It was the sweltering late summer, 2007, in Washington DC. The House of Representatives was smack in the middle of debate over the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And members of Congress, expected to render judgment on legislation that would fundamentally impact core America rights, hadn't laid eyes upon the latest copy of the bill. It's "just absolute lunacy," said California Republican David Dreir of the situation at the time...On the point above, one of the fundamental questions of our time is this: how do we use all the government information the Internet might set free for public good? An open debate over that question is now taking place on the Google Group of the Sunlight Foundation's nascent Open Senate Project...The latest email from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe announcing the selection of the incoming administration's national security and foreign policy team includes a big ol' red button asking for contributions...and much more.

The full fury of the progressive netroots has turned on Minnesota Republican congressman Michelle Bachmann -- and it might put her House seat in jeopardy; The National Political Do Not Contact Registry's Shaun Dakin has picked up on the Twitter Vote Report idea and proposed using Twitter to track the automated campaign calls that have been in the news of late; The news today is that the Obama campaign raked in $150 million last month. That's a ton of money, and it frees Obama to compete in parts of the country where the math heretofore didn't make sense for a Democrat; and a good deal more.

The Prince of Darkness explains away his propagation of the story that John McCain was picking a running mate this week by saying that all he did was post the story on the Internet; barackobama@gmail.com is not the direct connection to the Democratic candidate's inbox that we may have thought it was; a new video feature puts congressional competitors head-to-heard, answering the same questions; and loads more.

Both the online left and the online right gather in Austin, though the size and profile of Netroots Nation demonstrates the distance that conservatives still have to travel on the Internet; a congressman takes up a new post as Flip-equipped correspondent for the effort to move elections to a more sensible day; a candidate's web comic helps to sextuple the existing fundraising record in his race; and much, much more.

A group protesting Barack Obama's stand on warrantless surveillance has attracted more than 10,000 members in just a week, making it the largest user-created group on MyBarackObama.com; we spotlight a tech policy dust-up worth keeping an eye on: the conservative battle over broadband; a new experiment in governing out of the U.K. pairs government data stashes and a cash prize; and much, much more.

With Change.org and Project Agape trying to make good use of the Facebook apps platform, you wouldn’t think there’s room for yet another social causes app. Razoo is hoping there is.

I am often told by people who "know" that, like the bl

The Web on the Candidates -- Daily Digest Lite

Over PrezVid Jeff Jarvis takes a look at what presidential candidates are advertising using Google AdSense, and whose keywords they're advertising with. The most active advertisers are Hillary Clinton -- who's advertising on Obama, Biden, and Dodd searches, and Rudy Giuliani -- who's advertising on McCain, Brownback, Tancredo and the phrase "flat tax." This basically means that when you do a search for, say, McCain or Tancredo, you may see an ad for Giuliani on the right side of the page. Take a closer look at the post for many more interesting results, including the fact that "no one — no candidate, no brand, no news organization, no one — is advertising against “Bush” and “George W. Bush”, even negatively. Nobody wants any of that on them."

There was an interesting article in CNet today about Microsoft's new "i'm" initiative, which has the

Like the iPhone, the idea of raising money via a mobile