Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation Press Release Archive

Press Releases for 2007

• Sunlight Mashup Puts Congressional Transparency On The Map

  Today, the Sunlight Foundation released a Google map mashup and corresponding RSS feeds that lets citizens see the activities, on and off Capitol Hill, of the eight members of Congress who post their daily schedules online. The maps, which are updated weekly, include meetings beginning in January 2007.

• Watchdog Groups Urge Senators to Oppose Budget Secrecy

  Washington, DC – Twelve non profit organizations concerned with oversight and transparency in government sent a letter to members of the United States Senate urging them to oppose an eleventh-hour secrecy provision added to the Conference Report on the FY 2008 Transportation-HUD Appropriations bill.

• ProgrammableWeb Launches Insanely Useful Hub of Open Source Government Data and APIs

  WASHINGTON, DC - ProgrammableWeb recently launched a new central resource of over a dozen government-related mashups and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to improve access to legislative, civic and political information.

• Navigate House Defense Earmarks on Google Earth

  Members of Congress know where the money is going: now citizens can, too. The Sunlight Foundation today released a Google Earth application that plots the locations for almost 1,500 earmarks in the House Defense Appropriations bill.

• Congress Unwilling to Abide by Competitive Contracting

  Washington, DC – Congress has justifiably been highly critical of billions of dollars in government contracts that the Administration has issued without competition for reconstruction efforts in Iraq and the Gulf Coast. In fact, Congress has repeatedly voted to end or limit these "no bid" contracts. Section 828 the Senate Defense Authorization bill simply applies that same reasoning to earmarks.

• New Congresspedia Project Lets Citizens "Wiki the Vote”

  WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congresspedia, the “citizens’ encyclopedia on Congress,” launched “Wiki the Vote,” the first comprehensive, citizen-driven reporting project to cover the 2008 congressional elections. Through the collaborative power of wikis, Congresspedia gives citizens the ability to report on the full record of every candidate running for Congress, well before the primary elections.

• Sunlight Names John Brothers as Chief Technical Officer

  WASHINGTON, DC - The Sunlight Foundation today announced that John Brothers has joined the organization as its new Chief Technical Officer (CTO). Brothers will lead Sunlight's technology strategy and will play an instrumental role in the creation of Web applications and services to make information about Congress and the federal government more meaningfully accessible to the public.

• New Online Tool Brings Transparency to Earmarks

  WASHINGTON, DC - EarmarkWatch.org, a new project from the Sunlight Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense, lets citizens determine if earmarks - the measures inserted by members of Congress into the various appropriations bills that direct funds to a specific project or recipient - address pressing needs, favor political contributors or are simply pure pork.

• Google Grant Offers Sunlight Free Web Advertising

  The Sunlight Foundation has been awarded a Google Grant in the way of free Google AdWords worth $10,000 a month to support its efforts to reach Internet users searching for information about Congress.

• Unprecedented Disclosure Requirements Strengthen Lobbying Reform Bill

  WASHINGTON, DC - Today, the House of Representatives passed ethics reform legislation that includes several key provisions advocated by the Sunlight Foundation to require greater public disclosure of the activities of lobbyists and members of Congress.

• Sunlight Foundation and Helium Partner to Promote Transparency in Politics

  Andover, MA - Helium, a directory of real-world knowledge, powered by people like you, and the Sunlight Foundation, an organization dedicated to leveraging the Internet to increase transparency in Congress, today announced a strategic partnership. Issues raised by the Sunlight Foundation can now be debated live at Helium.

• NEW SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION GRANT TO SUPPORT CONGRESSIONAL NEWS AGGREGATOR

  WASHINGTON, DC - The Sunlight Foundation is announcing a new grant of $10,000 to NewsTrust.net to support its work to harness social wisdom to aggregate and highlight quality online journalism about elected representatives, with a focus on accountability, corruption and transparency in Congress.

