Politwoops, our project to archive the deleted tweets by U.S. politicians, is now more useful than ever as it includes a link to help you find the source of retweets. We also fixed a minor bug that was cutting off some links and messing up screenshots.
Whenever a politician retweets something and then thinks better of it, we will now include a link back to the original tweet, as seen in the example in the upper right from earlier today by Senate challenger Karen Hadel, R-Ga. She retweeted a fan who asks if she can be cloned and then deleted it, but you can now follow the link labeled "Original tweet by @FiercelyRight" to see that the source is still live.
Happy Birthday Louis Brandeis, Muse of Sunlight!
Today is the 157th anniversary of the birth of Louis Brandeis, a trailblazing advocate for civil liberties, individual rights and, yes, sunlight.
For us, it's a day to celebrate and take stock of our mission, for Brandeis is our inspiration: The Sunlight Foundation takes its name from one of his most famous observations.
Make a Louis Brandeis birthday donation to Sunlight!
Today in #OpenGov 11/13/2013
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)
Today in #OpenGov 11/12/2013
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)
Against the ‘Against Disclosure’ column in the New York Times
In this today’s New York Times’ Gray Matter column, political scientist David M. Primo has penned a piece with a provocative title: “Against Disclosure.” In it, he highlights his own survey research, in which respondents given a hypothetical ballot measure and exposed to news reports that included campaign finance disclosure data did no better identifying the position of different interest groups than those votes who merely read news accounts and saw a voter guide. Both the Times article and Primo’s underlying research are misleading.
Continue readingThe Week on Politwoops: Post TV, Tuesday’s Elections and Kittens
While Wall Street minted a few billionaires and many millionaires with yesterday's Twitter IPO, Sunlight's non-profit Politwoops got to celebrate the occasion with some recent deletions on the Washington Post's In Play show:
Evaluating Municipal Campaign Finance Data: Oakland
How do municipalities measure up to standards for releasing campaign finance data? Today, we look at Oakland.
Continue readingBoth sides of gun debate see hope in Virginia elections
Outside spending groups on either side of the gun control debate find reasons for optimism after Virginia's tight gubernatorial race, in spite of the fact that issues like the economy, healthcare and ethics scandals seem to have been foremost on voters' minds.
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: Opening Italy’s Parliament with Open Parlamento
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is 
not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.
Vittorio Alvino is the founder of Open Polis -- an independent organization that promotes transparency and the democratic participation of Italian citizens by developing and implementing projects to enable free access to public information on political candidates, elected representatives and legislative activity. Vittorio can be reached at v.alvino@openpolis.it
With Open Parlamento we wanted to tear down the wall between the Italian people and the institutions that govern the country by publishing and sharing all relevant information on the activity of the Italian parliament. When the project began in 2009, our organization was the first to publish data about parliamentary attendance and details about each voting session. Although we do not always succeed, our goal is to reach the everyday citizen with simplified and comprehensible information about what happens in the Parliament and offer some interpretation - based on data - of politicians’ behaviours and choices.
Sadly, the political debate in Italy in recent years has progressively deteriorated. Parties and institutions have lost much of their credibility and the focus of the general public has shifted towards scandals and corruption. In the meantime, far away from the center of attention, economic and political interest are at stake.
Through the simple use of parliamentary data, we want to empower citizens by giving them the chance to create and support their own political opinion. For this reason, the data needs to be elaborated graphically, making it easier to understand. The same information is also analyzed by our staff in order to find the “news” behind the data. All of our work is then shared via web, social media and Italy’s main news outlets. Interestingly enough, at times our users, besides national media, are the first to use the data from Open Parlamento as their source for graphic elaborations, articles, tweets and reports.
The obstacles in this field of work are many, but things have gotten better in recent times. Nonetheless, much still needs to be done in order to improve the process by which data are updated and collected. Due to incomplete and rarely updated open data, we’ve been forced to develop programs that on a daily basis scrape thousands of web pages from the sites of the Italian Parliament.
Continue readingDon’t Let Farm Bill Limit Access to Information
On Wednesday the Sunlight Foundation joined with more than 40 other organizations to urge members of the conference committee on the Farm Bill to maintain public access to vital information about agricultural and livestock operations.
Language included in the House passed version of the Farm Bill, which is serving as the basis for conference negotiations, would undermine the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and prevent the public from accessing information that might have a direct effect on their quality of life. Similar language was previously removed from the Senate version of the bill.
The language, which is very broad and very vague, requires the government to withhold basic information about the location of livestock and agricultural operations. The language was intended to protect the privacy of small family farms, but it is so broad that it can be applied to large corporate operations. Furthermore, there are already strong exemptions in the FOIA for personal, private information that provide small farmers with protection.
You can view the full text of the letter here, or by clicking below.
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