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Web Mashups Help Citizens Track the Political Money Trail

From Wired, Web Mashups Turn Citizens Into Washington’s Newest Watchdogs: “Sites like Maplight.org, Opensecrets.org and Follow the Money, along with wiki-based political reporting resources like Congresspedia, are increasingly giving ordinary citizens the ability to easily document the flow of special-interest money and how it influences the legislature. These new tools are providing an unprecedented level of transparency, exposing patterns of influence that otherwise would have remained invisible to ordinary citizens.”

  • See also Citizen-mapped agency data – A quick guide to citizen-mapped agency data sites: “The Web is awash in citizen-run sites that map government-generated data. These sites use free services such as Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth and public records from agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Geological Survey. With these sites, Web surfers can enter their addresses and see government data in their area, or to browse a certain region to find items of interest.”
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