• NEW LEGISLATIVE PORTALS MAKE CONGRESSPEDIA HUB FOR ACTION AND INFORMATION FOR THOSE ENGAGED IN DEMOCRACY

  WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Congresspedia, the "citizens' encyclopedia on Congress," introduced a comprehensive legislation and policy section to complement its existing profiles on legislators. This new feature will give citizens access to insider information on issues and legislation, and opportunities to collaborate with policy experts.

• SUNLIGHT DEBUTS ‘INSANELY USEFUL WEB SITES’ GUIDE TO GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

  WASHINGTON, DC - The Sunlight Foundation has posted a new resource guide of "Insanely Useful Web sites" that offers access to legislative, civic and political information with Web 2.0 ease of use.
  
  

• SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES 3 NEW GRANTS TO INCREASE TRANSPARENCY OF GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

  WASHINGTON, DC - The Sunlight Foundation is announcing its third round of grants for 2007 for projects that further the organization's mission of using the Internet to connect the public to information about the workings of Congress to better inform their civic engagement and increase transparency in Congress. The grants, totaling $350,000, are being awarded to MAPLight.org, the Center for Independent Media and The Focus Project's OMB Watch.

• SUNLIGHT DEBUTS NEW ONE-STOP SEARCH ENGINE AND API FOR EASIER ACCESS

  WASHINGTON, DC – The Sunlight Foundation today launched a new search engine called LOUIS – the Library Of Unified Information Sources – to improve public access to federal documents through an all-inclusive, catalogued and cross-referenced collection of official documents from the executive and legislative branches of government.

• NEW DATA VISUALIZATION TOOLS DEMONSTRATE TOP FEDERAL EARMARKS RECIPIENTS

  WASHINGTON, DC – The Sunlight Foundation today released an analysis by its Real Time Investigations team which graphically illustrates how Congress awarded earmarks in 2005 by agency, state and organization, as well as a searchable database of the earmarks and their recipients. Sunlight is also offering its standardized data in downloadable files, allowing researchers to further delve into the data.

• Watchdog Groups Challenge Members of Congress to Sign Earmark Transparency Pledge, Release All Funding Requests

  WASHINGTON - In the wake of House Appropriations Chairman David Obey's decision to insert all earmarks into secretive, un-amendable conference reports, a coalition of watchdog groups consisting of Americans for Prosperity, the Sunlight Foundation, OMB Watch and Taxpayers for Common Sense today unveiled an "Earmark Transparency Pledge," through which U.S. House lawmakers can publicly pledge their intention to follow the spirit of the earmark transparency reforms enacted earlier this year.

• NEW BILLBOARD IN LOUISVILLE ASKS, “WHAT’S MCCONNELL HIDING?”

  WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Sunlight Foundation announced a new contest that will award $500 for the first video capturing Senator Mitch McConnell on record answering (or refusing to answer) who is blocking passage of legislation that would require senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically. This contest is part of Sunlight’s new campaign that asks, “What’s McConnell Hiding?” through a billboard alongside I-65 in Louisville, Kentucky [map] that points readers to www.whatsmcconnellhiding.com, a new Sunlight Web site that prompts citizens to take action to promote transparency in the Senate by advocating for the passage of the Senate Campaign Disparity Act (S. 223).

• SUNLIGHT APPLAUDS TRANSPARENCY REFORM IN HOUSE ETHICS BILL

  WASHINGTON, DC - An important transparency provision promoted by the Sunlight Foundation to mandate the Internet disclosure of members of Congress' personal financial information was included in the Honest Leadership bill unveiled last night by House Democratic leaders. For the first time ever, Congress would require that these members' reports be posted on the Internet to be accessible to the public.

• GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY GROUPS URGE ELECTRONIC PERSONAL FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE REPORTS

  WASHINGTON, DC - Leading a broad coalition of government transparency advocates from left and right, the Sunlight Foundation today petitioned Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to make personal financial disclosure reports by members of Congress freely available on the Internet as soon as they are made public.

