Good to know. In the comments, Tim Cullen points out that Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer were up on Capitol Hill last week to ask a House Appropriations subcommittee for, among other things, funding to bring the Supreme Court website at SupremeCourtUS.gov in-house. The site, which enjoys 18 million hits a year, is currently housed with the Government Printing Office -- which means content from the court has to be routed through GPO for posting. That arrangement worked well enough for a while, said Thomas and Breyer, but the court is ready to run its own website. To that end, the court is asking Congress for some web development money (pdf):

The Court can move its Website in-house through a relatively small expenditure of funds. This initiative would require $303,000 for purchasing additional hardware, software, network components, and electronics to support the Court’s Website. It would also require $418,000 to fund four new full-time information technology specialist positions: one new information technology (IT) specialist who will be the first point of contact for all technical and user issues; a security analyst/auditor who will monitor Website activity, analyze and respond to incidents and implement security enhancements; a software developer who will develop, support, and administer the Website’s software applications, and a network administrator who will support the Website network and server environment. The Court would also need $78,000 to hire a composition specialist to prepare and post data on the Website.

Tim also points us to a funny/awkward moment when subcommittee member Rep. John Culberson made the argument in favor of court transparency to Justices Thomas and Breyer by pulling out his pocket video camera and livestreaming via Qik (noted previously on the Sunlight blog):

Man, to be able to read Thomas and Breyer's minds at that moment...

I just got off the phone with "notq," a Twitterer who served as an information hub during this week’s St. Paul protests around the Republican National Convention, as I detailed yesterday.

As a point person for on-the-ground information, notq served as a node through which a great deal of tear gas notices, police instructions, and tactical information flowed. But here’s the rather remarkable thing: he was doing it all from Tempe, Arizona, some 1,800 miles away from the Twin Cities. notq, a.k.a. Nathan Oyler, is a politically active Linux administrator opposed to the Iraq War and the Bush Administration. He was a central point through which critical information passed via Twitter -- and he wasn't even there.

"I was dispatch," he says.

As the Democratic National Convention churns along down at the Pepsi Center, there's been a pretty steady stream of politicians flowing through the Big Tent, the gathering point for bloggers, activists, and other new-media types a few blocks from the main hall. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is on his way in, DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen is scheduled to pop by this afternoon, and California Senator Barbara Boxer is slated for tomorrow. It's a smart move for politicos -- divert themselves from the "official" convention for a half and hour or so to rack up a little face time with bloggers, many of whom will make note of the visit.

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who gave a well-recieved speech in the Pepsi Center last night, just stopped by the Big Tent. Schweitzer is inagurably a pretty funny guy, and he put on a good show here. I caught a little Qik footage of the tail end of his visit. In it, he ties Barack Obama's chances in Montana to guns and Bob Barr, and he gets in a little good-natured snark in about the assembled bloggers. Have a look:

Will bloggers armed with cheap, high-tech tools change the news, or will the age-old rule that the closer you get to the powerful, the harder it is for you to criticize them, hold? This week at the Democratic convention we're seeing a new model in action, the Qik-powered videoblogger, but the results are still unclear.

Via the magic that is Twitter and Qik, we're being treated to a front-row seat to what is in all likelihood a congressional first -- members of the House refusing to leave the floor, and inviting reporters, tourists, and staffers to join the party. At issue are legislative proposals to allow domestic offshore oil drilling, and Republicans are staging the protest to demand that the House take up the issue. We'll point you to some coverage of this on-going situation:

I'll be going live to the web from time-to-time during the next two-and-a-half days as PdF2008 gets under way, using a Nokia N95 mobile phone, and if you want to watch, just bookmark this page. You can also follow me on Twitter (my handle is @mlsif), and every time I'm actually streaming live, Qik--the fabulous live video streaming service we're using--will send a tweet letting you know.

The Twittering congressman is now the Qik-ing congressman: Texas Republican Rep. John Culberson is doing live video streaming of interviews with his fellow members of the House during today's vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. You have to wonder what his colleagues think when they see John coming.

A fake superdelegate on YouTube; Hillary can't catch a break online; Grover Norquist shows up in the RNC's "Can We Ask" campaign; graphic designers get out the vote; new speakers announced for PdF 2008; John McCain shores up his tech policy; a McCain adviser answers Wired readers' questions; Hillary's t-shirt contest enters the voting stage; Ron Paul's been employing tons of family members; and a Member of Congress uses Qik.

A new Republican group swears web domination is all about the right tools; the presidential race is the best example of the impact of blogging on politics, says Technorati; Jose Antonio Vargas gets introspective about online politics; the DNC credentialing process is on the verge of becoming a fiasco; Second Life attacks made real in Russia; Google News and Google Earth offer cool possibilities; a new, smooth pro-Obama tune; McCain says none more black!; Hillary Tweets more, conducts blog outreach; and British PM reaches out to constituents on YouTube.

Here's the archived video of the "Transparency and Government" session at the Berkman at 10 conference that I participated in along with Sunlight Foundation head Ellen Miller this morning. (I am a consultant to Sunlight.) It was streamed live to the web by uber-video blogger Steve Garfield, who is the official videographer of the event.