Ron Brownstein of the LA Times has a really thoughtful column today on what transparency means in the Internet Age. Keying off Sen. Barack Obama's announcement a week or so ago about the need to create more transparency for the work of government, Brownstein highlights the need to go beyond the simple provision of information about what government does in useable ways online (we agree that's necessary but not sufficient) to developing the kind of interactivity between citizens and lawmakers that is the hallmark of our colleagues in England at MySociety.org. That nonprofit's creative use of the Internet to engage citizens to collaboration with government (and the other way around) is setting the standard. Sunlight's already begun a series of conversations with MySociety that we expect yield some ways for us to experiment here in the US. Several future Sunlight efforts are looking in this direction.
Continue readingA Squeaky Wheel is Greased
After getting several outside requests for the option to sort LOUIS results by date instead of relevance, one of our talented data architects has added the feature. Keep your ideas for improvements coming.
Information Independence Day
President Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark Freedom of Information Act law on July 4, 1966. In doing so he declared: "A democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the nation will permit." Indeed, when members of the public have diligently pursued information under the FOIA, they have identified government waste and mismanagement and exposed significant controversies about government programs.
Continue readingInsanely Useful Websites
Sunlight is starting to update and clean up (and eventually redesign) our Website and today we are posting the first installment: Insanely Useful Websites for government transparency. The sites listed here replace and dramatically update our old "resources" section.
How do you warrant a mention here? All these sites provide a broad range of information available to track government and legislative information, campaign contributions and the role of money and power in politics. Many of these resources apply the Web 2.0 ethos to sift, share and combine this information in innovative ways -- often times by mashing data together from disparate sources to maximize the usability of that information.
Get Momentum
So, this is neat.
Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age by Allison Fine (which Sunlight distributed widely as a "must read" to philanthropists when it was published)" has won the 2007 Terry McAdam Book Award from the Alliance for Nonprofit Management. The Alliance is a D.C based professional association of individuals and organizations focused on improving the management and governance capacity of nonprofits nationwide. The selection was heralded for its "energetic and entrepreneurial approach to building ownership and influence for activities that create social benefit caught the both the minds and hearts of this year's jury in an engaging and provocative way."
We agree.
Web 2.0 in a Chart
We talk frequently about "Web 2.0" here at Sunlight. (Yes, we know that's a "buzzword" but it's a handy way of describing the new "read-write" culture of today's Web.) We think a lot about what it means for how Congress presents itself to and interacts with the public. Sunlight's fascinated by (some might say obsessed) with how the interactivity and transparency potential of the Internet can change the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents. How citizens can use the Internet to hold lawmakers more accountable for their votes, their earmarks, who they meet with, and what they say when debating legislation. (To wit, see what Rep. George Miller announced yesterday.) We use Web 2.0 "criteria" for our grant making, making sure that organizations we fund use the Internet in creative, interactive, and as a two-way street in their overall strategy. Even the databases we fund (arguably very Web 1.0 tools) have to be developed with the capacity to be exported in formats that others can use to mash different data sets together.
Continue readingObama on Transparency for Government
While Sunlight is mostly focused on Congressional transparency we can't help but notice that there is a presidential campaign going on. Sen. Barack Obama announced his positions last week for ethics and transparency reform.
Obama's reform agenda uses the Web in a significant fashion. There are lots of things I like in his proposal including the core concept of "Google for Government (information)," which in my mind means creating searchable, online databases as a requirement for government agencies' work. (Let's hope that as president Obama would also champion legislative changes that will allow for citizens to learn more about Congress' activities -- expanding what is currently reported and making it all available online in searchable databases.) Given the fact that Obama is a leader on government transparency issues in the Senate now, his willingness to talk about these issues demonstrates his commitment to them and his understanding that the public strongly favors more transparency by the government.
Continue readingPopup Politicans Live
When one of our tools is used by liberals and conservatives, we are happy.
Continue readingCopy This Story
Newsday had a really good earmarks story yesterday that brought the earmarks story home to Long Islanders. It keys off our Visualization of Earmarks release of last week. This story would work well for any media outlet.
How many earmarks -- and for what -- did your state get compared to the citizens of Alaska? And did your members of Congress get to weigh the relative value of the earmarks she or he requested versus those for other regions of the country? Isn't a little more accountability for earmarks necessary? Sunlight thinks so.
Continue readingStates leading the Way on Transparency Reforms
Fascinating piece on the Wall Street Journal opinion pages today. (Even more interesting because it's not hidden behind their firewall...). It points out numeous examples of how the states are taking the lead in creating greater transparency for how they spend their money. They report that 19 states have passed, or are now working on, legislative or administrative reforms that would hand the public tools to examine government spending.
Even as Washington has fiddled on earmarks--delaying, obfuscating and basically doing all it can to avoid enacting real reform--a transparency movement has been sweeping the nation. Angry over Alaskan Bridges to Nowhere, and frustrated by the lack of willpower in the nation's capital, small-government activists have turned their attention to the states. If ever Washington lagged behind a movement, this is it....That hope is rooted in the idea that the best way to get Americans actively engaged in the debate over the size and efficiency of government is by giving them examples of government gone wrong. Reformers point to the current furor over Washington earmarks as proof. Tell Americans that the size of the federal government increased to a whopping $3 trillion, and their eyes glaze over. Tell them that the Alaska delegation was trying to appropriate some $300 million of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars to build a bridge for 50 people, and they go berserk. Much as they went berserk decades ago at the news the Pentagon had spent $640 on a toilet seat.
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