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This weekend in D.C. - it's the "un-conference" of the year for #opengov heads & civic engagement developers. That would be Transparency Camp, organized by the Sunlight Foundation.

David from OC & PPF will be there to demo our next major project: OpenGovernment.org - for city- and state-level government engagement.

See more ideas on the schedule & see you in D.C. this weekend & follow along on micropublishing. Click through for more sessions about which I'm excited.

Writing from the plane headed to the National Conference on Media Reform in Denver, CO, organized by the terrific folks at PPF's longtime friends at Free Press.

I'm taking the trip to preview our soon-to-be-relaunched website for engagement with state & city elected officials, OpenGovernment.org. For more about what we're building for public Q&A with city & local government, check my OG Blog post from last month.

At the conference (micropublishing hashtag #NCMR13, I believe) - on Saturday at 2pm MT in the room Governors Square 9, I'll do a demo of our redesigned OG and ask attendees what questions they would like to ask their city councilmembers & mayors' offices. Also excited to see friends & colleagues from our sibling non-profit, Fight For the Future. More links & shout-outs after the jump.

Update, Friday March 29th: This phase of the Knight NewsChallenge ends at 5pm ET today, so please helps us now by clicking "applaud this" on our proposal page: 

OpenGovernment.org - a version of "We The People" for state, city, and local governments

... then please post an update on Facebook or Twitter or email to encourage more views & applause of our proposal, suggestions below:

Click "applaud this" for @open_gov in the #NewsChallenge - "We The People" for every level of government: http://kng.ht/13XMh02

... much more info after the jump, including where we stand in the competition, other NewsChallenge proposals to applaud, and why we hope you'll give a click to support our tiny non-profit team.

The OpenCongress team has submitted a project to the Knight Foundation NewsChallenge:

OpenGovernment.org - a version of "We The People" for state, city, and local governments

Support our non-profit work - please visit that page and click "applaud this" in the right-hand side, then create a free OpenIdeo account or login securely through FB Connect. Once logged-in, your applause will count immediately - we're currently ranked 22nd of 822 proposals.

Next, here's a sample Facebook or Twitter update you can share to help us spread the word:

Click "applaud" for OpenGovernment.org in the #NewsChallenge - "We The People" for every level of government: http://kng.ht/13XMh02

... with your quick help, we can roll out OG to hundreds more city governments this year. Much more info after the jump.

Update, March 13th: We just submitted our entry to the Knight Foundation NewsChallenge on #opengov. Please boost our chances by giving it a view and some applause:

OpenGovernment.org - a WeThePeople for state, city, and local governments.

... we look forward to interacting with the NewsChallenge community & trading ideas. Hope to further develop our free & open-source OG for question-and-answer with elected officials across the country.

Previously: Two of the PPF team will be at SxSW Interactive this week ::

I'll be there to sneak-preview the recently re-designed OpenGovernment.org, for engagement with state & city government. I'm attending with James McKinney, the E.D. of the Canadian non-profit Open North, who is working as OpenGovernment's technical lead. Here's my draft pubilc schedule, feel free to suggest events. Image: Occupy Wall St., via SxSW Interactive site, for Andy's upcoming panel on movement-building.

Barely a year after the defeat of SOPA, Congress is back to testing the waters for legislation that many internet users believe to be in violation of their fundamental rights to privacy and free expression. CISPA, a bill that would make it easier for corporations and the government to share internet users' personal data, was officially re-introduced  in the House on Wednesday. It’s already being rushed forward in the legislative process. The House Intelligence Committee is holding a full hearing on the bill today at 10 am. They will hear from four witnesses -- all from the business sector and all supporters of CISPA. No experts with concerns about privacy issues were invited to address the committee.

For updates on the State of the Union tonight, follow along with our lists on micropublishing:

- Congress-Watchers on @opencongress

- Political science by @ppolitics

- #opengov & civic engagement & open-data leaders 

- Federal Budget - #realitybased economic research

For video background on the #SoTU, see last Sunday's edition of 'Up with Chris Hayes', the most substantive & empirically-accountable news show on cable TV.

