Open up the federal government · 19 February 09
Which federal documents would you most like to get your hands on?
Sunlight Foundation, OpenTheGovernment.org and the Center for Democracy and Technology are conducing a “Show Us the Data survey, aimed at identifying the 10 most-wanted government documents, reports or data sets that should be available on the Web – but aren’t. You can submit your own nominations, or vote for up to three documents submitted by others. March 9 is the deadline to participate.
Leading vote-getters so far are:
Congressional Research Service reports: Taxpayer-funded examinations of public policy that most people don’t know exist, and that can now only be requested through members of Congress.
Bailout funds: According to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, all of the financial institution bailout funds and how they were spent must be made public. But so far we know little about what fund recipients have done with the money.
Department of Justice Patriot Act usage and rationale: The Judicial Branch is not providing statistical reports on Patriot Act usage, and without such reports, the public has no method of knowing when the courts might be allowing law enforcement to overstep investigative boundaries.
Read the rest here.
We learned about this project through the Depth Reporting blog, which is filled with ideas and commentary on in-depth investigative reporting, much of it records based.
