In my previous post, I ranted about the lack of a process whereby the voting citizenry could "gauge" the effectiveness of a policy makers' (or party's) legislation. On a recent flight home from San Diego, I purchased the October 2003 edition of "Discover Magazine". There on page 24 of the periodical was printed an article on a website known as "GIA" or Government Information Awareness. The name, according to the website, was inspired by the "TIA" or Terrorism Information Awareness. Followers of the DARPA project's progress might remember the name originally given to the project as Total Information Awareness. The GIA tracks information about the various branches of governments, the representatives, and the various sources of contribution that each representative has. There is a remarkable wealth of information available to one's browsing delight at this website. I will provide a hyperlink to the GIA website, as-well-as, other useful websites at the end of this post.

Having viewed the website and perused through the aggregations of data, I realized that this could be the beginnings of the fully automated "report card" system I had envisioned in my previous post. While this website doesn't provide a means to gauge the effectiveness of the policies and their policy makers, it does represent a "first step" towards such a system. Perhaps, this system could be a component or prototype for the fully automated reporting tool I imagined. I would encourage all readers of this blog to at least visit the GIA and give it a try. Perhaps, there are a few "inspired" readers out there who could contribute to this project.

As promised here are my useful links:

• THOMAS -- an excellent tool for searching and identifying legislation.
• GIA -- a wonderful tool for identifying and monitoring your government. Very broad in scope.
• U.S. Senate Voting -- this link connects you to a portion of the U.S. Senates homesite that allows you to track who voted on what bill, and how. It is useful unless the voting is done by voice and no record is kept.