More info on our non-profit projects for continual, reciprocal engagement with elected officials at the city, state & federal levels - where we're headed with OpenGovernment.org for cities & states, and our public-benefit vision for OpenCongress in 2013 and beyond. Get in touch, david at ppolitics.org. More background on #SoTU and the 113th U.S. Congress after the jump.

Public polling shows that a majority of Americans now support legalizing marijuana, but will Congress even consider taking pot off the banned substances list? Today, two members of the House -- Rep. Jared Polis [D, CO] and Rep. Earl Blumenauer [D, OR] -- are introducing legislation to change the federal marijuana laws. One bill would regulate marijuana like alcohol, and another would establish a federal marijuana tax. The introduction of the bills is a first step, but it doesn’t mean that there is broader institutional interest in Congress for taking up the issue of legalizing pot.

By a vote of 78-16 , the Senate last night approved a new rules package that keeps in place the procedural loopholes have turned the Senate into a brick wall for sensible legislation. Under the new rules it will still be possible for a single senator to halt progress on a bill, or even on a motion to proceed to a bill, simply by stating that they intend to filibuster. In recent years, this procedure, commonly known as the “silent filibuster,” has prevented the Senate from passing even the most routine, non-controversial legislation.

One year ago today, thousands of websites and millions of internet users took action to stop major internet censorship bills in Congress, SOPA and PIPA. The protests changed the way many people think about politics by proving that bringing together an educated public to take action, online, can defaet the corrupt agendas of the most powerful interest groups and members of Congress. To celebrate this enormous, ground-shaking victory, we (PPF) are joining a bunch of the other groups that were involved in the SOPA fight in declaring today, January 18th, a new holiday -- “Internet Freedom Day.”

Since 2007, the year the Democrats re-gained control of Congress, the filibuster has turned into standard procedure for virtually everything that happens in the Senate. What was once considered a special rule to be used on rare occasions for personal dissent on an issue has become a routine matter of course for obstructing the other side of the aisle and gaining a political advantage.

Update, 7pm ET, Friday Jan. 4th, 2013: Data from the 113th Congress is now live on OpenCongress. We have a fresh blog post coming soon on brand-new bills introduced over the past two days. Latest bill & member info for both chambers seems to be displaying fine, let us know if you see any glitches or have any questions, david at opencongress.org. OK cool.

Previously: The 112th U.S. Congress ended, as you likely know, with a sadsack pratfall of unaccountable public policymaking - a compromise between the two major parties avoiding the "fiscal curb" - via a vote on H.R. 8, specifically the House roll call 659 (257 aye, 167 nay, 8 abstain) - and previously by Senate roll call 251 (89 aye, 8 nay, 3 abstain). More info & fiscal what-cha-ma-call-'er links after-the-jump.

In late November, during a closely watched public debate, the Senate voted by a wide, bi-partisan margin to ban indefinite detention of American citizens. But now that the legislative process has moved behind closed doors, it's a completely different story.

I spend a fair amount of time on the Twitter micropublishing service, sharing links - to follow along, just click "subscribe" in the left-hand sidebar: 

- #opengov list - 125 members, mostly gov't transparency & civic engagement & non-profit news & innovation. E.g. @digiphile.

- political science list - 52 members, more manageable, hopefully-quality political analysis & D.C. watchdogging. E.g. 'Up with Chris Hayes'.

- federal budget list - 15 members, mostly realitybased economics & media-discourse-correctives. E.g. Dean Baker. 

- more lists - including PPF'ers, Congress Watchers, Sunlighters, Knight Foundation-ers, and especially Wonkblog-ers, so so vital.

...happy to subscribe to suggested lists, get at me, @ppolitics. Click through for more.

Today is day one of the lame duck -- that biennial tradition in which Congress, including dozens of lawmakers who were just given the boot by voters, come back into session one more time to try and finish up the year’s work. Lame duck sessions are notorious for producing results that are satisfying to basically no one. There’s no reason to expect anything different this time around.