"Using Technology to Bring Politics Out of the Darkness"

In the political world, there is a lot of light and darkness. "As more of the visible parts of government are explored with the precision of digital technology, there may well be pressure to reduce the area in darkness." This was one of  the topics discussed in the fifth annual Personal Democracy Forum, a conference in New York about the impact of politics on government. There was a lot less discussion about the use of social networks, such as Youtube, and blogs in campaigns this year but instead, the attendees were talking about how the next generation of Internet sites is going to affect the government.

One big theme is how to get more meaningful information from the large amounts of public data about politicians, government and those trying to influence them. For example, the Sunlight Foundation suggested that the data trying to influence the government needs to be made public more quickly. The article states that “Campaign contributions are published long after they are made, and lobbying activity is disclosed well after the votes in question are taken.” Although faster leaking of lobbying information may require laws to make it happen, but in some cases, peer pressure might help. The Sunlight Foundation has requested that legislators publish their schedules online. So far eight of the 535 have agreed. The group hopes that the example will encourage more lawmakers to do the same. 

Another issue is how some information about the government is controlled by private companies. MetaVid is a project of the University of California at Santa Cruz. It has stores videos of the proceeding of the House and Senate. It lets users search for any phrase mentioned (because it associates the closed caption transcription of what is said with the image). It also lets users annotate and comment on video as well as to insert clips of legislators on their own sites. Michael Dale, the researcher behind the program, said that because Congress owns the cameras in the House and Senate chambers, that video is public and MetaVid has full rights to use it. But C-Span, a cable news channel, pays for cameras in many hearings, and that video is more restricted. 

There is also a very interesting search engine, OpenCongress.org, that brings together information about proposed legislation, organized by bills. 

Nonetheless, the public has a hard time getting meaningful information, but for different reasons. A journalist has no reason besides laziness to omit a bill number from an article. C-Span has restricted access to the public for an economic reason: to get a return on their investment. Lobbyists prefer to be private. As people start to see value in the new presentations of the data that is available, they will demand better and faster disclosure of what's still kept in the dark. 

I think that this article will raise even more issues and demands from people to make more information public. The public knows the general information but never really knows what is the real truth. I wish that soon, the government, hopefully the new President, will tell the public the whole truth, and not keep some truth in the dark.