Cal AB1624: PROGRAMMERS! START YOUR ENGINES! (sample legis data)

[gnu () cygnus com <gnu () cygnus com>]

Jim Warren has been leading a charge to get the California Legislature
to provide public access to their internal law- and bill-tracking systems
via the Internet.  Rep. Debra Bowen has introduced Assembly Bill 1624
to accomplish this.  It's kicking its way through the Legislature now,
and faces its next hearing on August 18th.

Part of the opposition to the bill is that the legislators don't
believe that the Internet community will end up providing software for
easy public access to this information, which is all in crufty formats
from proprietary systems.  (This would mean either that the state
would have to spend money to make the data usefully accessible, or
that they'd have gone through all this for nothing because the public
couldn't really use the results.)  The Legislature currently sells
exclusive access to the data, on tape, to a company that charges big
bucks per hour for online access to it.  This is the kind of people
that the Legislature understands, so we have to make them also understand
the generous spirit of the Internet, with a demonstration.

We hope, with some volunteer programming as well as volunteer
politicking, to open up the process of state legislation so that
ordinary citizens can track it and participate in it.  Any takers?

        John Gilmore
        Electronic Frontier Foundation
        gnu () eff org

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