John Wonderlich's personal page of indexed information.
Written and Spoken
Open House Project Report (prepared and edited)
Congressional Committees Project
General Services Administration article: How E-Government Is Changing Society and Strengthening Democracy (PDF, Word)
Op-Ed in The Hill, "Access to Committees"
Interview with OpenTheGovernment.org
Article in The Examiner
National Journal Quotes
Op-ed in the Washington Examiner
Article by Cox Newspapers
Article in Roll Call
Air America interview with Sam Seder
Free Government Information interview
Section 513 of S1 (for explanation see this essay)
Letter from Speaker Pelosi
Letter from Majority Leader Hoyer
Report cited in a Congressional Research Service report, RL 34148
Boing Boing on GAO digitization
PublicMarkup.org press: (public radio's Future Tense, Mother Jones blog, Wired blog, national journal--links forthcoming)
Progressive Voices interview
Article in The Hill (link)
Tech Daily Dose 7/31/08 (link)
Live Interviews Online 7/10/08 (link)
Mother Jones 7/11/08 (link)
All this partisan bickering obscures the basic point. The current rules are badly antiquated and in need of updating. And open-government advocates are pushing Congress to get beyond the predictable, point-scoring back-and-forth. For example, the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit that champions greater transparency in government, is trying to tear down the barriers that prevent members of Congress not only from using YouTube, but from Twittering from the House floor or using Facebook. (You can join its "Let Our Congress Tweet" campaign here.) Says Sunlight program director John Wonderlich about Capuano's cautious approach to opening House.gov to the larger Internet world:
While reconsidering or reforming these antiquated restrictions is a laudable goal, the proposed guideline reforms are only a half-measure toward modernized engagement online, and don't address the underlying problems with these unnecessary restrictions....
If Members can use whatever brand of inkpen, or any brand of paper, or buy whatever shoes they want, they should be given radically expanded freedom to use the Internet, and make the same empowering discoveries
Congress Daily 7/9/08
The committee plans to focus on updating the guidelines this month but
the text of the rule has not been drafted and a timeline has not been
determined, he said.
Boehner's missive sent ripples through the blogosphere.
The Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich
said the memo "rightly sounds the alarm" about Capuano's guidelines,
which he believes are "only a half-measure toward modernized engagement
online."
On WNYC's The Takeaway on 9/30/08, discussing the then-pending bailout legislation. (link)
C-Net News quote on Franking Reform:
"The revisions (to the rules) should cause a renaissance in official political Web use, with eager new media staff and savvy members now able to confidently engage with their constituents," John Wonderlich, a Sunlight program director, wrote in a blog post.
Speaker Pelosi on Franking Reform and the Open House Project. (link)
Roll Call on Twitter:
The Tweet Goes On ... and On. More than three dozen tech-savvy Members are now regular users of Twitter, the popular micro-blogging network that allows users to send live, first-person updates on the most mundane of their daily happenings to friends and (for Members, anyway) supporters.
With so many Members Twittering these days, it can be hard to keep track of everybody.
Enter the Sunlight Foundation, which launched its “Capitol Tweet” widget this week, which refreshes every 10 minutes with Members’ latest Twitter updates.
Not only does the widget consolidate all Member posts in one place, it allows folks who aren’t signed up for Twitter to see the updates, foundation spokeswoman Gabriela Schneider told HOH. The widget also can be posted to blogs or other sites, she said.
“It’s direct communication with constituents. If you’re using Twitter, you can do it from your phone or from everywhere,” said John Wonderlich, the foundation’s program director. “It’s authentic communication, especially when it’s Members themselves.”
So now no one has to miss the latest, most fascinating updates from Members, such as a dispatch from Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), who complained in a post this week about getting stuck in traffic.
Up until the end of the Congressional session, it actually was against House rules to use popular third-party Web sites such as Twitter, Facebook and even YouTube. But just before breaking for recess, Congress moved to relax its franking rules to let Members use the sites, so long as they follow House rules (Members can’t use Twitter to ask for campaign contributions, for example).
