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San Francisco's City Hall. Photo: Flickr/http: 2007

San Francisco Publishes New Tool To Interpret Local Lobbying Information

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Friday, January 20 2012

The San Francisco Ethics Commission on Thursday published a new tool that enables web developers to more easily access, interpret and mash up local lobbyist filing information. San Francisco follows Chicago, which also offers an application programming interface for its lobbyist database. New York City offers a searchable database online, but doesn't have an API. Read More

What Lobbyists Say On Twitter

BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, November 9 2011

The Sunlight Foundation* today released a Twitter list of registered lobbyists. Lists are fun, sure. But what's a little more fun is how Sunlight built the list: By querying Twitter’s API, we tried to match the names ... Read More

When High-Tech Meets Low Tech in Transparency

BY Nick Judd | Thursday, September 8 2011

Here's something smart that the Sunlight Foundation* did for its coverage of today's first meeting of the congressional "super committee" convened to resolve the nation's problem with rising national debt and deficits. ... Read More

The Time Sarah Palin's Sudden Celebrity Crashed Alaska's Website

BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, June 15 2011

Flash back to 2008, when John McCain named Sarah Palin his vice presidential nominee. She was a relative unknown in national politics, and the sudden deluge of interest about her focused especially in one place — ... Read More

Reading Your Inbox for Political Dollars

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, June 7 2011

You know how Rapportive can serve up social data keyed off your Gmail inbox? Meet Inbox Influence. It does the same thing, basically, but with details on the political money tied to the people and organizations in your ... Read More

Sunlight Hits Kindergarten Age

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, April 28 2011

A reminder that we're all getting old: the Sunlight Foundation, which sits at the center of the conversation around technology-enhanced government transparency, turns five.* *Note: Our Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry are ... Read More

Sunlight at a South Carolina Tea Party Rally

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, April 19 2011

South Carolina State Treasurer Curtis Loftis delivered a fired-up address on open government during a lightly-attend Tea Party Tax Day rally in Columbia: I want you to know what we’ve done since I’ve been in ... Read More

Budget Agreement Shrinks Open Data Funding Pool

BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, April 13 2011

The Sunlight Foundation's* Daniel Schuman has the latest details on how funding is shaping up for the E-Government Fund in H.R. 1473, the FY2011 budget bill currently working its way through Congress. What it looks like ... Read More

TransparencyCamp, Delhi

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, April 12 2011

The concept launched by the DC-based Sunlight Foundation* makes its way to India. *Note: Our Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry are senior advisors to the Sunlight Foundation. Read More

A Plea to Keep on Funding E-Gov

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, March 28 2011

Here's an update on the dollars for open government front: the Sunlight Foundation* has just pushed out an open letter calling on congressional leaders to avoid slashing the budget for the E-Government Fund from $34 ... Read More

News Briefs

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"Power Politics in the Age of Google"

TechPresident's editorial director, Micah Sifry, will be speaking this afternoon on a panel at Harvard University called "Power Politics in the Age of Google," alongside Susan Crawford, Nicco Mele, Elaine Kamarck and Alexis Ohanian. The panel will be moderated by Harvard Shorenstein Center Director Alex Jones, and will be live-streamed here. GO

House Republicans Get a Jump on the Budget

Via Politico's Mike Allen, the House Republicans are out with a video — this one attributed to Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy — getting the drop on President Barack Obama's next federal budget, expected Monday. GO

What Twitter Won't Tell You About the Election

A new study released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on Tuesday offers the opportunity to get real about what the political conversation on Twitter and Facebook can — or can't — tell you about the progression of the 2012 political campaign. Pew has found that even among users of Twitter and Facebook, a paltry percentage of people use social networks to get news about politics: Only 24 percent of Twitter users in the sample and 25 percent of Facebook users said they "sometimes" got campaign news through that network, while a full 40 percent of Twitter users in the sample and 46 percent of other social media users reported "never" getting campaign news through either Twitter or Facebook. GO

Navigating New York's "Road Map for the Digital City," One Year In

In May 2011, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg revealed a "Road Map for the Digital City," a plan to use technology to make city government more and participatory, and to leverage the city's tech sector for economic and civic gains.

New York City Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne will join our editorial director, Micah Sifry, on a conference call this Friday afternoon to discuss the progress on that road map so far. The call is free and open to anyone to join. You can sign up here.

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Pete Hoekstra's Campaign Website's "Offensive" Source Code Changed After Outcry

As if "chop suey fonts" and obvious graphic allusions to the stereotype of the Chinese as the Yellow Peril weren't controversial enough, the group that created an incendiary microsite for former Rep. Pete Hoekstra's campaign has managed to further fan the flames with what it's calling a mistake in its code. GO

Fidel Castro Loves the Internet

“The Internet is a revolutionary instrument that permits the receiving and transmission of ideas, in both directions, that is something we should know how to use,” Fidel Castro told a crowd of supporters on Feb. 4, according to the state-owned Cuban newspaper Granma International. Castro, who made his first public appearance since April 2011, launched his two-volume memoir, “Guerilla of Time,” and took the opportunity to discuss issues of importance to him. Earlier this week, Miranda Neubauer reported that one of these topics was the need for the Internet. Castro has been a proponent of the Internet as a tool for the exchange of ideas since 2003, but the average Cuban citizen faces great difficulty getting online. GO

Claire McCaskill Hires Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner As Digital Director

Missouri's senior Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has hired Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner as its digital director. GO

Controversial Hoekstra Microsite Targeting Debbie Stabenow Created By The Prosper Group

Michigan Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra has caused a firestorm in the past 24 hours with a new campaign ad that depicts China as a young woman riding a bike in a rural area speaking in broken English. The thirty second spot aired in Michigan during the Super Bowl on Sunday, and it accuses Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow of aiding ... GO

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