Member since 4 years ago
4 ideas posted
0 comments 5 votes
51 votes
I disagreeShow the geographic location of major donors to each congressional political campaign, so to identify the potential sources of influence in each congressional district. If possible also graph the location of the groups who endorsed the candidate and note size of their membership.
11 votes
I disagreeIt has been said that the total dollars lost in rebuilding Iraq is greater than that lost in the Madoff Scandal. No-bid contracts characterized the reconstruction program, money was lost without a trace. To assure that reconstruction funds do good for their intended neighborhoods, we propose a assessment and rating system in which beneficiary neighborhoods must sign off before final payment to the contractors helping ...more »
It has been said that the total dollars lost in rebuilding Iraq is greater than that lost in the Madoff Scandal. No-bid contracts characterized the reconstruction program, money was lost without a trace. To assure that reconstruction funds do good for their intended neighborhoods, we propose a assessment and rating system in which beneficiary neighborhoods must sign off before final payment to the contractors helping rebuild their neighborhood.
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11 votes
I disagreeWhy Is This Idea Important? We want to create an intersecting system of two databases to help implement the Leahy Amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act and Defense Appropriations Act by making that information available to the public. As stated on Senator Leahy’s website, “The Leahy Law makes it clear that when credible evidence of human rights violations exists, U.S. aid must stop. But, it provides the ...more »
Why Is This Idea Important?
We want to create an intersecting system of two databases to help implement the Leahy Amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act and Defense Appropriations Act by making that information available to the public. As stated on Senator Leahy’s website, “The Leahy Law makes it clear that when credible evidence of human rights violations exists, U.S. aid must stop. But, it provides the necessary flexibility to allow the U.S. to advance its foreign policy objectives in these countries. The law gives the Secretary of State the authority to determine when the law applies. In addition, it gives foreign governments an incentive to correct the problem: U.S. aid can resume if they bring to justice people who commit such crimes.”
To better implement this law, Americans and the world community should have access to an open database of all foreign military units who receive U.S. military aid and/or training. In addition, the State Department's Annual Human Rights reports should be indexed to note those military units that are implicated in any "gross violation of Human Rights." The intersection of these two databases should trigger the implementation of the Leahy Amendment and thus begin a process that will press for justice by withdrawing further U.S. aid and training from the unit involved.
Creating the databases for government use is not enough. These databases need to be made public, so both U.S. citizens and foreign military units can have access. U.S. citizens should know what military units are being funded by the U.S. government and keep our country accountable for its spending. Foreign military units must see that they will be held accountable for their actions and place their funding and training at risk if they commit a violation of human rights.
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Documentation of the Amendments:
The Leahy Amendment in the 2001 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act (Sec. 563 of P.L. 106-429) states :“None of the funds made available by this Act may be provided to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible evidence that such unit has committed gross violations of human rights, unless the Secretary determines and reports to the Committees on Appropriations that the government of such country is taking effective measures to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice.”
While the Foreign Operations law covers both training and assistance (such as weapons grants), the Leahy Amendment in the 2001 Defense Appropriations Act (Sec. 8092 of P.L. 106-259) covers only training, and states: “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to support any training program involving a unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of Defense has received credible information from the Department of State that a member of such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights, unless all necessary corrective steps have been taken.”
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-6 votes
I disagreeThe Rebuilding Alliance's “Here Are Those Who Care” project and Grassroots Advocacy Toolkit will fundamentally change how people think about and engage with international human rights. The project supports this fundamental change by linking communities of like-minded people in local congressional districts, enabling a feedback loop between the people and their government, and encouraging creative ways of enacting and ...more »
The Rebuilding Alliance's “Here Are Those Who Care” project and Grassroots Advocacy Toolkit will fundamentally change how people think about and engage with international human rights. The project supports this fundamental change by linking communities of like-minded people in local congressional districts, enabling a feedback loop between the people and their government, and encouraging creative ways of enacting and evolving that change over time.
The Rebuilding Alliance and the “Here Are Those Who Care,” project looks to combine a set of web-based database, mapping, and teleconference tools in a Grassroots Advocacy Toolkit and tests these tools with constituent groups focused on one of our human rights projects, Saving the Kindergarten and Village of Al Aqabah, a West Bank Palestinian community that has received demolition orders. These tools empower U.S. constituents to discover they are not alone and help them find like-minded people who are close-by in their congressional district. The feedback loops formed between the diverse, concerned constituent groups in a congressional district, the “Here Are Those Who Care” coordinator, and congressional staffers grow as questions and concerns raised by the constituents are answered by the congressional staffers via calls on their behalf to the U.S. State Department and foreign embassies.
Our Approach: We start by creating a web-based “Grassroots Advocacay Toolkit” that combines the SalesForce.com database with congressional district maps and Googlemaps to show where concerned constituents are located and identify groups who may share the concern. Note that the Salesforce Foundation makes 10 user licenses available to nonprofits without charge (a $15,000/yr value.), and we intend to make our Grassroots Advocacy Toolkit available without cost to that nonprofit network following development and testing. We’ll also include social networking (e.g. leveragesoftware.com, lithium.com) and teleconferencing software in our toolkit as well, to facilitate good discussion. However, technology alone is not enough. Hands-on facilitation happens at every level, connecting concerned citizens with the at-risk group overseas via teleconference, with one another, and with their elected representatives.
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