{"id":467665,"date":"2010-03-24T11:54:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T15:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.opensecrets.org,2010:\/news\/\/8.1436"},"modified":"2010-03-24T11:54:49","modified_gmt":"2010-03-24T15:54:49","slug":"ada-lovelace-inspires-work-that-makes-government-more-transparent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/467665","title":{"rendered":"Ada Lovelace Inspires Work that Makes Government More Transparent"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"adalovelace.jpg\"<\/a>Female bloggers owe a lot to Ada Lovelace, the imaginative and intelligent “enchantress of numbers.”<\/p>\n

As the first person to envision the use of computers for purposes beyond mathematical computations — and considered by many to be the first computer programmer — Lovelace not only paved the way for all those who use the Internet to communicate and educate, but continues to serve as a hero for women and girls involved in math, science and technology. That’s why we celebrate her contributions today on Ada Lovelace Day<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I joined the Center for Responsive Politics in early January as a communications intern. Since then, I have made my contributions to cyberspace on a regular basis, reporting on a variety of money-in-politics stories for the Center’s Capital Eye<\/em> blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that the Internet allows methods of communication — from Twitter<\/a> to the minute-by-minute updates on news blogs — that make the entire world more closely intertwined and more quickly informed. <\/p>\n

But the Internet does not just improve the speed of communication. More importantly, it helps better inform and engage the public. I have been lucky enough to intern at several organizations that promote transparency and accountability in government, at both the state and federal level. Although I doubt Thomas Jefferson envisioned a “tweeting” Congress, it’s all but impossible to deny that the Internet has made information about the government more available to the public than ever before. And this is changing politics in America.<\/p>\n

Blogs such as CRP\u0092s Capital Eye<\/em> make facts and data about the government easily accessible to the public in a fair and straightforward way, so that citizens may educate themselves and make their own decisions about politics. The valuable resources highlighted and used on Capital Eye<\/em>, such as CRP\u0092s lobbying database<\/a>, enhance the democratic process by making the government more transparent and accountable to its constituents.  <\/p>\n

In honor of Lovelace and her pioneering vision in the field of computer technology, take a moment to appreciate the power of the modern computer in the communication of news and ideas, and the power that it has in American democracy. Celebrate Ada Lovelace Day!<\/p>\n

Cassandra LaRussa is a communications intern for the Center for Responsive Politics, where she writes for <\/em>Capital Eye<\/a>. She is a sophomore at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Female bloggers owe a lot to Ada Lovelace, the imaginative and intelligent “enchantress of numbers.” As the first person to envision the use of computers for purposes beyond mathematical computations — and considered by many to be the first computer programmer — Lovelace not only paved the way for all those who use the Internet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4951,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4951"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}