Want to Investigate a Member of Congress?

This will not be everyone's cup of tea, but for many who track the transgressions of Congress and feel like we're complaining to one another in an echo chamber, here's a chance to work as a team. For any who were not here a while back, newsviners were a big help in smoking out the little piggie who had an secret earmark. Killfile was tracking that and Porkbusters ran the website updates.

It was more of a political race than the elections and we won, boy was it great. We broke an historic tradition in the Senate and we're going to keep moving forward with transparency, regardless of what Congress chooses to do. The first sleuthing actions are being spearheaded by Sunlight foundation, here in their own words with links to MOC sites built in.

"The Sunlight Foundation needs you to research congressional Web sites!

Though no law requires them to do so, members of Congress maintain official Web sites at taxpayer expense to provide their constituents and the general public with relevant information about their work in Washington on our behalf.

Do these Web sites cut through the bewildering array of information available online about the Legislative Branch, making it easier for you to find relevant information about a member's official acts and publicly required disclosures? Do they contribute to government transparency?

The Sunlight Foundation asks you to exercise citizen oversight and find out if we are getting our money's worth from these congressional Web sites.

We're asking you to answer three broad questions:

Does the Web site provide or link to official sources with thorough information about the member's legislative and committee activities?

Does the Web site provide or link to any of the information that, by law, a member of Congress must disclose to the public (though not necessarily online)?

Does the Web site, in any way, provide transparency or disclosure that goes beyond what is officially available or required by law?

To answer these questions, you will have to search through a member's Web site and determine whether the member provides or links to specific kinds of information. From start to finish, it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes!"

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