Being a big fan of both crowdfunding and transparency in the public sector I couldn’t resist investigating further when I saw news about the “FOIA Machine”.
The sophisticated FOIA Machine is being built by some of the top investigative reporters for the purpose of providing reporters and others a free and open online platform that provides a legal way to gain access to government secrets that shouldn’t be kept secret. It’s significance for those who regularly submit FOIA requests has been compared to what TurboTax did for tax preparation.
The timing of their call for funding could not have been better. With the recent revelations about some of the work being done by the NSA, privacy concerns have risen to unprecedented levels, and their grass roots crowdfunding campaign is on fire. Since they posted their request for funds on Kickstarter less than a week ago they have raised over $34,000, double what their goal was.
Let’s hope our public servants loosen their tight grip on information so we taxpayers don’t become collateral damage when FOIA Machine meets GOV Machine.