Smashing Corporate Power with a Database

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Attendees

  • Pratap - CorpWatch
  • Amanda - Journalism school
  • Dana - Occupy Tech NYC
  • John - Revenue Watch Institute - Human Rights Watch
  • Brian - Financial consulting (?)
  • Austin - Occupy (NYC) - Anti-Gentrification Campaign / Power mapping / LittleSis.org
  • Jenny - Occupy / Sudo Room Oakland hackerspace
  • Matt - How to organize useful information?
  • Maryam - Used to work for Oracle, business auditing. How to make tech more accessible / how to use big data in a beneficial way
  • Marc - NNDB.com (Notable Names Database) - 10 people over 6 years - mapper.nndb - fundraising
  • Kelly - Little data / quantified self projects;
  • Jordan - Works w/ Aspiration Tech
  • Tom - sudo room
  • Graham - web dev

Existing Projects

  • Third Rail Economy Series - Network visualization of Coke industries (map of subsidiaries)
  • SourceWatch (esp. ALEC org)
  • CrocTail
  • OpenCorporate API
  • CitizenAudit.org
  • Sunlight
  • Open Secrets
  • Lil Sis
  • GoodGuide (can be reverse engineered)
  • Pro Publica (has some 990 stuff)
  • Bloomberg
  • MuckRuck (facilitates FOIA requests)

What to do with the data?

  • Bloomberg knows, but it's too expensive
  • Why? Reduce enviromental impact, improve labor situations
  • Naming and shaming
  • Litigation - lawyers depend on good data, which is hard to get to
  • The importance of storytelling / framing
  • Direct action targeting - more communication between research & direct action (eg; occupy a particular vacant lot owned by the most greedy real$
  • Map of the military-industrial complex around the Gulf War
  • Strike Debt Rolling Jubilee