With those changes, Wonderlich expects even more Congressional Twitterbugs to emerge.
“Their first reaction is skepticism,” Wonderlich said of Members. “And really quickly, that gives way to addiction.”
CongressDaily's Tech Daily, 10/21/08 (link)
"We are excited that Senate leaders have recognized the importance of public oversight and evaluation of their online transparency, and we look forward to working with them," Wonderlich said.
An easy and popular step toward transparency would be for Obama to reverse the Bush administration's secretive policy on Freedom of Information Act requests for government records. That could be done by declaration, without congressional involvement, noted John Wonderlich, the program director of the Washington-based Sunlight Foundation, which promotes transparency.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/55350.html
On GovTrack.us, and Josh Tauberer, in Princeton Alumni Weekly:
http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2008/07/16/pages/5697/
“GovTrack is really the central hub in federal legislative
information,” says John Wonderlich, director of the Sunlight
Foundation’s Open House Project, which lobbies for better Web access to
legislative data. “It’s the clearinghouse for data coming from the
Library of Congress, and that’s kind of amazing that [Tauberer] has
managed to do that on his own.”
Wonderlich, of the Sunlight Foundation, says that most issues in
government openness still are unresolved. Some are technical, such as
standardizing the format in which data are released. Other issues
involve making information easier to obtain. In pre-Internet days,
items of public record were acceptably relegated to file drawers and
dusty bookshelves. Today, Web users have grown to expect instant
access. “People see that the Internet is making it easier to shop and
do a lot of other things,” Wonderlich says. “It intuitively makes sense
to people that Congress should operate in the same way.”
Interview on Federal News Radio: (MP3) http://www.federalnewsradio.com/emedia/137597.mp3
in CQ on secrecy in congress: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=weeklyreport-000002992032 The public also wants more access to Congress and its information. “There’s this whole new sector of members of the public online,” said John Wonderlich, who founded the Open House Project.
Wash Examiner Op-Ed 11/20/08 on Obama
oreilly interview: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2008/10/sunlight-foundation-interview.html
pc world dec 12 08 http://www.pcworld.com/article/155413/web_experts_obamas_vision_for_egovernment_will_take_work.html
The problem is that there have been few real attempts at participatory government, said John Wonderlich, program director for the Sunlight Foundation, a Web-based government watchdog group. "We don't know what's going to happen, and we should experiment with it," he said.
google panel 12/12/08
http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=cb9c
http://www.internetnews.com/government/article.php/3790966/Encouraging+Signs+Roadblocks+Ahead+in+Open+EGov.htm (internetnews.com)
mercury news 12/15/08:
"So far, the open discussions and participation on the change.gov. site are a good sign, said John Wonderlich, program director of the Sunlight Foundation,
a watchdog group. Transition teams used to hold all discussions behind
closed doors, but now, with health care and other issues, "compelling
ideas get some light — good ideas don't just die."
Washington Internet Daily:
"The bigger hurdle may be getting constituent feedback considered
by the Hill and White House, said John Wonderlich, program director at
the Sunlight Foundation. The Peer-to- Patent project at the Patent and
Trademark Office -- in which outside patent experts are allowed to
review initial applications posted online to aid patent examiners --
could serve as a model for agencies with similar backlogs, he said"
CMF's communicating with congress report: (pdf)
at google: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKmoGiDHVLs
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/technology/internet/12youtube.html?ref=politics
But some members may not have people on their staff who are adept at using technology, said John Wonderlich, a program director at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to promote transparency in government. The YouTube site is likely to help those get online, he said.
