish a new relationship between the United States and Russia, directly involving Putin’s inner circle. They tell me, "If you pursue this: you can get access to any [WMD] sites you want in Russia, you can get cooperation with any project in Russia. We’ll give you access the inner circle of President Putin."

Sen. Vitter may have more to worry about here than he ever did with Deborah Jeane Palfrey.

Truly, the influence business in Washington is so much more than any one campaign contribution or earmark. In the end, it's about personal relationships, even the life-long ones, like the one between Sen. Vitter and Claude Kelly that started this whole international ballet. And yes, it also matters who you sit down and have a drink with when the day is over.