Tools to Track and Discover Dark Money/Influence Sources and Much More to Empower Your Citizenship Capacity in OUR Democratic Republic * Churnalism US is a web tool and browser extension to let you know when news articles may have similarities with press releases and other sources. * Political Ad Sleuth is an opportunity for local volunteers to help us make a national, online database of TV stations’ public ad files. This paperwork, which every broadcaster keeps but doesn’t post online, contains important information about who is buying airtime for political ads. * Follow the Unlimited Money, a product of the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group, is a searchable database tracking organizations that are paying for ads and other forms of political communication. * Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker digitizes information that representatives of foreign governments, political parties and government-controlled entities must disclose to the U.S. Justice Department when they seek to influence U.S. policy. * Influence Explorer connects the dots of political contributions on the federal and state level allowing you to track influence by lawmaker, company or prominent individual. * Lobbyist Registration Tracker is a database which allows users to see lobbying registrations as theyre submitted and the trends in issues and registrations over time. * Party Time documents the political fundraising circuit. From the early morning hours until late at night, there are opportunities for members of Congress, presidential and congressional candidates to meet with supporters behind closed doors, press them for money, and party. Breakfasts, luncheons, barbecues, golfing outings, receptions, concerts, basketball, baseball, football—the social whirl is endless. * Poligraft is a website and utility that allows anyone to uncover levels of influence in federal and state-level politics and the news coverage of it. Using data from Sunlight’s Influence Explorer, Poligraft allows you to connect the dots between money and politics in Congress. Simply paste the URL or text of a news article, blog post or press release and Poligraft will create an enhanced view of the people, organizations and relationships described within it. * Call on Congress is a free telephone service that helps people learn more about how their representatives in Congress are voting on bills, raising campaign money and also provides them with information on where to vote. Dial 1-888-907-6886 to try it for yourself. Available in English and Spanish. * Politwoops is the only comprehensive collection of deleted tweets by U.S. politicians. From minor messaging changes to major gaffes, Politwoops offers a window into what they hoped you didnt see. * Scout is a rapid notification service allows anyone to create customized email or text alerts on actions Congress takes on an issue or a specific bill. It also makes it easy to search federal regulations and track bills in all 50 states (a first). The website tracks a variety of sources including the Congressional Record, THOMAS, the Federal Register and Sunlight’s Open States to create legislative news searches about issues a person, company or nonprofit cares about. * Capitol Words explores the most popular words and phrases used by legislators in the U.S. Congress. Search the data from 1996 to today by state, date or politician. * House Expenditure Database On November 30, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives released the quarterly Statement of Disbursements online for the first time. Since the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer posted these in PDF format, Sunlight created a searchable database of each House members expenditures. This database contains information that is a subset of the information provided in the PDFs. * The House Staff Directory empowers the public to better communicate with their elected representatives by making available staff names and (public) phone numbers and addresses. In addition to legislative offices, the directory also includes staffers from offices that support House activities. It is no secret that congressional staff are the lifeblood of Congress, but identifying the best staffer to speak with about a particular issue is a daunting challenge. * OpenCongress is a free, nonpartisan source for legislative information that lets anyone track bills, lawmakers and the issues they care about. * Docket Wrench enables investigations into the rulemaking process of federal agencies with tracking of similar public comments and entity matching for a complete picture of their influence across millions of documents. * Open States allows anyone to discover more about lawmaking in their state. With Open States, you can track state bills, get campaign and contact information for legislators and follow all the action across 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico. * Scout is a rapid notification service allows anyone to create customized email or text alerts on actions Congress takes on an issue or a specific bill. It also makes it easy to search federal regulations and track bills in all 50 states (a first). The website tracks a variety of sources including the Congressional Record, THOMAS, the Federal Register and Sunlight’s Open States to create legislative news searches about issues a person, company or nonprofit cares about. * Clearspending is a scorecard that analyzes how well U.S. government agencies are reporting their spending data on USASpending.gov. Clearspending is the most thorough analysis of this federal grant and loan data ever conducted. * PublicMarkup lets you review and comment on proposed bills before theyre introduced—or while theyre pending—in Congress. * Roku Open Government Apps stream audio-visual content from the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court to any Roku player. The White House app offers high quality, live and archived video from WhiteHouse.gov, the Congress app streams video from the U.S. House of Representatives floor and the Supreme Court app is an audio archive of arguments and opinions issued and read by justices browseable by year. * Sunlight Academy is an interactive training portal that aims to provide instructional and education resources to make government more transparency and accountable. The different training modules cover a range of topics from basic research skills to comprehensive issue specific tools and resources. Plus Tons of of Mobile Aps.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 14:44:49 +0000
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