Its creators hope it will become a Google of government, a massive Internet clearinghouse of information to help citizens track their leaders as effectively as their leaders track them.

On Friday, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab plans to debut a Web site called "Government Information Awareness," a project that aspires to be far more than just another, dime-a-dozen assemblage of government documents and resources.

GIA's name and mission are a kind of reverse version of "Terrorism Information Awareness," a $20 million project created by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency to help sift through electronic information with the goal of preventing terrorist attacks.

McKinley has "seeded" the site with a number of politics-related databases to get it started. But beginning Friday it will rely largely on users to contribute any information they like: posting an environmental group's ranking of a senator's voting record, for instance, or a nasty comment about the bathing habits of a judge who lives next door.

http://business.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2003/07/03/mit_aims_to_provide_govt_search_engine

that's awesome.