“When the House and Senate have something more official on YouTube, it will make it much more likely for staffers to feel comfortable posting a video,” Mr. Wonderlich said.
national journal: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20090116_1453.php
The benefits of more citizen participation would likely run both ways. John Wonderlich, program director for the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation, says even small amounts of interaction on the Web have proved useful for members of Congress looking to "get clout" behind their proposals. "If there are a number of bills and theirs is the one that survived a big public grilling," he explained, "then that bill is presumed to be a little bit more powerful or more vetted. So it's a potential source of power."
natjo videos:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/in_20090112_8123.php
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1813498424/bclid1811464556/bctid7211059001
york daily record: http://ydr.inyork.com/ci_11479008
Mother Jones: http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2009/01/11913_so_long_revolving_door_obama.html
CNET on recovery.gov: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10150699-46.html
John Wonderlich, program director at the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, outlined the general problem:
We'd like the site to serve not just the amateur information consumer, but also the programmers that can skillfully remix the information. The citizen observer's role seems well-addressed by the legislation that mandated the site (with requirements for "printable reports," feedback, and to be "easy to understand"), while the needs of the programmer are largely unaddressed. The data should be available in formats that facilitate more advanced use by programmers and analysts alike.
Certainly, the data should be made available following the 8 Principles of Open Data: (1) complete, (2) primary (as it is collected at the source), (3) timely, (4) accessible, (5) machine-processable, (6) nondiscriminatory, (7) nonproprietary, and (8) and license-free. XML and CSV are a minimum.
Search is great, if you are looking to find information about any one thing. But original analysis and visualization require access to data in bulk. If the goal of putting the data online is to increase accountability and transparency, then it is necessary (to) provide bulk data access.
on tech liberation front podcast: http://techliberation.com/2009/01/27/tpw-40-obama-e-government-transparency/
abcnews.com on twitter: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/Story?id=6790352&page=4
"Both sides are trying to claim transparency," Wonderlich said. "We're delighted by that tension.
"It's another interesting example of where technology takes lines that are well-established and makes us re-examine how those boundaries apply in new contexts," he said.
npr, on stimulus: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100239199
There have been watchdog Web sites before, says John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation, "but this makes it the standard."
chicago daily herald: John Wonderlich, program director of the Sunlight Foundation in Washington, D.C., agreed that is a helpful measure. And what's most helpful, he said, is the posting of entire government databases. That allows individual users to download them and comb them for the information they want, rather than letting the government present the information with its spin. http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=269982&src=2
national journal on obama:
"Their actions are filling the spirit of openness they pledged," said John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation, an open government group. "But they are so far failing to follow the letter of the pledge that they made."
Along with the link to the text of the legislation, the bill's page on WhiteHouse.gov included a commenting section -- but it is unclear from the site how that feedback is used, and there is no provision for seeing others' submissions or voting up and down suggestions, as there was on Obama's transition Web site. And then there is the complaint that taking feedback after a bill has already reached the president's desk means it's too late for tweaks and amendments.
"Ultimately, it seems to me that it is a meaningful thing for Obama to do, but not necessarily for immediate effects," said Wonderlich. "It's very unlikely he would veto something because of bad feedback. But it brings people into the process."
http://lostintransition.nationaljournal.com/2009/02/a-promise-kept.php
at PVC ASIS&T 1/15/09 : http://web.mac.com/jprater/iWeb/Site/Podcast/E6786C23-3AEB-4079-AF8E-C63D374E70CC.html
testimony at Illinois Reform Commission, 2/5/09
http://reformillinoisnow.org/video.php
http://reformillinoisnow.org/video/popup.php?video=020509%20John%20Wonderlich.mov
Columbia Journalism Review on Stimulus: http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/seethrough_stimulus.php
“I think there’s a lot of attention on the stimulus funding, because
the TARP money was about the same amount of money,” says John
Wonderlich, a senior policy director at the Sunlight Foundation, which
supports CJR’s reporting on government transparency. “That controversy
has maybe poisoned the well.”
national journal on stimulus, 2/20/09: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/id_20090221_5163.php?%3F=&li=true
John Wonderlich, policy director at the Sunlight Foundation, said he is generally pleased with the oversight provisions but worries that the absence of a basic across-the-board reporting standard poses a roadblock to transparency. "If you want every locality that receives funding to put up a certification or report online, but you have thousands and thousands of localities, what's the best way to do it?" Wonderlich said. "The easiest solution is a uniform online form, but that hasn't been figured out yet."
