Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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This Week in Transparency – August 21, 2009
Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:
Last Saturday afternoon, C-SPAN broadcast an interview of Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, discussing how the Internet is being used to provide transparency in the workings of government.
The Associated Press used data from the Center for Responsive Politics Chevron Corp. spent more than $12.8 million lobbying the federal government in the first half of this year, in an attempt to influence pending climate-change legislation and taxes targeting oil producers. So far this year, the oil giant has almost matched the $12.9 million they spent lobbying in all of 2008. (Continue reading…)
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Personal Democracy Forum: We.gov
Personal Democracy Forum kicks off Monday in New York. This will be PDF’s sixth event, with this year’s theme being “We.gov,” as in all the ways that we, the people are using technology and new media to transform politics, campaigns, media, governance and civic action. This is one conference I never miss willingly (I think I’ve only missed one!) and I’m honestly not that much of a conference-goer. I think of it as my annual “brain food.” I can’t wait.
A “two-day tech + politics brainfest” is how Tim O’Reilly described PDF last week. PDF will be tracking the state-of-the-art online politics, exploring government 2.0., looking at the new tools for organizing that are being used, as well as looking at the future of political journalism, blogging and networked media.
I’m excited to see old and new friends, many who are keynote speakers. A radically truncated list includes emerging technology expert (and Sunlight board member) Esther Dyson; senior fellow at Demos and PDF senior editor Allison Fine; now-former Washington Post “White House Watch” blogger Dan Froomkin (Dan posted his last earlier today…A must read!); New York State Senate CIO Andrew Hoppin (I blogged about him earlier today); journalism prof and Buzzmachine.com blogger Jeff Jarvis; Obama administration CIO Vivek Kundra; Craigslist founder (and Sunlight board member) Craig Newmark; law professor Beth Noveck; “Here Comes Everybody” author Clay Shirky; campaign re-inventor Joe Trippi and “The Cluetrain Manifesto” co-author and blogger David Weinberger. Really there are too many good people coming and speaking to mention
Congratulations, in advance to Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry, PDF’s co-founders, and Sunlight’s senior technology advisors. It’s going to be a very exciting couple of days.
Maybe you can join at the last minute.
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Grace and Brilliance Under Fire in Albany
The New York State Senate’s chief information officer Andrew Hoppin and his team have been making tremendous strides in opening up the inner workings of the chamber to the public, and are well on their way to achieving levels of transparency and accountability not before seen by any American legislative body, state or federal.
That in and of itself is worthy of great praise. However, they are fulfilling their mission while pitched partisan warfare is being waged over who controls the chamber. Not knowing who your boss is and whether you’ll have a job tomorrow is undoubtedly distracting, to say the least. But as Craig Newmark, wrote on his blog, “Looks like they’re getting it done, despite all the drama in NY state politics.” Earlier this week, The New York Observer’s Gillian Reagan highlighted the work of Hoppin and his team revamping the Senate’s Web site and services in order to “bring back-door conversations and government data and empower constituents.”
Last month, I blogged about how the NY Senate is building an array of online services that will offer citizens a much clearer window into how the chamber functions and invites their participation, including information such as bill text, budget plans and lawmaker’s expenditures and funding reports. It includes a public database of legislation that’s searchable by bill number, sponsor, committee or keyword. And they’ve added a Plain Language Initiative that translates legal and political jargon into more readable text. The site now includes a weekly calendar, “What’s happening now?” and “Find my senator” functions, info on senators, a listing of committees, data on issues and legislation, photos and videos and a blog.
One aspect I find especially cool is the Markup function that allows the public to comment on legislation that is under consideration, in essence a New York version of Sunlight’s Public Markup.Note that they are using a Creative Commons license. (Sunlight’s senior technology advisors, Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry, are advising the Senate on their transparency redesign.)
This is really great work under the most challenging of political circumstances.
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Weekly Media Roundup – April 17, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:Various media outlets and bloggers, including the likes of CNET.com, the Associated Press, the National Journal, Lawrence Lessig and Craig Newmark, have covered and congratulated the Center for Responsive Politics’ (CRP) for making its data records from OpenSecrets.org free for anyone to download. The Journal’s “Tech Daily Dose” column reported that more than 120 people had downloaded bulk data within the first 24 hours of CRP opening up its archives.
The Washington Post’s “The Reliable Source” column highlighted Capitol Words, which “slices and dices the entirety of the Congressional Record for your searching pleasure,” they write. McClatchy’s David Lightman reported that, in light of the financial crisis, words you would expect to be used by congressional lawmakers often, such as recession, bailout, stimulus and deficit do not crack the top 30 most frequently uttered terms so far this year. And Daphne Ritter with the New York Post looks at the top words used by several lawmakers from the Empire State’s congressional delegation.
