The following are links to websites, bills before Congress, and other resources mentioned in our report, organized by chapter.

Legislative Databases

• THOMAS, the official public website for the status of legislation before Congress
• GPO’s Electronic Products, including the Daily Bills product which we feel should be reduced in cost, or made free
• H.R. 1328 and S. 564 in the 103rd Congress, the Government Printing Office Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act of 1993, modernized the Government Printing Office.
• To create permanent links to some THOMAS pages, see this page.
• Examples of structured data in the government include the Edgar program at the SEC, FTP downloadable data from the FEC, and several state legislature websites.
• RichmondSunlight.com and GovTrack.us are examples of websites putting structured legislative data to use.
• H.R. 170, the Sunlight Act of 2007 introduced by Rep. Steve King, would require that bills, resolutions, amendments, and conference reports be made available on the Internet in some cases at least 48 hours before their consideration.
• H.Res. 169 by Rep. Dennis Moore would require a list of earmarks in bills and amendments to “be made available on the Internet in a searchable format to the general public for at least 48 hours before consideration.â€? We encourage the bill to be amended to provide for the same information to be downloadable.
• S. 1 (Commission to Strengthen Confidence in Congress Act of 2007) uses the language “searchable, sortable, and downloadable” for new legislative databses, which is right on.
• Other websites mentioned by Josh at the May 8, 2007 press conference: OpenCongress.org (bills + news), WhereABill.org (Google driving directions for a bill’s progress), MAPLight.org (votes + campaign finance), WashingtonWatch.com (costs of bills), Congresspedia (wiki), Congrelicious

Preserving Congressional Information

• For more on the Federal Depository Library Program, see 44 U.S.C. 19 and this page from the GPO.
• U.S. Government Printing Office, A strategic vision for the 21st century, December 1, 2004.
• A variety of collections of digital government information are publicly available from private organizations, such as the Internet Archive and universities such as the University of North Texas.
• Stanford University libraries are collaborating with GPO on a pilot project to investigate the effectiveness of using the preservation and distribution software LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe) for government information. (Also see this page.)
• PDF/A is “an International standard that defines the use of the Portable Document Format (PDF) for archiving and preserving documents.â€?
• FIPS 186 discusses digital hashes that can be used to ensure preserved documents have not been modified.

Congressional Committees

• The Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress 1993 Report
• S. 1 and Sen. Salazar’s amendment to it would require committees to make video recordings, audio recordings, or transcripts of open meetings available to the public within 14 business days.
• Committees vary greatly in making transcripts available: see here and here.
• H. Res. 231, by Rep. Pete Sessions, would require committee votes to be published online within 48 hours. We recommend that the resolution go a step further and require the votes to be made available in a structured data format such as XML.
• The Senate has a page that lists all upcoming Senate committee meetings.

Congressional Research Service

• About the CRS
• “Congressional Policy Concerning the Distribution of CRS Written Products to the Public,â€? Congressional Research Service, January 2, 1998.
• H.Res. 3630 in the 108th Congress, the Congressional Research Accessibility Act, by Rep. Chris Shays, and S. Res. 54 (108th) by Sen. John McCain, would make certain CRS products available to the public over the Internet
• The Project on Government Oversight’s reasons for why the arguments against public distribution of CRS documents are unfounded.

Member Web Use Restrictions

• “Communicating with Congress: How Capitol Hill is Coping with the Surge in Citizen Advocacy,â€? Congressional Management Foundation, 2004.

Citizen Journalism Access

• David Kupelian, “WND denied congressional pass,â€? WorldNetDaily, February 13, 2002 and “WND to sue Press Gallery,â€? WorldNetDaily, September 3, 2002
• David Sirota, “Capitol Hill Junior High School, Or How the Media Kool Kidz Try to Bar Access to Your Government,â€? Sirota Blog, February 12, 2007
• Karen L. Haas, “Rules of the House of Representatives,â€? Clerk of the House of Representatives, January 24, 2007
• House Periodical Press Gallery

House Clerk’s Office

• Information about the Office of Legislative Operations and the Legislative Resource Center.

Congressional Record

• 44 U.S.C. 901 governs the Congressional Record.
• Reason Magazine featured an article entitled “The Imaginary Adventures of the U.S. Senateâ€? detailing the fictional speeches that appear in the Congressional Record but which were never delivered on the floor.

Congressional Video

• Other governments that have Web access to legislative video: Canadian Parliament, the German Bundestag, the U.K. Parliament, the Parliament of Australia, and the Riigikogu of Estonia
• Open letter from Carl Malamud to Speaker Pelosi, March 13, 2007 discusses the feasibility of comprehensive congressional video

Coordinating Web Standards

• The executive branch’s Chief Information Officer’s Council might serve as a guide for coordination in the Congress.
• The Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress 1993 Report and H.R. 3801 in the 103rd Congress recommended the creation of a Joint Committee on Information Management