The Sunshine Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to government transparency & accountability, has obtained Supreme Court nominee
Elena Kagan's emails from her time in the Clinton White House & made them available in a handy web application. Browse, read, search & mark those you find interesting for others to read.
posted by scalefree
on Jun 23, 2010 -
26 comments
The Library Of Unified Information Sources (LOUIS) is a beta-release project of the
previously mentioned Sunlight Foundation, the goal of which is "to create a comprehensive, completely indexed and cross-referenced depository of federal documents from the executive and legislative branches of government." LOUIS currently contains searchable full text documents of Congressional Reports, the Congressional Record, Congressional Hearings, Presidential Documents, the Federal Register, GAO Reports and Bills & Resolutions, going back to 2001. Other interesting Sunlight Foundation projects include
Visualizing Earmarks,
3 (non-satirical) Modest Proposals,
The Congressional Family Business Project, and
Congresspedia.
posted by cog_nate
on Jun 20, 2007 -
2 comments
The folks at
DownsizeDC have this crazy idea that the members of Congress should have to
read the bills that they vote on.
Here is their plan to make it happen.
posted by Who_Am_I
on Mar 22, 2007 -
48 comments
...Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws -- many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone ... President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution. ... Long, eyeopening article laying out what laws have been ignored and why.
...Bush has cast a cloud over 'the whole idea that there is a rule of law," because no one can be certain of which laws Bush thinks are valid and which he thinks he can ignore.
'Where you have a president who is willing to declare vast quantities of the legislation that is passed during his term unconstitutional, it implies that he also thinks a very significant amount of the other laws that were already on the books before he became president are also unconstitutional," ...
posted by amberglow
on Apr 30, 2006 -
85 comments
Plogress.com is a new project to provide current information on what Senators and Representatives are currently doing in Congress. It consists of a separate blog--with feeds--for each US Senator and Representative, listing bills that he or she is sponsor of or cosponsor. Plans are in the works to add votes and committee activities.
posted by monju_bosatsu
on May 18, 2005 -
20 comments
Iraq on the Record A full compilation of the Bush administration's misleading statements on Iraq was comissioned by rep. Henry Waxman. It is now available as a pdf
report and as a
database searchable by name of speaker or keyword. Did this sort of framework for accountability exist before the Web, and can it be effective now?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly
on Mar 16, 2004 -
20 comments
Four 9/11 Widows Demand Truth. "This is a stonewalling job of far greater importance than Watergate. This concerns the refusal of the country’s leadership to be held accountable for the failure to execute its most fundamental responsibility: to protect its citizens against foreign attack. 'If we have an executive branch that holds sole discretion over what information is released to the public and what is hidden, the public will never get the full story of why there was an utter failure to protect them that day, and who should be held accountable.'"
posted by fold_and_mutilate
on Aug 25, 2003 -
33 comments
GOP Will Fight GAO Lawsuit. Says Orrin Hatch, "the General Accounting Office, shouldn't be 'trying to impose disclosure on internal White House meetings to determine policy. ... If you have to do that, pretty soon there wouldn't be any meetings.'"
This is going to be a tough move to defend come election time.
posted by Pinwheel
on Jan 30, 2002 -
23 comments
GAO to Cheney: "Show us what you got!" Ok, well it wasn't that dramatic, but this "demand letter" is one step away from giving the Veep a subpeona. Even right wing attack dog Judicial Watch is getting in with some hot lawsuit action.
posted by owillis
on Jul 18, 2001 -
4 comments