"Congress really has struggled in good faith with what they can and can't request [to be posted] online," Wonderlich said. "They see the stakes are high and are addressing it in the right way."
wired threat level blog 3/5/09 http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/federal-bill-wo.html
The inspiration for the move, Pierson says, came in large part from the Sunlight Foundation, which has been urging Congress, through its Open House Project, to make records more accessible to the public. The group issued a report in May 2007 calling for bulk distribution of legislative data.
"We've been working really hard with Congress to get this, so we're happy to see this here," says John Wonderlich, policy director for the Sunlight Foundation.
Mother Jones blog 3/5/09 http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/congressional-data-mining-coming-soon
John Wonderlich, the policy director at the Sunlight Foundation, which has created or funded several tools that make government data easier to analyze, is holding out hope that the president's Open Government Directive, which is due at the end of May, will further address the issue of data availability. He applauds Honda for putting Congress, at least, on the right track. "Without Honda's attention to this issue, congressional level attention to bulk data access would be unlikely," he says. "We're happy to see this first step."
oreilly radar 3/5/09 http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/bulk-data-downloads-government-transparency-breakthrough.html
John Wonderlich from the Sunlight Foundation wrote to me this morning to tell me the provision made it into the Omnibus Appropriations Bill.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/cda_20090320_7449.php
Sunlight Foundation policy director John Wonderlich said Holder has demonstrated Obama's commitment to openness and reaffirmed his vision for "a digitally empowered citizenry."
On Sky News: http://media.sunlightfoundation.com/video/jw_sky_sm.mp4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFnU34ypgw
WaPo 4/17/09: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/04/eye_opener_april_17_2009.html?hpid=news-col-blog
politico 4/27 : http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21726.html
chronicle of philanthropy 4/21 : http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/presscenter/articles/2009/04/21/nonprofit-lobbyists-protest-restrictions-imposed-o/
AFP, 4/27/09
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g9vmUWw-vBX-sgp5y0fgOGPDHQMw
John Wonderlich, policy director at the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, which promotes using the Web to make government information more available to the public, said "their first pronouncements are very encouraging."
"But a lot of the challenge is going to come in the implementation," he said.
Wonderlich noted that Obama had failed to stick to his campaign pledge to display all non-emergency legislation for public comment on the White House website for five days before signing it into law.
"I think the idea is well ahead of the implementation," he said. "I'm not sure that they've made it a priority to live up to that particular pledge.
"At the same time we've seen a lot of planning about ways to make that a possibility," Wonderlich added.
Politics Online Conference 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un7lk5lhcbo or http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=285413-2
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_123/news/34439-1.html
John Wonderlich, of the Sunlight Foundation, said cultural resistance seems to be stunting efforts in Congress. On a computer, he said, “it’s so easy to sweep it under the rug.”
“I’m hoping that culturally and institutionally, Congress does a much better job conserving their own information,” he said. “That will give us an unprecedented window on history.”
Illinois Reform Commission report: http://www.reformillinoisnow.org/press%20releases/IRC%20100-Day%20Report%20-%20Final.pdf
politico, 5/6/09 http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22143.html
The news of Schumer’s decision is “spectacular,” said John Wonderlich,
policy director for the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit
dedicated to opening up government via the Internet.
“This has been a long-standing question. … What they’re really doing is recognizing common sense.”
http://thehill.com/business--lobby/chamber-adds-voice-against-white-house-lobbying-rules-2009-05-11.html
Some reform groups suggested the administration did not go far
enough in its standards for disclosure and has not accomplished as much
as it had hoped in shedding sunlight on the government workings behind
the stimulus package.
For example, John Wonderlich, policy
director for the Sunlight Foundation, who attended the meeting with
Eisen, said the lobbying rules do little in the way of disclosure.
“It
is not enough and not often enough,” Wonderlich said of disclosure
rules. “Disclosure has to be in real time, online and in substantive
detail.”
In addition, the restrictions may have opened up an avenue for public interest groups to pursue in revamping ethics laws.
Eisen
has said the foundation of the restrictions is the Lobbying Disclosure
Act (LDA), which draws a distinction between lobbyists and
non-lobbyists. But Wonderlich believes the administration’s focus on
the LDA has shown that law’s discrepancies — from its lax enforcement
to its vague definitions — is leading to a consensus among reform
organizations to call for more ethics changes on Capitol Hill this
Congress.
“I would not say that was [the administration’s]
intention but that’s turning into the effect. There are some glaring
holes in disclosure,” Wonderlich said. “When you see restrictions on
speech, everyone is proposing disclosure as the way to go.”
Wonderlich
pointed to a counter-proposal to the lobbying restrictions by the
American League of Lobbyists that would disclose communications between
administration officials and everyone, not just lobbyists, who
contacted them about stimulus funds.
roll call 6/2/09:
Congressional offices are also getting ideas on constituent interaction and crowdsourcing from outside groups.
With publicmarkup.org,
the Sunlight Foundation first developed a way to break down a piece of
legislation and invite comments on each provision. So far, the
nonprofit has opened up the Transparency in Government Act, the
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act and a few other legislative
proposals.
In essence, every provision of the bill is turned into a blog, said
John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation. That’s far more involvement
than constituents get on the typical bill, which is usually just posted
on the Library of Congress’ Web site, THOMAS.
“It’s not necessarily Congress’ role to want to host a public
debate about” legislation, Wonderlich said. But “individual Members
have a role to play on top of ‘how should THOMAS be better?’”
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20090605_2872.php
"Lobbying disclosure is certainly something that's moving back on the table," said John Wonderlich, policy director of the Sunlight Foundation. Discussions are under way in the administration and on Capitol Hill about reopening the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, Wonderlich added, with an eye toward broadening the definition of who qualifies as a lobbyist and requiring more real-time reporting.
Still, questions remain about the scope of the oral communications ban, which has yet to be formalized with official guidelines. A key question is whether it will apply to members of Congress, noted Wonderlich. Restraining lawmakers' speech, he added, could raise "significant concerns about the equal roles of the branches [of government] and the ability of Congress to do oversight."
"The line about who has to register as a lobbyist has been exposed as rather ineffective," observed Wonderlich. "And a lot of people are going to be working through ways to make better distinctions about who is a lobbyist and who isn't."
disbursements:
http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2009/06/pelosi-calls-for-online-expend.php
http://undertheinfluence.nationaljournal.com/2009/06/pelosi-directs-reps-to-post.php
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/cda_20090604_8209.php
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_140/news/35510-1.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/06/03/pelosi-orders-online-access-to-house-expense-reports/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?&entry_id=41141
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0609/Pelosi_to_post_expenses_online.html?showall
In Person
W3C Conference
Yearly Kos 2007
Congressional Management Foundation, Communicating with Congress Conference (Position paper as prepared, Collected Testimony in pdf)
IPDI 2008 Politics Online Conference (mashable coverage)
Open House Project press conference (video)
Other Open House Project press mentions
At the Adfero/US Chamber of Commerce Innovative Advocacy Panel
At Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy workshop, Computing in the Cloud (see explanatory post, or video)
Around the Web
Open House Project blog
Sunlight Foundation (bio), blog
Reading Notes, published documents
On Jaiku
On Friendfeed
Documents on Issuu (embeddable pdfs)
johnwonderlich then the at sign, gmail.com
