In Search of Government Transparency

Thanks to a tweet by JP Rangaswami, I’ve just finished reading Jerry Brito’s "Hack, Mash and Peer:  Crowdsourcing Government Transparency" published in the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review.

One wonders why this has not been happening more and quicker .. after all, "for the people, by the people" and all that. 

The tools and services are now available.  What exactly are we waiting for ?

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Hack, Mash and Peer:  Crowdsourcing Government Transparency

[ Snip … ]

In his seminal essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric S. Raymond contrasts the open source method of software development–in essence peer production or crowdsourcing–to the traditional hierarchical model. In the former, a large number of developers contribute simultaneously to the formulation and testing of software code, while central organization and a small number of developers typify the latter. He explains that one of the key differences is the number of eyes sifting through code looking for problems and solutions.

He proposes what he calls “Linus’ Law”: “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” Raymond writes,

In Linus’ Law, I think, lies the core difference underlying the cathedral-builder and bazaar styles. In the cathedral-builder view of programming, bugs and development problems are tricky, insidious, deep phenomena. It may take months of scrutiny by a dedicated few to develop confidence that you’ve winkled them all out. Thus the long release intervals, and the inevitable disappointment when long-awaited releases are not perfect.

In the bazaar view, on the other hand, you assume that bugs are generally shallow phenomena–or, at least, that they turn shallow pretty quick when exposed to a thousand eager co-developers pounding on every single new release. Accordingly you release often in order to get more corrections, and as a beneficial side effect you have less to lose if an occasional botch gets out the door.

Given enough eyeballs, corruption and waste are similarly shallow problems.

In the cathedral-builder view of journalism, corruption is hidden from a relatively small number of practitioners by the inaccessibility of government data and the sheer volume of it. In the bazaar view, a vast number of eyes, aided by hacks and mashups, make the amount of data less daunting. The number of eyeballs comes not just from bloggers aiming to do journalism (although they are likely the most dedicated) but also from average citizens contributing to interactive sites.

These interactive websites have begun to leverage what James Surowiecki calls the “wisdom of the crowds” to shed light on government data.

For example, WahingtonWatch.com gathers data on bills pending before Congress and mashes them with Congressional Budget Office estimates on the cost of each bill in order to present average cost of bills per family or individual. Aside from presenting this information, the site allows users to contribute by registering their support for or opposition to bills and by posting comments about bills. More importantly, the site is also a wiki for pending legislation.

Each bill’s page contains a detailed summary of the bill, the bill’s status, and points in favor and against, all of which can be edited or added to by anyone. Congresspedia.com is a similar community-written wiki that also includes biographical pages for members of Congress.

These sites are community-created collection buckets for the interesting and essential bits of information that surface from the gigabytes of unsorted government data.

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