In the week since we launched EarmarkWatch.org, more than 400 citizen researchers have dug into earmarks, answering hundreds of questions, making dozens of comments, and shedding light on everything from what in the world is a naturally occurring retirement community (it's considered to be a low-cost approach to facilitating healthy aging) to finding a potential family connection in a New Jersey museum earmark (the museum is housed in a mansion that was once the residence of the sponsoring member's father). They've asked why Congress needs to earmark $1,000,000 to buy wool socks for the Marines and how exactly New York City's American Museum of Natural History is going to spend $1,000,000 on Advanced Research to Further National Security Goals. We had 25,000 page views last week (the aforementioned sock earmark was the most-looked-at), more than 100 posted comments or additional research (it looks like the $3,000,000 for a Flat-Rack for the Marine Corps was the most commented on, and no, I didn't know what one was either), and one last factoid that makes me feel there are lots of kindred souls out there: The bulk of our intrepid earmark researchers are doing most of their digging at night. So am I -- EarmarkWatch.org is exciting, educational, and endlessly entertaining.
Continue readingInvestigate Earmarks with EarmarkWatch.org!
Wondering who's getting all the earmarks? Who's giving them and why? Do earmarks meet pressing needs or pay off political favors? And which are pure pork? EarmarkWatch.org, an innovative new tool from the Sunlight Foundation and Taxpyers for Common Sense, lets you find out for yourself. Using EarmarkWatch.org, you can exercise citizen oversight of Congress. Dig into the 47 earmarks worth $166,500,000 that Rep. John Murtha inserted (and figure out which benefit campaign contributors). Or take a close look at the $100,000 earmark that Sen. David Vitter secured for an organization that promotes creationism in Louisiana schools. Or the $37 million in earmarks that include defense giant Northrop Grumman as a beneficiary. Right now, you can investigate earmarks from the House Defense Appropriations Bill and the House and Senate versions of the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations bills. Using a host of online resources, you can find out whether recipients of earmarks hired lobbyists, made campaign contributions to members of Congress, or won federal contracts and grants. You can also add information to eamarks others have researched, or comment on what others have found. EarmarkWatch.org provides you with powerful tools to scrutinize and evaluate thousands of earmarks. To get started, create an account and pick an earmark.
Continue readingD.C. Madam Spawns Citizen-Generated Online Database
While much of D.C. is all atwitter about the D.C. Madam scandal and the subsequent revelations about Sen. David Vitter's appetite for prostitutes, we've been pretty silent here at Sunlight about the whole thing. That's because scandals about the personal failings of someone's private life are of no consequence to us. The Mark Foley scandal was an exception because that highlighted the institutional failings, and possible rule-breaking, of the congressional leadership at the time. Duke Cunningham's prostitutes were also an exception because they were used as bribes for earmarks. The Hill, however, reported today on an angle of the D.C. Madam case that is of interest to Sunlight. After Deborah Jean Palfrey, the D.C. Madam, posted her phone list on her personal Web site four Boston-based Brandeis alumni used that data to create a searchable database of all the phone numbers used to call Palfrey and secure her "services".
Continue readingHelp Identify Mystery PACs
Got some spare time? Want to get involved in a little open source watchdogging project? Our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics are asking users to research a list of "mystery PACs," or leadership political action committees that appear to be affiliated with a member of Congress but do not explicitly say so. Leadership PACs do not have to disclose the identity of an affiliated member of Congress. There's a bill in Congress, HR 347, sponsored by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), that would end this secretive process. While we wait for this bill to get a hearing in the House you can research these PACs yourself. If you need a little help in getting started, Bill Allison, at the Real Time Investigations blog, writes up a good summary of how he researched one of mystery PACs. And if you're feeling in a good mood and want to contribute your findings to another resource, Congresspedia has a great page on political action committees that lists many of the leadership PACs currently active. Feel free to add your findings to the list. Definitely go and help out CRP uncover the members of Congress behind these mystery PACs.
Continue readingAttorney Purge E-Mail Database Online
When the House Judiciary Committee put all of the Justice Department e-mails relating to the Attorney purge they received online they started an immense distributed research project that led hundreds of citizens to pour over documents hoping to find the needle in the haystack that would become a story the next day. The only problem with these online document dumps was that they were just that, dumps, as in the pouring of documents online in no particular order and without a search function. Those days are over thanks to a cadre of committed online researchers at Daily Kos. DKos poster drational posted today about the DOJ Documents database created by 20 kossacks and spearheaded by nuketeacher. Check out the database here.
Continue readingTalking about public disclosure of information
Writing in the Boston Globe, David Weil and Archon Fung dive into the new world of transparency and examine “a new idea of what public access to information really means.” While Weil and Fung don’t directly approach the topic of political information disclosure their analysis still resonates with the ongoing debate over transparency in Congress and in our political system.
Continue readingTPM Muck Distributed Research on Attorney Purge
If you've got some time on your hands go and help TPM Muckraker comb through the 3,000 Justice Department and White House documents dumped on the Judiciary Committees last night. Head to TPM Muckraker's website to follow these instructions:
So here's what we're going to do. This comment thread will be our HQ for sorting through tonight's document dump.
And to make it efficient and comprehensible, we'll have a system. As you can see on the House Judiciary Committee's website, they've begun reproducing 50-page pdfs of the documents with a simple numbering system, 3-19-2007 DOJ-Released Documents 1-1, then 1-2, then 1-3, etc. So pick a pdf, any pdf and give it a look. If you find something interesting (or damning), then tell us about it in the comment thread below.
Continue reading
We’re done!
And then there were none! Citizen journalists from 39 states and the District of Columbia have finished investigating the official, taxpayer-provided Web sites of members of Congress. We'll swing into action on the fact checking and follow ups...
Continue readingAre Congressional Web Sites Tools for Transparency? — 5th Update
With tenacity and doggedness, citizen journalists have now completed their investigations of the Web sites for some 334 members of Congress--leaving us with just over 200 to go! The average score has crept up to 31.2679, while the average amount of time taken to complete an investigation holds steady at seven minutes. Thanks to everyone who's participated so far (if I'm reading the handy-dandy internal stats page correctly, there are 93 contributors), and thanks also to Kathy Gill, who gives us a nice plug while offering a very useful criticism.
Continue readingAre Congressional Web Sites Tools for Transparency? — 4th Update
You've passed the half way mark! Only 265 member Web sites left to investigate! Of those finished, the average score has crept up to 31.3755...
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