Somehow this slipped beneath our radar until now. The deal is that Harvard's Larry Lessig is supplementing his Change Congress/Fix Congress First push with a more fundamental -- yet more provocative -- appeal: let's start a grassroots movement to call for a constitutional convention, as provided for in the Constitution, to rework the basic nature of the agreement between "the People" and Congress. Here, from CallAConvention.org, is Lessig's thinking behind why the time is well nigh to provoke state legislatures into calling a summit on rewriting the Constitution:

From the Tea Party Right to the Progressive Left, there is agreement that something fundamental has gone wrong. But I believe that our frustrations share a common source -- an exasperation with the broken state of our political system -- even as we disagree passionately on what to do about it.

The solution to that disagreement is democracy. We should begin the long discussion about how best to reform our democracy, to restore its commitment to liberty and a Republic, by beginning a process to amend the Constitution through the one path the Framers gave us that has not yet been taken -- a Convention.

For the Framers imagined a time when the government might be captured. And they created a mechanism to respond to that capture. If 2/3ds of the legislatures of the states demand it, Congress must call a convention. That convention then must meet and deliberate about amendments to the constitution. If it agrees, it then proposes amendments to the states. 3/4ths of the states must then ratify any amendment before becomes law. Thus, 12 states of 50 have the power to veto any change, meaning no change could happen unless it appealed to a solid group of Red States and a solid group of Blue. We are, today, beginning the process to call a convention.

In particular, what Lessig wants that constitutional convention to tackle would be an amendment to the Constitution that requires Congress to ensure that "the financing of federal elections does not produce any actual or reasonably perceived appearance of dependence, except upon the People," with a non-partisan commission acting as the people's watchdog on when money is creating unholy dependencies on Capitol Hill.

Of course, one way of lessening the impression that Congress is paid for by high-donors is to create a widespread base of small donors and making political funding processes more transparent -- two things that the Internet has proven to be pretty good at. But first things first: here's where you can sign up to support Lessig's call for a constitutional convention.

The cover story of the new issue of the New Republic is Larry Lessig's case against pushing a a government transparency agenda. "We are not thinking critically enough about where and when transparency works," Lessig warns, "where and when it may lead to confusion, or to worse. And I fear that the inevitable success of this movement--if pursued alone, without any sensitivity to the full complexity of the idea of perfect openness--will inspire not reform, but disgust. The 'naked transparency movement,' as I will call it here, is not going to inspire change. It will simply push any faith in our political system over the cliff."

Transparency means a lot of different things to a lot of different people...

Larry Lessig and Joe Trippi take to Politico to announce that their "Donor Strike" has passed the one-million-dollar mark. Even if you like to play grouchy cynic, the Change Congress campaign is a creative demonstration of how activists can bundle together small caches of political power heretofore scattered amongst the citizenry. The deal is thus. Senators and Representatives either back the Fair Elections Now Act -- a bill that rewards candidates who depend on small-dollar donors -- or find themselves potential targets of a donor strike. Through FEC validation or self-reporting, Change Congress tallies how much strikees kicked in last cycle (and are, in theory, withholding this time around). Change Congress is estimating that Dianne Feinstein is out $260,000, Chuck Schumer is $113,000 poorer, and Nancy Pelosi's coffers are $57,000 lighter.

A few days back, Larry Lessig floated the idea that Congressman John Conyers's backing of a certain copyright bill could be explained away by campaign contributions the Michigan Democrat took in from publishers. Lessig tried to soften the charge with the caveat "no one can know what goes on the heart or mind of Congressman Conyers." Accusing someone of "shilling for Big Paper," though, tends to leave a certain taste in the mouth. Not surprisingly, Conyers is not at all pleased. The determinative connection that Lessig drew from MAPLight fundraising data and his legislative actions "crosses the line," he writes. I'll argue below that we're bearing witness here to a timely and important moment. But first, the wrath of Conyers...

Ars Technica's Julian Sanchez has a fascinating report on models of the blogosphere's many-tendriled thought sharing that go far beyond information-thin "A is connected to B is connected to..." mappings...Don't let the acronyms fool you -- the SEC's embrace of XBRL is exciting stuff. The Securities and Exchange Commission has mandated that public companies and mutual funds publish their financial data in a common structured format...Stanford professor Larry Lessig was recently the guest of honor at a salon sponsored by Netroots Nation...and more.

There's a dust-up over network neutrality that we'll do our darnedest to encapsulate in one bullet point. Ready? Let's go. Google, reported the Wall Street Journal's Vishesh Kumar and Christopher Rhoads, has been quietly pushing a plan to create "a fast lane for its own content"...Republican rank-and-file are urging their leaders to embrace technology or face "suicide"...As the cloak of secrecy that surrounded the Obama campaign gets pulled back the slightest bit, we're finally learning the truly important stuff: which Obama logo mock-ups didn't make the cut...and still more.

The morning after President Bush signed FISA into law, the online left considers how it fits in Obama's world; John McCain turns to YouTube to make know his distaste for comments by his economic advisor Phil Gramm, Speaker Nancy Pelosi jumps into the Twitter Dome Scandal; and much, much more.

We've got one more round-up of the extensive coverage of Personal Democracy Forum '08 and we ask the question: was this the most mediated conference in all of recorded history? Also: where is the online right's defense of John McCain in the face of the "John McCain is aware of the Internet" meme?

I'm here at PdF '08 at a press conference marking the launch of InternetforEveryone.com, a coalition pushing for universal high-speed Internet, centered around four core tenets: access, choice, openness, and innovation. The unveiling of the broadband effort was a unique opportunity to witness some pretty, ehem, prolific talkers from the worlds of academia, advocacy, and business strictly held to just one or two minutes, and so I've tried to capture their mico-arguments in favor of universal broadband here.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Joe Trippi a week ago, as we both were in DC for the launch of Larry Lessig's new Change-Congress project. (Joe is working with Larry on CC, and the Sunlight Foundation, which I consult for, was co-sponsoring Larry's speech). If you watch closely, you can see Larry in the background of the first video, in fact. In general, the lack of production values suggests I should stick to my day job, I know. But we covered a lot of interesting ground, as you'll see...