I have become increasingly frustrated with the current way things are done in our government. I have looked for reasons and solutions and I have come to the conclusion that it is because of my own apathy that things are the way they are. Democracy demands participation of all of it's citizens.

As we all know now, the most dangerous pieces of legislation passed in recent times were never brought up by citizens but by legislators(The Patriot Act) and or corporate lobbyists(DMCA). We citizens get one chance every 2 years to have our voices heard. This was practical in the days when communication was very slow. But as we know now a days, communication is increasingly swift and I personally believe the process of making laws should adjust to the capabilities available in modern times.

Imagine if you will for a moment that there was a place on the Internet where you could sign in and review the pending legislation in it's entirety, furthermore imagine if you could indicate your favor or disfavor for it or a part of it, and assume that your representatives could access that information and hopefully take that into consideration before voting yay or nay. Imagine if you could propose changes or ask questions, or request clarification, point out a pork project enclosed in the bill that you believe is unnecessary.

Technically to me, this seems possible, yet to my knowledge it does not exist in a cohesive portal type presentation. I believe the government should provide this service to it's citizens, if for no other reason than we are expected to obey the laws that are passed. But if they were relied upon to do it, it would take a long time and I believe we need it now.If this site existed, I believe that certain benefits would be had. I don't think the Patriot Act(which apparently no one read before voting on it) would have happened in the form that it's in currently. Nor would the DMCA. And those are just 2 laws that I know about that I think citizens should have had the chance to at least read before they voted on it. Also, I think it would decrease the power of lobbyists by dramatically increasing the number of people effectively voting on it. How effective do you think lobbying firms would be if they had to convince potentially every US citizen? It would also bring the pork barrel spending out in the open. In other words government transparency would be increased and return a certain amount of power back to the people.

Though I have yet to find a site like what I would imagine is possible. I have found that some tools do in fact exist. The Sunlight Foundation recently showed up on digg because of a list of resources they put together to "... provide a broad range of information available to track government and legislative information, campaign contributions and the role of money in politics.". Maybe the information is far too unstructured to actually bring together in a unified way, but I'm glad to at least see an effort being made. Though it's not readily apparent, The Sunlight Foundation was established in 2006 just for this purpose. According to their mission statement.

"The Sunlight Foundation was founded in January 2006 with the goal of using the revolutionary power of the Internet and new information technology to enable citizens to learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing, and thus help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government, and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy. We are unique in that technology and the power of the Internet are at the core of every one of our efforts."

There are other sites as well, but as of right now The Sunlight Foundation has provided the most cohesive list of tools I've come across. If you know of others let me know. To give you an idea of how much the government is willing to work to provide the information, hop on over to Free Government Information(FGI) . This site has a wealth of information on various issues and happenings related to improving access to government information. I found this post particularly interesting because, to me, it eludes to this attitude within the government that providing information to it's citizens is somehow not normal and to be treated as a special case. To me, this attitude needs to be changed by all parties involved, the government and the people. And it may change gradually over time. I mean after all, I am now interested in this information and taking a more active part in the politics that effect my life. I can only guess that as time goes on the momentum can only increase, unless there's is a drastic decrease in the amount of power our government holds over us.