Sunlight Foundation

Here's a summary of my Twittering :

brownback no

cantwell no

no : cantwell, cochran, crapo, dole

dorgen, enzi, feingold, NO

inhofe, landrieu, NO

McCain yes

McCain yes

Nelson (FL), No

Nelson (FL) No. Obama, Yes

Roberts, Sanders, Sessions, Shelby, Stabenow, Tester, Vitter, Wicker, Wyden, NO

Barrraso, DeMint, Johnson, Allard, NO

Do they need 2/3 of the votes? Can someone please clarify? They don't have them yet.

There's several no-shows including Kennedy.

56 votes with several unconfirmed no-shows

58 and Kennedy is a no-show

58 and Kennedy is a no-show
they reached 60 votes

up to 65 now ... Kennedy didn't vote

up to 65 now ... Kennedy didn't vote

74 yes, 25 no

now this bill goes to the House. we have until Friday to read this ---450 pages of it.

As I told Gregg, this buys everybody involved some political time. The Senate's amendment to the Paulson bill goes to the House --were 200+ forward thinking Democrats and Republicans had killed the first Paulson bill. They can make further changes between now and Friday.

I am a member of The Open House Project, a collaborative and bipartisan effort organized by The Sunlight Foundation to bring practices of transparency and openness to Congress through the use of digital and internet technologies.

Today we are able to declare a huge win for bloggers and citizen journalists alike. This is what Beltway Blogroll reports :

C-SPAN To Offer Free Access To Hearings
Andrew Noyes, one of my senior writers, has been covering this breaking story for Technology Daily the past couple of weeks. It started when House Republicans criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. -- and then retracted that criticism -- for posting footage from House floor debates on her new blog, The Gavel.

The story sparked a movement to make more congressional video freely available, and C-SPAN quickly obliged.

Here's what two C-SPAN executives said about the change in policy:

-- Executive Committee Chairman William Bresnan, the CEO of Bresnan Communications: "The C-SPAN board sees this as helping us carry out C-SPAN's public service mission. The cable industry created this network to allow citizens greater access to their government, and this enhancement appropriately reflects the rapid changes in the online information world."

-- President and co-chief operating officer Rob Kennedy: "Giving voice to the average citizen has been a centerpiece of C-SPAN's journalism since our network's founding in 1979. As technology advances, we want to continue to be a leader in providing citizens with the tools to be active participants in the democratic process.

This is huge.

Government cameras film all Congressional proceedings. The footage though, is broadcast mostly through C-SPAN. It is not clear to me if C-SPAN is a 501c(3) --even though their tag line is "created by the cable companies, offered as a public service" nowhere in their site does it say they are a not-for-profit.

If they are indeed a non-profit, they have been quite bullish about the "copyright" they hold on the public domain footage they broadcast. Basically they've made it impossible to use congressional video footage by having a few seconds of original content a the beginning of all congressional videos, slapping their logo on it and claiming, then it's their original content.

As much as I would like to take at face value the comments made by the higher ups at C-SPAN, this admission of fair use shows they are scared of losing what made them precious : their role of gatekeepers.

I have been invited by the Sunlight Foundation to go to Harvard Law School to talk about our daily battles in blogging and citizen journalism at The Daily Gotham and culturekitchen. These are the questions they are seeking answers to:

If we believe in an informed and engaged citizenry, what does that require? What skills and information do citizens need? What is important political information that bloggers and other new media types can provide that isn’t currently being available or accessible? What is essential political information for a citizen in the new era? Is there such a thing?

Ok people. Make yourselves heard and let it rip. I will be reading these to the audience and giving you attribution.