The Bubble Barons investigation launched last week by AlterNet and LittleSis.org has gotten off to a fast start, with over 250 citizen journalists signed up to track down information on the 67 bubble barons we’ve identified. In less than a week, the research group has made over 500 edits to the LittleSis database, building out …
Transparency’s Posse
Project update: over 100 White House visitors profiled
Last Thursday, inspired by the release of White House visitor logs, we launched a new project to compile information on visitors to the Obama White House. In less than a week, analysts Priscilla, sundin, ellenp, and destructor have built and updated profiles for over 100 individuals who have met with the president or one of …
New project: Tracking Obama insiders
It’s been almost one year since Obama’s inauguration — and one year since LittleSis launched. At this time last year we were scrambling to add up-to-date data about the past two presidential administrations, and the incoming one, in preparation for launch. We built lists like this, this, and this (with lots of help from our …
The White House’s Google Calendar
The White House’s most recent monthly release of visitor records was extraordinary in that it included a comprehensive dump of records for the second half of September 2009. Previous releases were limited to records for names specifically requested by reporters and other watchdogs; this one includes every single visitor record. Kudos to the White House …
Wall Street’s tunnel to the White House
Are Treasury officials and their friends able to avoid appearing on the White House’s newly-released visitor logs? I raise this question because there is a tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department, and it appears to be used quite frequently by members of the administration’s economic team. See this New York Times article …
Catch this CrocTail
Last week our friends at CorpWatch unveiled their great new API, which extracts corporate subsidiary information from SEC filings and makes the data available for the world to navigate in a structured way — or to reuse. SEC 10-K filings are notoriously difficult to parse with automated scripts (that’s where LittleSis gets its corporate boards …
WaPo asks: Who Runs Gov?
Yesterday’s launch of WhoRunsGov, a Washington Post site, marks an interesting development in the history of the transparency movement: it is a groundbreaking attempt by mainstream media to shed light on influential social networks through crowdsourcing and data aggregation. From the site: WhoRunsGov.com offers a unique look at the world of Washington through its key …