Personal Democracy Forum 2008
Session: The Cross-Partisan Movement for Political Transparency and Watchdogging Government from Below
Note by Thirsy Mind:
The Cross-Partisan Movement for Political Transparency and Watchdogging Government from Below
-why is this movement flourishing now?
-do the left & right really agree on these principles?
-what are best principles for watchdogs?
Ellen Miller
Sunlight Foundation
1984: The first Mac made it easy for all of us to think about how to store and manage information. 46% of all adults are using internet/text messaging for political information. The technology is why the movement has taken off. Information is cheap. Social web connects information to issues. Easier to contact elected representatives. The Sunlight Foundation couldn’t have been founded any earlier. Rise in technology + loss of trust in Congress.
“Government transformation by data visualization”
David Stephenson
Stephenson Strategies
Shows slide from final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. You knew that box was never going to be seen again. Same happens with government data. In the sequel, Indy recovers the Ark – and this is a good omen, we are getting more public scrutiny than ever before (thanks to Sunlight). Shows a Google Map of pothole reports. This is not from government, but a private citizen, because DC releases 216 databases on a real-time basis. You can look up the pothole on your street and get current data.
Sousveillance – the opposite of surveillance. Holding government to account. IllegalSigns.ca is a from a guy in Toronto. Another mashup shows crime in Chicago. Neighbourhood Knowledge in LA: tracks 7 indicators of urban decline, colour-coded. Gapminder is the next wave in data visualization.
Two steps in these programs. First, release the data. You can scrape from public records, but this limits access to technologically sophisticated. Now that so many agencies are creating internal XML data feeds, so it’s easy to open up. The best government in the world on this is the District of Columbia. It’s all realtime – this is critical.
Second step is visualize the data. Swivel, Many Eyes are services which allow this.
Internally, DC has a site where their data is shown in good ways. Externally, they just dump it.
Once the data is out there, people are going to create mashups whether government likes it or not. The genie’s out of the bag.
Matt Stoller
OpenLeft
Google is on trial in Florida for obscenity. Their defense: ‘orgy’ is a very common search term, so doesn’t violated community standards. Case is pending. It’s clear that people don’t want to admit this. Gap between explicit and implicit values.
The gap between implicit and explicit values is the problem in DC. Both parties in DC have stuff they don’t want to admit, so it’s trans-partisan. National security legislation: bipartisan movement for reform – Ron Paul libertarians and Democrat civil libertarians. Last week, the FISA bill passed, very few members could read it. Not one Democrat criticized the Dem leadership who pushed this through. Mashups make the implicit understandings explicit, and make government accountable.
Things we’ve tried: electing more Democrats. We have, it sort of helped – delayed bad bills. We’ve lost – stems backlashes, somewhat useful. Internet transparency merges will and elections – HRC was doomed because of supporting the war. On FISA bill, $300K has flowed in donations. Old media are useless for engaging in debate, since they only tell the story when it’s over. Blogs keep a story active.
Mark Tapscott
Washington Examiner
(formerly Heritage Foundation)
USAspending.gov is one of the most revolutionary websites around. A few clicks away from knowing where tax dollars going. The movement is flourishing because of the alignment of interests – me, a government-hater, and Ellen, a government-lover.
Not cross-partisan, but trans-partisan. What does the internet do to the fundamental nature of internet? You don’t see the answer. We’ve created a leviathan in the last 50 years, bureaucracy, etc. The internet eliminates the need for centralized government.
Q: Should the first obligation be to put out the data, or put out a finished website?
There’s a lack of overall trust in the government. Even with all the uproar lately, you can still donate money…it’s now cheap to monitor a lot. Google aggregates weekly questionnaires of employee tasks.
-why is this movement flourishing now?
-do the left & right really agree on these principles?
-what are best principles for watchdogs?
Ellen Miller
Sunlight Foundation
1984: The first Mac made it easy for all of us to think about how to store and manage information. 46% of all adults are using internet/text messaging for political information. The technology is why the movement has taken off. Information is cheap. Social web connects information to issues. Easier to contact elected representatives. The Sunlight Foundation couldn’t have been founded any earlier. Rise in technology + loss of trust in Congress.
“Government transformation by data visualization”
David Stephenson
Stephenson Strategies
Shows slide from final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. You knew that box was never going to be seen again. Same happens with government data. In the sequel, Indy recovers the Ark – and this is a good omen, we are getting more public scrutiny than ever before (thanks to Sunlight). Shows a Google Map of pothole reports. This is not from government, but a private citizen, because DC releases 216 databases on a real-time basis. You can look up the pothole on your street and get current data.
Sousveillance – the opposite of surveillance. Holding government to account. IllegalSigns.ca is a from a guy in Toronto. Another mashup shows crime in Chicago. Neighbourhood Knowledge in LA: tracks 7 indicators of urban decline, colour-coded. Gapminder is the next wave in data visualization.
Two steps in these programs. First, release the data. You can scrape from public records, but this limits access to technologically sophisticated. Now that so many agencies are creating internal XML data feeds, so it’s easy to open up. The best government in the world on this is the District of Columbia. It’s all realtime – this is critical.
Second step is visualize the data. Swivel, Many Eyes are services which allow this.
Internally, DC has a site where their data is shown in good ways. Externally, they just dump it.
Once the data is out there, people are going to create mashups whether government likes it or not. The genie’s out of the bag.
Matt Stoller
OpenLeft
Google is on trial in Florida for obscenity. Their defense: ‘orgy’ is a very common search term, so doesn’t violated community standards. Case is pending. It’s clear that people don’t want to admit this. Gap between explicit and implicit values.
The gap between implicit and explicit values is the problem in DC. Both parties in DC have stuff they don’t want to admit, so it’s trans-partisan. National security legislation: bipartisan movement for reform – Ron Paul libertarians and Democrat civil libertarians. Last week, the FISA bill passed, very few members could read it. Not one Democrat criticized the Dem leadership who pushed this through. Mashups make the implicit understandings explicit, and make government accountable.
Things we’ve tried: electing more Democrats. We have, it sort of helped – delayed bad bills. We’ve lost – stems backlashes, somewhat useful. Internet transparency merges will and elections – HRC was doomed because of supporting the war. On FISA bill, $300K has flowed in donations. Old media are useless for engaging in debate, since they only tell the story when it’s over. Blogs keep a story active.
Mark Tapscott
Washington Examiner
(formerly Heritage Foundation)
USAspending.gov is one of the most revolutionary websites around. A few clicks away from knowing where tax dollars going. The movement is flourishing because of the alignment of interests – me, a government-hater, and Ellen, a government-lover.
Not cross-partisan, but trans-partisan. What does the internet do to the fundamental nature of internet? You don’t see the answer. We’ve created a leviathan in the last 50 years, bureaucracy, etc. The internet eliminates the need for centralized government.
Q: Should the first obligation be to put out the data, or put out a finished website?
There’s a lack of overall trust in the government. Even with all the uproar lately, you can still donate money…it’s now cheap to monitor a lot. Google aggregates weekly questionnaires of employee tasks.
