Rep. Darrell Issa (R.-Calif) plans to reintroduce the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, or DATA Act, which aims to open up and standardize the federal government's spending data. The House passed an earlier version of the bill in April of 2012, but it had not moved forward in the Senate. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which Issa chairs, has now posted a discussion draft of a new version of the legislation. The committee will begin marking up the legislation this coming Wednesday, according to Daniel Schuman, policy counsel at the Sunlight Foundation. Read More

Several Redditors reacted skeptically Wednesday to California House Republican Darrell Issa's town-hall visit to the online forum advocating a new bill that would put a two-year moratorium on new Internet regulations. Read More

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers, techPresident is asking some of the folks out there on the leading edge of digital politics and government to point out just one tool or service that has become a mainstay, a must-use or just incredibly helpful in their work. There's one rule: It can't be something the person has built or the person's company is selling. We're asking folks to pay some karma forward here and highlight an innovation coming from elsewhere that makes their work easier. Seamus Kraft is digital director for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In March, the Oversight Committee relaunched its website with the popular open-source content management system WordPress. Read More

California Congressman Darrell Issa, a prominent advocate for Internet users, open government, and transparency issues unveiled a new initiative Monday called the Open Gov Foundation. The Foundation builds on much of the ... Read More

Team techPresident is at New York University's Skirball Center today for Personal Democracy Forum 2012, where Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Darrell Issa just called for the creation of an "Internet Bill of Rights." (More on that in a few.)

PDF this year is closely focused on the new political activity coming from people and companies who rely on the Internet, and the consequences of more political activism by what you might call the Internet public.

We'll be posting from the floor throughout the day, and keeping an eye on the outside world to point you towards other stories of interest around the web as they happen.

House Republicans are wasting no time in riding the momentum provided by the recent General Services Administration spending scandal to push for legislation designed to bring more transparency to the way government agencies spend money. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform made H.R. 2146, the Digital Accountability & Transparency Act (DATA) available for public comment on its Madison platform online Wednesday in anticipation of a floor vote next week. Committee Chairman Darrell Issa's spokesman Ali Ahmad says that the chairman, who is the chief sponsor of the legislation, would take into account any comments left on Madison. A new coalition of private companies, chaired by Issa's former Oversight Committee counsel, Hudson Hollister, also launched this week to promote legislation related to technology and transparency. Read More