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
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
