1. whosfundingwhom.org USF Transparency in Government Project Campaign Finance Disclosure/Visualization David Wolber, University of San Francisco

2. whosfundingwhom.org Co-Sponsors The project has been funded by the Leo T. McCarthy center and the City of San Francisco.

3. whosfundingwhom.org Outline Motivation for Project Funding data at federal/state levels Demo of whosfundingwhom.org Issues and Future Directions

4. whosfundingwhom.org Disclosure and Accessibility: Current Status On-line Disclosure (getting there) Implementation behind law, in SF Loopholes, e.g., late filing, addendums Data visualization (output) is far behind. sfgov.org/ethics Limited resources, especially software developers.

5. whosfundingwhom.org Accessibility is Limited

6. whosfundingwhom.org Limited Accessibility Journalists Watchdog organizations Only most egregious violations checked Voters

7. whosfundingwhom.org Campaign Transparency: Needs More on-line filing Visualization tools Graphs, e.g., funding trails Views that integrate various data Automatic flagging of potential violations Data mining– Analyzing the data to find interesting things.

8. whosfundingwhom.org Fed and State solutions Federal: opensecrets.orgopensecrets.org Center for Responsive Politics State: http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/campaign/http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/campaign/ http://cal- access.ss.ca.gov/Campaign/Candidates/list.aspx?vi ew=name http://cal- access.ss.ca.gov/Campaign/Candidates/list.aspx?vi ew=name

9. whosfundingwhom.org Idea behind our project: City and University Collaboration Fill the gap in resources for city. Students work on real projects. Encourage public service. Build some real software to help city/community.

10. whosfundingwhom.org Current Status of Project Lobbyist database and on-line forms deployed this April. Campaign funding Visualization whosfundingwhom.org Relational view of funding chains Tabular Graph “Launch” April 1. Basis for data mining, integration,etc.

11. whosfundingwhom.org Demonstration See http://bay.cs.usfca.edu/tgpGraph.htm http://bay.cs.usfca.edu/tgpGraph.htm

12. whosfundingwhom.org Future Goals Integrate multiple data sources Flag potential violations Mine data for hidden relationships Allow users to input data/associations Special Election/Filing Date views

13. whosfundingwhom.org Integrating Data David Wolber City Department X Joe Contributor Employee Of Awarded Contract By $10000

14. whosfundingwhom.org Integrating Data Sources State Filings Other Cities and Counties Data Standards?

15. whosfundingwhom.org Integrating Lobbyist and Campaign Finance Data Does a contributor employ a lobbyist? If so, what issue is the lobbyist hired to promote? Lobbyists must report if they’ve prompted someone to make a contribution.

16. whosfundingwhom.org Data within Ethics Commission. Independent Expenditure Database 461 Major Donors Political Consultants

17. whosfundingwhom.org Contracts/Voting City Contracts/Permits Awarded Voting Records

18. whosfundingwhom.org Flagging Possible Violations Sometimes duplicative filings are required. e.g., cross-checking RCPT database with Independent Expenditure DB. Are RCPT committees contributing to other committees (a violation) Negative cash balances

19. whosfundingwhom.org Geographical Queries For instance, funding by neighborhood or district. Note that this information is not in the redacted data now online at Ethics Commission.

20. whosfundingwhom.org Potential Projects Identify on-line data sources Appointees, employed_by, contracts_awarded. Use whosfundingwhom.org and suggest modifications, additions, and directions.

21. whosfundingwhom.org Trends in Information Systems Collaboration and the power of the many e.g., wikipedia, del.icio.us, slashdot Collect and organize now scattered data All kinds of legal issues (Feinstein case, Kennedy assasination accusations) How to moderate Who is liable?

22. whosfundingwhom.org Trends in Information Systems XML and web services Standard data formats Separate presentation from data Mashups/aggregators E.g., Craigslist/Google maps Semantic web

23. whosfundingwhom.org Human input of Data The Internet has a lot of data that is free text, not structured. e.g., voting on issues, news Administer/Researcher/Expert/public can identify and input data (e.g., wikipedia) Objectivity Issues

24. whosfundingwhom.org Thank You whosfundingwho.org David Wolber (wolber@usfca.edu)wolber@usfca.edu (415) 422-6451 Email us or come by and see us – we want detailed feedback and ideas