April 26, 2006
Disclosure Time
Today marks the public launch of the Sunlight Foundation and one of its flagship projects, Congresspedia. Full disclosure is warranted here, and not just because that's the goal of Sunlight: Along with my partner Andrew Rasiej, I have been consulting with Sunlight since December. The goal of the foundation is
to use revolutionary power of the Internet and new information technology to enable citizens to learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing, and thus help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government, and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy.
We've worked hard on this, and think we've come up with some fruitful ways to use the internet and the power of citizen networking to shine more light on Congress. For example, Congresspedia, which is a joint project with the Center for Media and Democracy, has a page on every Member of Congress that anyone can edit and the potential to become a terrific resource. Sunlight is also committed to not just making "transparency grants" to digitize all kinds of useful information on Congress, lobbying and government spending, but making sure that public APIs are built to that data, to enable lots of other people to use it in mash-ups. The foundation is also venturing into the citizen journalism arena, with an effort to smoke out earmarks and online tutorials to help teach people how to dig out the muck on their own.
The proof, of course, will be in what happens next.
I do want to give a big shout out to the folks at Trellon, and in particular their terrific lead developer Josh Koenig, who designed and built the innards of Sunlight's website. We'll be rolling out some new features with them over the next few months.
I should also add that I have long and warm relationship with Sunlight's executive director, Ellen Miller, who was the ED of Public Campaign for its first four years (1997-2000), while I was working there full-time. Here's Ellen's Sunspots blog, where she'll be sharing ideas with the public on the foundation's goals and efforts.
April 07, 2006
Telling the Emperor He Has No Clothes
Unfortunately, Bush doesn't listen. But I'm glad that finally someone (a man named Harry Taylor, in Charlotte, NC) managed, however briefly, to puncture the bubble. Here's the video clip.
Here's the text of the exchange, from the White House press page:
Q You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you'd like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are --
THE PRESIDENT: I'm not your favorite guy. Go ahead. (Laughter and applause.) Go on, what's your question?
Q Okay, I don't have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that I -- in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and --
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: No, wait a sec -- let him speak.
Q And I would hope -- I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself. And I also want to say I really appreciate the courtesy of allowing me to speak what I'm saying to you right now. That is part of what this country is about.
My friend David points out a striking resemblance between the news photo of Taylor standing up to speak his mind, and Norman Rockwell's depiction of freedom of speech.
April 04, 2006
Without DeLay
Hard to believe that only eighteen months ago, October 2004, Tom DeLay was riding high and everyone thought he was impregnable.
His interview with Time magazine on his surprise decision to quit Congress instead of facing an increasingly difficult re-election fight is telling. DeLay has no idea why he became the #1 symbol for corruption in Congress. Listen to him:
We have been effective for 11 years going now, doing some pretty amazing things. They hate that. The reason we've been effective is we've tried to change the culture of Washington, D.C. And do it legally and ethically. The Democrats hate the fact that their culture of K Street has been changed from a totally dominated Democrat K Street [lobbying community] to a totally dominated Republican K Street. Nothing illegal about that at all. And we built that. When we took over in 1995, the K Street contributions to elections was 70/30—70 percent Democrat, 30 percent Republican. Today it's 60/40—60 percent Republican and 40 percent Republican. That's a change in culture.
When you ask the average American if a change in Washington's culture is needed, they'll say yes. But not this kind of a change!