In our previous post, a post which has generated tremendous interest from a variety of sources, we demonstrated how applying the tools of network science can provide a broad representation for thousands of lines of information. Throughout the 2008 Presidential Campaign then Senator Obama consistently discussed his Google for Government initiative.
From the Obama for America Website:
Google for Government: Americans have the right to know how their tax dollars are spent, but that information has been hidden from public view for too long. That’s why Barack Obama and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) passed a law to create a Google-like search engine to allow regular people to approximately track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and loans online.
We agree with both President Obama and Senator Coburn that universal accessibility of such information is worthwhile goal. However, we believe this is only a first step.
In a deep sense, our prior post is designed to serve as a demonstration project. We are just two graduate students working on a shoestring budget. With the resources of the federal government, however, it would certainly be possible to create a series of simple interfaces designed to broadly represent of large amounts of information. While these interfaces should rely upon the best available analytical methods, such methods could probably be built-in behind the scenes. At a minimum, government agencies should follow the suggestion of David G. Robinson and his co-authors who argue the federal government “should require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large.”
Anyway, will be back on Monday providing more thoughts on our initial representation of the 110th Congress. In addition, we hope to highlight other work in the growing field of Computational Legal Studies. Have a good rest of the weekend!