Thinktank Aims To Crowdsource Government Earmark Analysis

Al writes "The Sunlight Foundation, based in Washington, DC, hopes to raise an army of web volunteers to analyze all the earmarks in government bills. The group's new Sunlight Labs transparency corps invites users to join an effort to analyze the information collaboratively. Users are presented with PDFs released by hundreds of different offices and asked to enter the pertinent information like the date and dollar amount of a request, name of the requester, description of the project, and so on. These then become part of a searchable database. The project's launch roughly coincided with the launch earlier this month of the government's new IT Dashboard. But this tool is somewhat limited — users can find the primary recipients of IT project funding, but not subcontractors; it's not easy to discern the origins of contracts or their geographic distribution, and it's almost impossible to see how they are connected to elected officials."

Comments

A step in the right direction

[TheDarkener]

At least they're going this far. Imagine this happening under the Bush office. Nope, I didn't think you could.

P.S. I am *not* an Obama fanboi.

I agree, and not just for earmarks

[P0ltergeist333]

The Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights was a prime example. You have long overdue, well thought out, responsible legislation with a crap law tied to it. Legislation was tacked on to allow sidearms in National Parks. Now I can't take my kids camping / fishing without worrying about some drunk idiot with a sidearm. At least before this bill, hunting rifles were generally out of sight and out of mind in their tent / camper / truck by the time they got wasted. Now it's strapped to their leg.