Transcript.Gov parallel to Data.Gov. What have our leaders been saying?
Data.Gov shows is an invaluable tool detailing laws, regulations, studies and spending. But, when we as voters are deliberating whether to reward ...more »
Data.Gov shows is an invaluable tool detailing laws, regulations, studies and spending. But, when we as voters are deliberating whether to reward our leaders with another term or to throw the rascals out, we need to know what they promised and how these promises were either fulfilled, forgotten or “fine tuned” over time.
A comprehensive clearinghouse of transcripts of campaign pledges, floor speeches, press conferences, interviews, depositions and hearings, parallel to Data.Gov, would allow us to quickly and easily check the integrity of our public servants.
With the press pathologically preoccupied with late-breaking news and devoting astonishingly scant resources to in-depth, historical analysis, such a resource could help give us an empirical perspective on how our politicians are doing. A comprehensive analysis could point out trends and conflicts in the data which might be obscured in the cacophony of scattered snippets currently available.
Perhaps a Wikipedia type web site could be setup to consolidate this information for at least the most high-profile actors in the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The peer review and fact checking available on a user-editable site would ensure complete and factual content. It could be indexed and searchable by person, date, venue and keyword to make it as accessible as possible.
Weaseling political opportunists would probably prefer to keep us focused on what they said today hoping that memories of previous promises would soon fade. Could we trust those currently in power to disseminate the data in a timely manner or would they simply hold hearings, conduct studies and establish blue ribbon panels which would drag on until they were out of office?
Would it be better to have an organization, independent of government, carry out the research and post the findings before the next election cycle? If we could find a few hundred dedicated archivists to each research and document one Executive, Senate or House bigwig, we could have an effective system online in a few weeks. I'll take Evergreen.
Let's have a good look at the whole, historical picture before we send the next bunch to Washington.
BrianP
Austin, TX USA
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