<nettime-ann> Fwd: [DC USA] Occupy Data update

Andrew-

I apologize for the length of this email!

I made an intro presentation about Occupy Data. You may want to take a look at it at some point while reading this.

Roadmap: Accounts, latest meeting notes, project management/collab ideas, data committee formation, and data ideas (attached)

1 - We have started a few accounts:

Discussion List: occupydata@googlegroups.com

Mapbox - http://tiles.mapbox.com/occupy

Datastore - thedatahub.org/group/occupy - If you make an account, please let me know and I will make you an admin. We have unlimited storage there.

Github - github.com/occupydc

2. Notes from our latest meeting -

http://meetingwords.com/5G1Hvlmwrs

3. My proposal to form a data committee at Occupy DC passed at the GA last night. Here is the text of the proposal

Sponsor: Tech Committee

A Data Committee shall be formed. Its purpose will be to:

1. Act as a resource for various entities within Occupy DC and the national Occupy movement to strengthen initiatives through data gathering, sensitive to legal and licensing issues, analysis, and visualization

2. Develop Occupy Data projects to address overarching grievances of the various Occupy locations across the United States, which may include economic inequality, identity-based discrimination and (in)equality of opportunity, corruption, lobbying, campaign finance, militarization, the financial crisis, the criminal (in)justice system, destruction of the global ecosystem, mortgages and foreclosures, and related themes

3. Coordinate with local and national open data advocates, developers, and technologists on existing open data, open government, and linked data projects

4. Establish an Occupy Data website to serve as a clearinghouse for data sources, tutorials, and visualization tools

5. Coordinate with local technology and data organizations to hold teach ins for members of Occupy DC, Occupy Data, and the general public

6. Practice radical transparency

4. See the attached data ideas

Bank failures, mergers, and acquisitions in the United States Possible use: map the data in a web application with an interactive directory of bank institutions, allow the visitor to see which banks have been winners/losers historically. 2008 Financial Crisis and bank bailout Possible use: explore/present data about the financial crisis and subsequent loans/bank failures/home foreclosures in an interactive web environment. 1033 Program, which allows local law enforcement agencies in the U.S. to request military technology and weapons from the Pentagon at no cost Possible use: display this data on a web-based map, as well as provide an interface to have visitors fill out a Freedom of Information Act request for more precise 1033 program data from their state coordinators and share it to Occupy Data. DC political campaign donations Possible use: determine the industries that are contributing the most; when business entities are using shell companies to contribute over the max Political Action Committees/PACs/SuperPACS Possible use: Link big donors to possible favors received, such as Ambassadorships and other executive appointments, would ideally tie into Influence Explorer on SunlightFoundation.com and the opensecrets.org database. Congressional insider trading and conflict of interest Possible use: Interactive web app allowing user to browse by state, name, industry, (would also be cool to connect this to CapitolWords at Sunlight). FEC filings for several candidates Possible use: display the linked entries ( such as by donor name or address) in an interactive web application, which might take a similar form as the PAC/SuperPAC one above. Poverty, real-estate developers, and the rising housing prices in DC Possible use: find, or create the database, visualize it geographically, chronologically, among other ways Data files contained on data.gov, along with data sites on particular .gov sites Possible Use: Interactive app for visitors to see all the publically available data on various federal, state (or district), and local government entities National FOIA Database Possible use: begin to link the various FOIA databases, as a national database does not exist yet, and connect visitors to free resources to encourage them to file their own FOIA requests. Housing/Mortgages/Foreclosuresoccupy-data-ideas.txt Possible use: aggregate state foreclosure statistics into a single national database, with a focus on foreclosure fraud; link the repeat bank offenders to other bad actions on their part. Global Occupy Movement Possible use: occupations in the world. I would like to make a map that routes the visitor to the nearest one based on input geo information. Congress Possible use: link opencongress, capitolwords, etc., with the geo-input from the visitor to allow the visitor to see what their congress member has been up to, perhaps include something like Reverse Robocall in the workflow to allow the visitor to inform their elected official of how they feel about the behavior.