Sunlight Labs

Sunlight Labs on The Changelog

Jeremy and I are on the newest episode of The Changelog, a terrific podcast about open source development. We talked about the work we do here from our offices in D.C. as well as the great work the entire Sunlight Labs community does across the country.

You may remember Wynn Netherland, one of the show's hosts, from TweetCongress and the big splash they made last year. Along with co-host Adam Stacoviak, Wynn also interviewed Apps for America winner Jeremy Ashkenas back in December.

Enjoy the show!

Real Time Disclosure, Technically Speaking

Last week's Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision was a game-changer in terms of corporate money in politics. In short, corporations will be allowed to freely spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose a candidate, just as long as there is no direct coordination with that candidate's campaign. Unprecedented amounts of corporate money will now flow into our political process. But here at Sunlight, we're focusing on the disclosure aspects of the decision. The majority opinion stated:

With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.

While the decision doesn't mandate "prompt disclosure", it does strongly recommend it. So what does disclosure at Internet speed look like?

Your Input Wanted on Recovery.gov Data

Here at the Sunlight Labs, we've focused a lot on the recent bid on version 2.0 of Recovery.gov. This morning on the Labs mailing list, Rusty Talbot of Synteractive, one of the winning contractors, asked for input on the best way for Recovery.gov to publish its data.

Rusty wrote:

The Recovery, Accountability, & Transparency Board wishes to have an open discussion with all interested developers about how data should be made available via Recovery.gov.

As you are all aware, a new version of Recovery.gov will be released soon. From a data standpoint, the initial release of the new site will replicate existing functionality. However, the Board aims to set a new standard of transparency with this site and would therefore like to make the data available in the most convenient and straightforward way (or ways) possible so you can use and analyze official, up-to-date Recovery Act data. We need your input to achieve this goal.

Please let us know how the site could best meet your needs in terms of machine-readable data format(s) and standards, APIs, guidance, training, etc.

This is a great opportunity for all of us who work hard to make government data more open and accessible.