MIT Researchers Launch Government Information Awareness Website

Posted on July 11, 2003

Researchers from an MIT Media Lab have launched the Government Information Awareness (GIA) website. The researchers said the website was inspired by the federal government's Terrorist Information Awareness program (TIA), an effort to monitor Americans' lives in detail, from credit card purchases to pets' veterinary records. But unlike TIA, GIA is maintained by a diverse population of citizens rather than by the government.

The site, which utilizes new software and a database developed at the Media Lab, collects information from the general public, as well as from numerous online sources, to provide an online resource about our government. Currently the database contains information on more than 3,000 government figures. The MIT Media Lab unveiled the website on July 4.

"Democracy requires an informed public," said graduate student Ryan McKinley, the designer of the Government Information Awareness (GIA) site who developed this system under the direction of Fukutake Assistant Professor Christopher Csikszentmih�lyi in the Media Lab's Computing Culture group.

"In the United States there is a widening gap between the government's ability to monitor its citizens, and citizens' ability to monitor their government. While the government is dramatically increasing its surveillance of Americans, the average citizen has little information about who in government is making key decisions, and who influences these decisions," said McKinley.

To help address this gap, GIA relies on the collective intelligence of the American people to submit information, judge credibility and make connections using its web-based interface. The database resembles online auction systems in that it can handle massive amounts of information while allowing users to find exactly what they're looking for. Anyone can anonymously contribute information, but to ensure accuracy of submitted data, the system contacts the members of the government cited, giving them the opportunity for confirmation or denial.

"History shows that when information is concentrated in the hands of an elite, democracy suffers," said Csikszentmih�lyi. "The writers of the constitution told us that if people mean to be their own governors, they must arm themselves with information. This project brings that American spirit of self-governance into the era of networked information technology."

"Computers alone cannot monitor the government," said McKinley. "While we can aggregate data that already exists, a lot of valuable information is not stored in existing databases, but rather in the collective knowledge of the American citizenry. GIA introduces a way to consolidate and share this knowledge.