XML.com

No matter where you fall in debates over free software or DRM, there’s one type of information that is unarguably meant to be free, and that’s information about our government. The more knowledge citizens have about government the better. So how can we use XML and the Semantic Web to make it easier to get that knowledge, and to foster civic participation?

This is a question I’ve spent a lot of time on over the past few years while putting together www.GovTrack.us, a site that gathers existing information on the web about the U.S. Congress and puts it all together in new ways, using RSS feeds and Google Maps, for instance. The site is possible because the government has been posting the relevant information online for a while, but in scattered locations. For instance, legislation is posted in one place and votes on the very same legislation in another. Gathering the information in one place and in a common format gives rise to new ways of mixing the information together.

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