Intellectual Property Law

Overwhelmingly worthwhile

By Susan Crawford

I just spent some time with OpenCongress.org, and I’m thoroughly impressed - and overwhelmed by what I should be following.  I need to establish feeds, watch bills, follow the gossip, and post comments.  It’s huge.  Everything you need in one place.  As Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation puts it, the site is jammed with “insanely useful P2P features.”

Just as an example, take a look at the entry for the recent House Appropriations Bill.  It passed in a hurry, it’s huge, no one knows what’s in it - and the President could make all of it meaningless with a single Executive Order.  You can access the text of the bill, see its timeline, read comments and news stories and blog entries about the bill, rate all of those comments and news stories and blog entries, see its voting history, follow other actions by its sponsor - endless.  Endless.  Almost as endless as the bill itself, which tipped the scales at 3400 pages.

You can track bills, get alerts sent to you, express your own votes on bills, do some social networking, follow bills on Facebook, and generally act as an informed citizen on all possible subjects.

What are you waiting for?  Get in there and scratch around a little.

Full post as published by Susan Crawford Blog on January 17, 2008 (boomark / email).