Sunlight Foundation

National News

• The House quietly passed a campaign finance bill earlier this week. The bill extends the FEC's authority to hand out administrative penalties to campaign committees when they are late filing, or simply fail to file, their campaign reports.(Roll Call)
• After 8 years as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke argued that he has made significant progress towards opening up the traditionally closed institution during his tenure. Making the Fed more transparent was one of Bernanke's original goals. (National Journal)
• Marc Smith put together a massive map of open government communities on Twitter. He analyzed tweets mentioning opengov and broke them down based on location, communities, and more. (E Pluribus Unum)

• A Brazilian state, Minas Gerais, decided to help out their entire country with a new tool, DataViva, that should help government employees, citizens, and the private sector make more sense of big government data. (Tech President)
• Want to learn about open budgets around the world? Check out the International Budget Partnership's new OBS Data Explorer! The explorer lets users explore results to the IBP's Open Budget Survey. (International Budget Partnership)

• Honolulu Hawaii is moving to expand state open data rules to their city. The Honolulu City Council unanimously passed an open data bill and sent it on to the Mayor. (CivSource)

National News

• Members of Congress are happy to share a little help with their friends, other members of Congress. Even in this non-election year, Leadership PACs have raked in $18 million and doled out nearly $12 million to other politicians. (Roll Call)
• Don't call me a Lobbyist, from this moment forward I am a Government Relations Professional! I'm just following the lead of the group-formerly known as the American League of Lobbyists, which voted to rename itself the Association of Government Relations Professionals. (Public Integrity)

• The Philippines has launched a portal aimed at opening up foreign aid information. This portal could be come vital as the country attempts to rebuild after being slammed by a devastating typhoon last week. (Future Gov)

• The New York City Council is slated to hold an oversight hearing to investigate the Big Apple's open data law. It's set to go at 1:00 pm tomorrow. (The New York City Council)
• More news out of New York City comes in the form of an exploration of the City's efforts to review and analyze regulations before they become law. (Data-Smart City Solutions)

• Strengthening government oversight: Examining the roles and effectiveness of oversight positions within the Federal workforce. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. 2:30 pm. Subcommittee on Efficiency and Effectiveness of Federal Programs and the Federal Workforce. 342, Dirksen Senate Office Building.

National News

• A group of 80 law professors are calling on President Obama to open up the Trans-Pacific Partnership process. In the wake of recent major leaks, they argue that the closed negotiation process is not working. (Tech Dirt)
• The cable industry's major trade association the National Cable and Telecommunications Association dipped its toes into the dark money game in 2012, spreading relatively small donations around to a number of groups that spent huge amounts to oppose President Obama. (Public Integrity)
• The House Ethics Committee has ended its investigation into trips to Taiwan taken by Reps. Peter Roskam and Bill Owens. Owens, whose trip was closely tied with a lobbying group, had already paid back the cost of his trip. (POLITICO)

• The Open Data Institute has signed an agreement with South Korea's National Information Society Agency to pursue collaboration in open data. (FutureGov)
• Interested in learning how the money flows through the Nigerian extractives industry? You'll have a chance on December 7, when the Open Knowledge Foundation hosts a webinar on the topic. (Open Knowledge Blog)

• Orange County, California has experienced a number of dog bite incidents in recent months and is considering displaying their data on an interactive map in an attempt to combat the problem. (Government Technology)
• Democrats are often seen as being opposed to campaign finance deregulation in the wake of the Citizens United decision. But, last year Unions and other left leaning groups used it to their advantage, specifically successfully targeting state elections. (Roll Call, Public Integrity)

National News

• A group of major tech companies have been asking the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for the right to release more specific details on government data requests. The companies want to have public oral arguments in front of the court, a request that the government isn't so happy about. Government representatives have asked that only they be allowed to argue in front of a judge, and to do it in secret to boot. (ars technica)
• Penny Pritzker, the new Secretary of Commerce, counts data among her top priorities. The successful business woman understands how open government data can help entrepreneurs and plans to put her energy behind ensuring that the Commerce department continues to open up. (fedscoop)
• The infamous Koch brothers spent a whopping $122 million on the 2012 election through their "nonprofit", Americans for Prosperity. That's more than the group had spent between 2004 and 2011 combined. (Public Integrity)

• Australia is making some changes to its open data portal, most notably switching to an open source platform in July. Since the change more than half of the portals data sets have disappeared, but there doesn't appear to be anything nefarious at play. Site administrators are simply cleaning up dead links and removing junk datasets. (Tech President)
• A data set full of voting records from the UN General Assembly since 1946 is being used to show off some beautiful visualizations that can help show off parliamentary data. (Opening Parliament)
• The Russian Minister of Communications and Mass Communications indicated that his country would be making more data related to government contracting available to the public. (E Pluribus Unum)

• The Michigan Secretary of State has proposed a rule that would broaden disclosure requirements for political ads. The rule would require ad sponsors to file formal reports and meet all other disclosure rules. (Roll Call)

National News

• Women are still struggling to fill the most public jobs in politics and government, but there's one area where they are already exerting their power in large numbers. Political fundraising is a competitive business where women dominate. (National Journal)
• Tom Blanton, longtime FOIA activist and director of the National Security Archive, outlined five challenges he sees facing journalists and transparency advocates as they attempt to open government information. Among them, he highlighted expanding the open data movement and finding sustainable funding sources. (Journalism in the Americas)

• Last Friday, France released their open data action plan stemming from the recent G8 Open Data Charter. France has plans to upgrade their open data portal and the plans lay out data set for release by specific agencies. (Tech President)
• A new whistleblower protection law passed in Hungary lacks some major changes and keeps existing, and lacking, oversight systems in place. One positive outcome may prod companies to set up compliance programs, but not without controversy. (Transparency International)

• Modern city dwellers are remembering what their parents taught them and figuring out ways to share everything from bikes to beds. The "sharing city" benefits from advances in technology that allow interested parties to connect more easily. (Tech President)

National News

• House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Federal Chief Technology Officer and former CTO at HHS Todd Park to testify about issues with healthcare.gov. The move has drawn criticism from several technology experts and former White House employees as well as Democrats on the Oversight Committee. (govfresh, The Hill, Washington Times)
• National Security whistleblowers may be getting some official protections, following major revelations throughout the year by former NSA employee Edward Snowden. The Senate Intelligence Committee recently approved language that would provide these whistleblowers with official channels to reveal problems. (Government Executive)
• The end is near for Thomas.gov, the nearly 20 year old Congressional information website. On November 19 THOMAS will begin redirecting to its replacement, Congress.gov. (Fedscoop)

• A coalition of more than 200 civil society groups, under the banner of The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU), are circulating a petition aimed at fixing problems with the EU's official lobbyist register. (Open Knowledge Foundation)

• The Pennsylvania State Senate is considering legislation that would extend the state's open records laws to bring in police forces at the four largest state funded universities. The legislation would not include any other aspect of the university system. (NFOIC)
• Socrata is working to build standards for civic data that are also supported by Code for America. They hope to help cities adopt new standards and easily work with other cities embracing open data standards.(Socrata)