The Programmable Government
We are headed toward a time where the workings of government are much more visible to the American public.
Through things like the Freedom of Information Act, this information has technically been available for some time - but not in a form that is easily consumed. This is starting to change.
The emergence of open APIs that provide access to information about how the government is operating is a massive step in the right direction. It will, I hope, bring forth a new wave of websites that mine the data that these web services provide, and expose it to the world. Voting records, government expenditures, bids, and bill details all need to be made available for anyone to consume.
Here are a few of the APIs that I have come across. Some are available from the government themselves, others are from third parties.
The New York Times Congress API
This API, part of a growing set of APIs from the Times, let’s you program Congress. Well, not exactly:
The initial release exposes four types of data: a list of members for a given Congress and chamber, details of a specific roll-call vote, biographical and role information about a specific member of Congress, and a member’s most recent positions on roll-call votes.
…
Our database contains House votes since 1991 and Senate votes since 1989. House members are from 1983 and Senate members date back to 1947
Follow the Money
This API provides information about campaign contributions for state-level campaigns.
Sunlight Labs
The Sunlight Labs API provides methods for obtaining basic information on Members of Congress, legislator IDs used by various websites, and lookups between places and the politicians that represent them. The primary purpose of the API is to facilitate mashups involving politicians and the various other APIs that are out there.
Capital Words
This site, another project of the Sunlight Foundation tracks word frequency from the congressional record. Most frequently used word: Proposed.
USASpending.gov
One of the few official government APIs, this allows you to find out where your money goes:
Have you ever wanted to find more information on government spending? Have you ever wondered where federal contracting dollars and grant awards go? Or perhaps you would just like to know, as a citizen, what the government is really doing with your money. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Transparency Act) requires a single searchable website, accessible by the public for free that includes for each Federal award:\
- The name of the entity receiving the award;\
- The amount of the award;\
- Information on the award including transaction type, funding agency, etc;\
- The location of the entity receiving the award;\
- A unique identifier of the entity receiving the award.
The GOP API
The Republicans are ahead of the Democrats on this one, but I would doubt we’ll have to wait to long to see them follow suit. This site is similar in concept to the Times’ Congress API mentioned above (though obviously only for the Republican members), but provides some additional information that the Times does not.
Conclusion
This is only a sampling of the APIs that are available, and hopefully this is only the beginning. I’m optimistic that both the government and third parties will provide more of these, and that groups will make use of this information to expose the inner workings of the government to the people who elect them.
Are their any APIs that I missed? Are there any sites that are using this information in interesting ways? What do you want the government to make easily consumable that it isn’t today?