Okay cypherpunks. If we want to create a `new & improved' (tm) government in cyberspace this is the most direct route: drag our current one in kicking and screaming all the way. In California there is pivotal battle underway to get government legislature data onto the internet to citizens, but powerful companies have lucrative monopolistic arrangements on this data, so the legislature has adopted a self-serving `impress us' attitude. The manner in which this current attack is carried out will help forge a plan for the federal level. Taxpayer's Assets Project is doggedly pushing a bill to free up the data at that level. If a positive demonstration and firm foothold is established at the state level then maybe this valuable knowledge and know-how could be translated to the Federal level. I sent a message to Gilmore & Pozar complaining about the imperious attitude of the legislature in getting free programming labor without even any obligations to repay the favor, and the limited time frame. Ah, but isn't that life, the citizen bears the burden twice? Pays through taxes once and has to pay dearly again to get the due goods & services? Maybe it will be different in cyberspace eh? I'm betting on it... I imagine that GUI or X Window programmers (for a nice interface) and database programmers are especially desireable here. If a cypherpunk pulled this off and it was promoted, it would be HOT press coverage. We're talking 6 o'clock soundbites. A glimmer of the momentum of a revolution! ------- Forwarded Message Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 18:51:10 -0500 From: farber@central.cis.upenn.edu (David Farber) Subject: Cal AB1624: PROGRAMMERS! START YOUR ENGINES! (sample legis data) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 13:42:13 -0700 From: 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 - ------- Forwarded Message From: Jim Warren <jwarren@well.sf.ca.us> Subject: UPDATE#19-AB1624: PROGRAMMERS! START YOUR ENGINES! (sample legis data) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 10:42:07 -0700 July 20, 1993 Okay, all you programmers who volunteered to create readers, indexers, print utilities, etc., for California's legislative data -- HERE'S YOUR FIRST CHANCE. GAIN FAME AND GLORY (if not wealth :-) ! Be the FIRST to create legislative data-handling utilites and share the source-code with the world. Do it fast, and you/it can amaze and impress legislators at the Aug. 18th Senate Rules Committee hearing on AB1624. The Legislative Data Center (LDC) has provided bill-author Bowen's office with six diskettes full of sample legislative data in the various forms in which it exists internally, at the LDC and/or the Office of State Printing (OSP). They also provided documentation-files in electronic form. With some kindly Sacramento assistance, Tim Pozar now has all of these files available across the Internet in the anonymous ftp directory (file transfer protocol) on kumr.lns.com. To obtain copies of the files, use the command "ftp kumr.lns.com". Login as "anonymous" and use your mailing address as a password. Be sure to use the command "binary" to tranfer the files intact. Use the command "cd pub/ldc" to change to the proper directory. Then the command "mget *" to get all of the files. After all of the files are retrived, type the command "quit" to end the ftp session and log out of kumr.kns.com. If you have ftp problems, contact Tim: Internet: pozar@kumr.lns.com FidoNet: Tim Pozar @ 1:125/555 Snail: Tim Pozar, KKSF, 77 Maiden Lane, San Francisco CA 94108 POTS: +1 415 788 2022 Radio: KC6GNJ / KAE6247 According to LCD notes that accompanied the diskettes, the files include: cgml.sou - California Generic Markup Language (CGML) parser table codes.fmt - documentation of CGML (the LDC formatting language, that does *not* give the page- or line-numbers by which amendments are defined) measures.fmt - documentation of Page II (the OSP typesetting input, which is the only source of the page- and line-numbers of printed bills) *cg.ina - introduced bill, in the Assembly, coded in CGML *cg.ams - amended bill, in the Senate, coded in CGML *.cg - Constitution part, state code or uncodified statute, coded in CGML ab????.ina - bill introduced in the Assembly, coded in Page II ab????.ams - Assembly bill amended in the Senate, coded in Page II *.pg2 - Page II tables for introduced, amended, enrolled and chaptered bills *ca - committee analysis *fa - floor analysis *cf - committee vote *fv - floor vote *s - bill status *h - bill history *ve - Governor's veto message 063093.boo files apparently concern the Assembly and Senate Daily Files. If you have questions AFTER you have diligently diddled these files and become totally frustrated, send specific questions to me and I'll try to scrounge up some answers. [No guarantees, though. :-) ] Let me know if/when you think you have some code working, and we'll figure out how best to gloriously - and *timely* - flaunt it in Sacramento. :-) [Note: I will be at the Telluride Tele-Community conference and mostly offline 7/22-7/26.] - - --jim Jim Warren, columnist for MicroTimes, Government Technology & BoardWatch jwarren@well.sf.ca.us -or- jwarren@autodesk.com 345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/415-851-2814 [organizer & Chair, First Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy (1991); InfoWorld founder (1978); Autodesk Board of Directors member; etc. blah blah] < just a citizen/volunteer/advocate re AB1624; no business interest therein > - ------- End of Forwarded Message ------- End of Forwarded Message