Time.com's Jeremy Caplan reports from the Personal Democracy Forum conference in New York City. He quotes the Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller and discusses efforts to have bills posted online for 72 hours before floor debate.

Time.com "The Citizen Watchdogs of Web 2.0"
by Jeremy Caplan, June 30, 2008

"Modern-day technology will reinvent democracy," says Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, which uses the Web to shine a light on the work of Congress. "It allows people to participate in huge numbers and in ways that will fundamentally challenge power structures, that will demand accountability from their elected officials."

In a perfect world, our legislators would vote on each bill based on thorough, firsthand analysis. But that's not how it works in Washington.

"Because members of Congress spend billions of dollars and affect the lives of millions of Americans, they should have at least 72 hours to read bills, and the bills should be posted online for all the public to see."

In its main editorial endorsing Rep. Baird for re-election, the Olympian mentioned his 72 hours online inititiative as one of a half-dozen of his activities that seemed most important to the newspaper.

CNN's Situation Room's Jacki Schechner featured ReadtheBill.org and Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) in a nice short piece. Here's a link to play it on Baird's website (media player needed).

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Washington Post spotlights ReadtheBill.org on the Federal Page.

(Note: ReadtheBill.org's DeGennaro blogs in agreement with Mann's comment in the article.)

This blog commends ReadtheBill.org for taking action to fix the problem described by Rep. John Conyers in the film "Farenheit 9/11"

Among needed steps is "a firm policy of ...making spending bills public 72 hours before final votes."