With regard to Web 2.0 applications. rl
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Sent: November 8, 2006 8:39 PM
To: civicaccess discuss
Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] wired article - web2.0 saving democracy
good article in wired about web 2.0 saving democracy. obviously
hyperbole, but there's lots of fun stuff to get done.
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72001-0.htmla quote from the article:
"Today, you can already access online data on which companies donate to
which political parties and candidates, and make some good guesses about
what they get in return. Opensecrets.org, run by the Center for
Responsive Politics, provides a startling amount of information on
campaign donations, members of Congress and special interest groups.
MAPLight.org provides a detailed service for tracing California state
legislation, including who supported and who killed various bills.
A new, publicly accessible government website mandated by the Federal
Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 will soon list the
federal government's grants and contracts, tracing exactly how tax money
is being spent.
Knowing how much money is spent for which programs, and where, is a
great start. Knowing what good, if any, spending that money accomplishes
would be even better. Web 2.0 technology can help citizens process and
understand political donations, government contracts and programs, and
performance metrics in all sorts of important and novel ways.
For example, tagging information about federal expenditures, unpaved
highways or toxic waste sites with GeoRSS would let citizens easily
cross-reference the data with other information, including campaign
donations. Data feeds that use Ajax, JSON and OpenGIS Web Map Service
can incorporate externally hosted geospatial capabilities into mashups
that weave data together into a single, multifeatured map.
These capabilities would make publicly accessible information publicly
comprehensible, for a multitude of uses and applications, incorporating
a variety of data.
Major internet players are beginning to understand the power of mapping
political data. This past Monday, Google announced that it would overlay
2006 campaign data from the Federal Election Commission and
Opensecrets.org on top of Google Earth. Users can see stars on the U.S.
map wherever there are races for congressional seats and state
governorships. Clicking on a star opens up a bubble with information
about races in that area."
via Robin
http://rym.waglo.com/wordpress/2006/11/05/venture-democracy/_______________________________________________
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