Alice Lipowicz with Federal Computer Week used OpenCongress data in writing about how only 10 congressional lawmakers (four senators and six reps) post their daily schedules on their official Web sites. New York Newsday editorialized about how Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) is blazing a trail in her congressional career by posting her schedule and personal financial disclosure reports online. “While (congressional lawmakers are) at it, they should make sure that information is easy to locate, archived and searchable, so that watchful voters can track, over time, the lobbyists and interest groups bending an official’s ear,” the editors wrote.
Last week, Ryan Singel at Wired’s “Epicenter” blog wrote about Sunlight Labs‘ contest Apps for America, and asked his readers to vote for their favorites. This week, he reported back on the response he received, and issued what he terms the “Epicenter Reader’s Choice award.”
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TransparencyCamp Lives On
TransparencyCamp, the unconference event that iStrategyLabs and Sunlight co-sponsored two weekends ago, was a huge success.
We made a highlight reel of the weekend – interviews with many of the participants, including me and Craig Newmark, scenes from various sessions. We want to share with those who attended and those who couldn’t make it :
The spirit generated 10 days ago lives on.
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Bev Godwin: A Great Appointment
As we wait for Obama to name his new CTO, some encouraging news on the federal IT front is breaking. Candi Harrison, writes at her blog that Bev Godwin, director of USA.gov, will be joining the White House as director of online resources and interagency development on the New Media Team. Candi writes that Bev knows the Web manager community, and she will bring that knowledge to the table when decisions are being made. “You couldn’t have a better, more savvy and more capable advocate,” she writes. “This is great news.’
Nancy Scola at Tech President concurs. “With this and other appointments, team Obama is turning the White House into social media’s center of gravity in Washington, which is a distinct change from the past.” And Craig Newmark is also excited. “I, for one, welcome our new (Web content) nerd overlords.”
Let us second (third? fourth?) these acclamations for this appointment. We’ve worked with Bev a little and she and her GSA team have been focused, savvy, and smart about the institutional barriers they will confront as they try to fulfill the President’s promises on transparency, open government and collaboration.
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A Craigslist for Service
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and Sunlight board member, has written a thoughtful piece on service and volunteerism for The Huffington Post. The catalyst for Craig’s piece is the reference by the Barack Obama platform, outlined at Change.gov, to their volunteerism plans as “a craigslist for service.” Craig uses this opportunity to outline possible aspects of “a craigslist for service” from his point of view, such as offering to help an established charity, or use sites like VolunteerMatch.org, DonorsChoose.org and Kiva.org to find ways to donate your time and money in useful and thoughtful ways, along with other ideas.
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Big News In Investigative Journalism
Craig sez:
ProPublica launches.
The site has some nice features: Scandal Watch, 7 different RSS feeds, and a nice “breaking on the web” feature. Definitely keeping my eye on this. And I am preparing for Google Reader overload.
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Full Frontal Scrutiny
Consumer Reports WebWatch and the Center for Media and Democracy (our partners on Congresspedia) joined forces to launch Full Frontal Scrutiny, a blog-driven, wiki-based site dedicated to exposing fake, corporate-funded front groups that are pushing agendas, while hiding their true identity or agenda. Full Frontal Scrutiny will give consumers, voters and citizens a resource for investigating organizations they run across in the media or elsewhere that have popped up to promote a particular opinion or bill in Congress. We love the banner on the site that include this quote from Jonathan Adelstein, commissioner at the FCC: "The American public deserves to know when someone is trying to persuade them." The organizers say it’s this spirit that is their motivation for exposing "hidden persuaders." This is a new battle being waged in the spirit of transparency.
Earlier today, for instance, the site posted a report titled Tricky Wiki, an expose of how public relations pros spin the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
"Workers at an array of corporate titans have altered their firms’ Wikipedia entries, in apparent violation of the site’s ideals," including ExxonMobil shining up their environmental record, a pharmaceutical giant making claims that their cancer drugs are better than a rival’s, and PepsiCo deleting references to potential health problems caused by its soft drinks, to name a few.
Craig Newmark, Sunlight board member, has checked it out and is impressed. "I’ve taken a good look at all involved, and they’re for real, CU and CMD have outstanding records for integrity and accuracy," Craig writes at The Huffington Post.
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News from Sunlight
We are making two annoucements this afternoon: a second round of grants for 2007 (including two grants from our Mini-grant program), and a new member of the Board of Directors — Craig Newmark. Craig is the founder and customer service representative for Craigslist, and one of the initial members of our Advisory Board. Craig is a visionary, and he has an understanding of power of the Internet technology that is nearly unrivaled. We couldn't be happier to have him assume a more formal role in guiding the Sunlight Foundation.
We are also very excited about the grant making opportunities that have come our way. The groups we are helping to fund are on the cutting edge of Web 2.0 technology, and are among the best at using the Internet to open up Congress. In this round, we have made grants to the Capitol News Connection for a "Ask Your Lawmaker Widget," and the Metavid, a video archive of U.S. House and Senate proceedings. We also made two mini-grants — WashingtonWatch.com and to OpEdNews.
