The central idea of government transparency is to make community governance from the very local to the very global accessible; and, to allow the average citizen to hold their elected officials accountable for the decisions they make from the small to the very large that affect those constituencies.Following the three word model of Transparency Camp, the objective of this movement is: Open up government.

I suspect that it could be widely felt that "government" and the decisions made within do not have anything to do with the Average Jane citizen.  It's not a belief, necessarily, though I'm relatively positive that many people leave their community activism and attention at the voting booth each November and May.  (Even more just in November.)

This is a huge problem.  Yeah, I suppose you could say that things could be viewed as "fucked" in so many areas of our "American" society - health care, violence, poverty, food issues, environmental issues, our perception as a country to the world at large, our involvement in foreign policies... I could go on and on.  But, who is, in the end, responsible for those problems being in the first place and moreover responsible for allowing them to spiral out of control?

Let me hand you a mirror and let's take a look.

In the end it is YOU the voter, the citizen who is responsible for those problems.  Through apathy and lack of knowledge we become complicit in the shoddy decisions our government makes on a daily basis.

Why don't we care?  Why don't we seek out the information and data with which we could arm ourselves to demand reform and accountability?

It's a really simple answer: Understanding government and the functions there of beyond a very basic level is really, really, REALLY, REALLY f-ing complicated.

Government needs to be opened up and simplified to allow the people it affects - you, me and everyone else around us - to understand what is happening and participate in affecting positive change to benefit our community.

You can apply this to local, state, national and global government and the need remains the same, if it doesn't grow exponentially.  (Though, I often feel like local government is so much more vital to my own well being than global government -- but, that's just me.)

Transparency Camp is therein a really important event.  It is a group of people - perhaps only like minded in the fact that they CARE - coming together for a conversation on how to achieve open and transparent government using technology and other millennium tools to benefit even the least engaged citizen.

Sometimes it's a meeting of the minds, sometimes it's a heated debate... But, the crucial part is that the conversation is happening.

Here are some of my take-away information and ideas from the most interesting things at Transparency Camp:

The Sunlight Foundation:

Co-founded by Ellen Miller and Michael Klein in 2006 with the mission of opening up Congressional and federal government more meaningfully accessible to citizens: It has since grown in scale to become a catalyst for greater government transparency.  Sunlight has essentially become a connector of community to data; of data to individual person; of individual person to resource; of resource to community.

Watching The Watchers:

Should TMZ and paparazzi type reporting tactics be applied to our elected officials?  Or, is this too high level a concept for the average voter to become engaged with?  The sole aim of this consideration is to change how voters vote for politicians by shedding light on the day-to-day actions of those elected officials.  Is it too invasive? 

Is it not locally relevant if So-and-So Congressman went to lunch with a lobbyist or took her kids to soccer practice or missed a vote on the floor to go shopping or Tweeted basketball scores during a filibuster?  Or, is it completely relevant?  This is a very heated debate with good, innovative (sometimes over the top) ideas coming out of it.

Yelping Government:

In an ideal world there is a place you can go online, type in your zip-code and find all the government services in your area - rated - just like on Yelp.  Is this a good, relevant idea?  Does it give a voice to the populace to demand changes and improvements in their government services?  Or does it just encourage irrelevant chatter? 

 Will this create change; or, will it just be a place where data is collected and left to gather dust?  Can behavior be changed so that citizens will provide relevant criticism and suggestions for government services; and, will those running government services respond by affecting the suggested changes?  All good questions.  Stay tuned on this one.

Analyze the US:

Midnight on 8 August was very relevant for the folks over at www.analyzethe.us as their new data aggregating launched (just in time to highlight at Transparency Camp West '09!)  The tool is designed to allow the average citizen to gather and quantify that information in a way which makes sense. 

 It provides visual data mapping in real time to help you understand who's working with who and for what.  The tool seems like it will be particularly helpful in understanding issues of campaign finance and corporate lobbying.

To be honest, I think that I am probably amongst the least intelligent and politically active people at Transparency Camp this weekend.  However, it's been a complete honor to listen to these forward thinkers talk about important issues of governance that when they trickle down to the masses will only condense in power and necessity. 

 I am walking away from this event knowing more, thinking bigger and empowered to affect change... thereby according to the criteria set forth, at least for this reporter, the event was a success.