The Distress Signal

What Can I Dev For My Country

A couple weeks ago I ran across this post from @corbett3000 about the need for greater civic involvement from the tech community. This was a call to build “stuff that matters” to help the country do more with less, keep our leaders honest and their governance transparent, and fix crap that’s broken.

Maybe it was a kernel of hope tucked away somewhere in my brain from seeing Obama elected, maybe it was some residual sense of community from a week spent at #drupalcon, maybe I just need some sleep, but either way this post has been speaking to me.

Still disoriented by my surprising lack of overbearing cynicism I’ve recently spent some time playing around with the API made available from the Sunlight Foundation which provides access to all sorts of cool data sources from Census Files to the FEC Disclosure Database to Senate Office Public Records and more. I can’t say I’ve actually produced anything that would be of any real use to anybody at this point but I am starting to get some ideas.

I also registered for the upcoming eDemocracy Camp going on here in DC this April. This whole optimism and participation thing feels a bit weird after 8 years of cynical obstinate opposition but I think I could get used to it. If you’re a techie in the DC area and are going to be at the eDemocracy camp I’ll see you there, if not maybe you should be asking: What can I develop for my country?

Exactly

Nice job boss:

“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers … faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.”

Finally

According to our new (if all goes as planned) CIA Director and former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta:

“We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don’t. There is no middle ground.”

Maybe it’s just me but it almost feels like the last 8 years were just one long blurry night of binge drinking. The country did things that it would have never done when it was sober – Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Warrantless Wiretapping, Preemptive Invasions, the list goes on and on.

Seeing this quote from the new head of the CIA though makes me think we are finally starting to come out of it. We’re bleary eyed with a hell of a hangover, but at least we’re alive.