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Building web app to help expose government corruption, who should I talk to

3 points by devs1010 ↗ HN
I won't get into a long rant here but I have had enough experiences with law enforcement, the "justice" system and other aspects of government to where I am fed up and not going to take it anymore. I'm a web app developer, I've built web apps from start to finish before so I'm going to build something that I feel can help expose the things going on behind the scenes. I personally feel that there is enough info out there on the web that, if intelligentally aggregated and presented, can strike a chord with people, nothing extremist, no propaganda, just links to (or copies if legally permissable) of documents and short explanations of what they mean and why its f'ed up, so to speak, as well as perhaps links to and names of relevant people whom they should consider contacting to voice their displeasure. It would probably be best too to start with a few issues and focus around those at first rather than just a broad application about every issue under the sun.

I already have a lot of experience writing web crawlers, etc to scrape info so this part shouldn't be too hard for me, I am hoping, however to get in touch with others who share an interest and who may know more about the issues to help lead me to places that I can find document sets worth sorting through. Anyone know of any organizations, etc that I should consider getting in touch with?

6 comments

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[dead] xero5er
first thing that comes to mind.. do your research. A lot of people have gotten in trouble for things like recording a police officer with a cellphone.. make waves, make enemies..

but fight the good fight! best of luck

devs1010
yeah, I know, thanks for the advice... what I'm thinking is more of just taking whats already out there, I'm not into going around and trying to gather evidence myself. I feel that most government officials a) feel they are above the law and b) are arrogant to where there are probably plenty of "paper trails" out there of things that are going on that the average person would feel is wrong, this includes interpretations of laws as well, etc, its just a matter of finding the right places to scour for this evidence and then go from there.
kls
I would recommend an app that allows you to contact the appropriate parties and does the leg work for you, like helping you formulate a letter quickly that can be sent to all politicians that you vote affects. So for example, the mayor, the county commissioner, the representative of your district, your senator, your governor, the president etc. Basically an app that makes it easy for people to bitch. Because formulating letters and contacting all of those people is a pain.

I had an idea once for an open platform lobby, where people could come together and write bills, then donations could be collected to hire lobbyist to push the bill. Use the same system that is used against us, to our advantage and make it an open democratic system that anyone can contribute too. Truly bills written by the people, Iceland did something similar when they disbanded their government and it worked very well. This could be a powerful platform where people that contribute valuable input to the bill may get exposure and encouragement to run for office. It could be a platform that empowers people again.

devs1010
awesome, yeah these are all good ideas.. I'm thinking down to the local level, I think that its easier to effect change at the local level too, I think its key though to find places to "dig up some dirt" on any public official who is f'ng things up, be it a judge, police officer, councilperson, prosecutor, representative, etc and go after them, but only do it with resources that aren't on the site itself, use whats already out there, just bring it into a form where its easily digestible
ohashi
Friend of mine worked on this: http://bribespot.com/
devs1010
cool idea, not sure how much change it would effect though as it seems there isn't real evidence that can really damage the people taking the bribes