• Media Alert: Sunlight to Host MAPlight.org Launch of Groundbreaking Money & Politics Search Engine

  Press briefing to announce MAPlight.org's new revolutionary search engine that reveals the connections between money and politics within Congress.

• SUNLIGHT’S OPEN HOUSE PROJECT PUBLISHES TRANSPARENCY RECOMMENDATIONS TO STRENGTHEN PUBLIC ACCESS TO CONGRESS

  WASHINGTON, DC - In a presentation to congressional staff and Representatives, members of the Open House Project delivered today recommendations for a series of technological reforms that would increase transparency and public access to the work and members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

• SUNLIGHT AWARDS MASHUP “UNFLUENCE” AS BEST POLITICAL MASHUP

  WASHINGTON, DC - The Sunlight Foundation today announced that "Unfluence" (http://unfluence.primate.net/index.html) - submitted as an entry to its recent Mashup Contest - has won the $2,000 prize as the most innovative "Web 2.0" mashup.

• Media Alert: Open House Project to Deliver Transparency Recommendations to U.S. House of Representatives

  Press conference and Hill briefing to announce recommendations by the Open House Project to increase transparency of the U.S. House of Representatives.

• SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION LAUNCHES NEW REAL TIME JOURNALISM PROJECT

  WASHINGTON, DC - The Sunlight Foundation unveiled today Real Time Investigations (realtime.sunlightprojects.org/), an unprecedented open source journalism effort that instantaneously reveals the behind-the-scenes research involved in petitioning the federal government to make its information more accessible to citizens, constituents and journalists.

• SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION ASKS CITIZEN JOURNALISTS, 'WHO PUT THE SECRET HOLD ON TRANSPARENCY?'

  WASHINGTON, DC - The Sunlight Foundation today launched a new distributed reporting project to unveil which Senator yesterday placed a secret hold on legislation that would require Senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically. Unlike the House of Representatives, the Senate is only required to file these statements in paper format, which is difficult to search through and analyze.

• SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES NEW GRANTS

  WASHINGTON, D C – The Sunlight Foundation is announcing its second round of grants for 2007, totaling $267,000, including two grants from its Mini-grant program. All the grants are being awarded to organizations that are using new “Web 2.0” technology to increase transparency for the work of Congress by using new technology to put information into citizens’ hands via the Internet. The group also announced that Craig Newmark, founder of and customer service representative for Craigslist, will be joining the Board of Directors. Newmark had previously served on the Sunlight Foundation’s Advisory Board.

• Citizen Journalists Find Majority of Congressional Web Sites are not Tools for Transparency

  WASHINGTON – The average Congressional website falls far below a “passing grade” in terms of information they provide, and all Congressional websites could be improved, according to the results of a distributive research project launched by the Sunlight Foundation.

• SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES OVER $200,000 IN GRANTS TO START OFF 2007

  WASHINGTON, D C – The Sunlight Foundation is announcing its first round of grants for 2007, totaling over $200,000. The grants are being awarded to organizations that are using new “Web 2.0” technology to further the organization’s mission of putting information into citizens’ hands to increase transparency in Congress.

• Sunlight Foundation Announces Board Expansion

  Leading internet expert will help direct, and the founder of Wikipedia, the founder and former head of Center for Public Integrity and a Yale Law School professor and author of a seminal overview of the Internet will advise, the Sunlight Foundation

• SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES OPEN HOUSE PROJECT

  WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Sunlight Foundation is announcing the creation of the Open House Project, a collaborative and bipartisan effort on open government. The purpose of the project is to study how the House of Representatives currently integrates the internet into its operations, and to make public recommendations to its leadership on how to make the House of Representatives' work more available to citizens on the Web.

• SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES $2 MILLION INVESTMENT FROM OMIDYAR NETWORK

  The Sunlight Foundation today announced an investment of $2 million from Omidyar Network, a mission-based organization established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam.