Banky For President » cool stuff http://www.bankyforpresident.com By The People, For the People . . . Wed, 13 May 2009 15:09:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 en hourly 1 Change Congress http://www.bankyforpresident.com/2008/03/28/change-congress/ http://www.bankyforpresident.com/2008/03/28/change-congress/#comments Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:12:59 +0000 Banky http://www.bankyforpresident.com/2008/03/28/change-congress/ I’ve talked a bit lately about spending more time offline to influence what I’m doing online.  In a wonderful example of the reverse, Lawrence Lessig, a man I’ve talked about before, is taking a Web 2.0 approach to changing Congress.  He has created a mashup of congressional representatives and in it, we’ll be able to tell if the congress-person in question is abiding to the principles outlined in the “Change Congress” movement:

1. No money from lobbyists or PACs

2. Vote to end earmarks

3. Support reform to increase Congressional transparency

4. Support publicly-financed campaigns

These are all topics that have been talked about for years but this is a clear, publicly available plan to hold our representatives accountable for their behavior. 

Web 2.0 is partly about having data that is important to you available at your fingertips.  This is an interesting step in that dream becoming a reality.  And it’s not difficult to see how it can make a difference.

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