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| CREW is unveiling a revolutionary new tool that gives anyone with an internet connection the power to investigate the federal government. It's the CREW Open Community Document Review System, and we're giving you the first chance to use it. As a part of our ongoing efforts to expose government corruption and clean up Washington, CREW makes Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documents and information from the federal government. In response to our FOIA requests we receive thousands of documents ranging from memos to emails to personal handwritten notes. Just last week, we posted dozens of documents from the White House's Council on Environmental Quality relating to climate change. We also have several pending FOIA requests with the Secret Service for White House visitor records from folks such as of Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist, and Ralph Reed. Starting today, you can help us review documents CREW receives from the government, and root out instances of illegal and unethical behavior. You can browse our collection of documents, send links to individual document pages to your friends, conduct searches of our document collection to find that needle in the haystack and more. By using the combined power of thousands of individual activists working together to review documents we can quickly tag and sort tens of thousands of pages, discover new information and make it all searchable for you, your friends and other activists. In the past, when CREW received boxes of documents in response to its FOIA requests, the only way we were able share them with the public was by posting huge PDF files on our website. Now, with CREW's new document review system, not only can you help us search and tag these documents, but every page of every document will have its own unique URL so that you can link to a particular page from your blog, forward interesting nuggets that you find to your friends, or share pages on sites like Digg and Reddit. As an example, take a look at this note from Julie Finley, a major conservative fundraiser, to Gale Norton when she was confirmed as Secretary of the Interior. We are very excited about this new system and already we have plans to add new features and tools. We need your help today, not only to review documents, but to test the tool. What works? What doesn't work? What do you like? We look forward to getting your input. If you find a problem that needs fixing, or if you've got a great idea for future features, post a comment on our development blog. We hope you find this new tool as exciting as we do. |
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