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from the Your-honor,-there-was-a-tree-branch-blocking-the-sign! dept.
Utilizing FOIA and some clever software Mr. Chapman quickly identifies a troubled spot for parking in Chicago and gets results!
http://mchap.io/using-foia-data-and-unix-to-halve-major-source-of-parking-tickets.html
The story relates how the author used Freedom of Information Act requests to gather raw data on parking tickets issued in Chicago. What he received was a semicolon-delimited text file containing a great number of data entry errors. The author outlines the steps taken to clean and extract data on a likely problematic parking location. Armed with this data, he visited the location and discovered very confusing signage. He reported this to the city, who rectified the signage. This led to a 50 percent decrease in the number of tickets issued for that location.
I immediately asked myself three things
1. How much more effective has that corner become?
2. Who's grumbling about the loss of revenue?
3. What would happen if more of us did this very thing?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RS3 on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:58PM (1 child)
And that, in my humble opinion, is the core of today's problems with govt: we think we can go on living life, trusting that govt. workers are doing their jobs at all, let alone correctly, thoroughly, and to We the People's satisfaction.
Right now, loosely through youtube, twitter, facebroke, etc., govt. officials, police, etc., are being outed. We need more of that, structured and organized. We need to elect officials who want govt. kept clean and work with Citizen Watchdog-type organizations, Innocence Project, etc.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few." Wendell Philips http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/01/eternal-vigilance-is-price-of-liberty.html [thisdayinquotes.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @01:14AM
Agreed. The whole concept of “the government” as an other to fight against is antithetical to democracy. A democracy is governed by the people. This usually involves electing people and paying civil servants to handle most of the details, but we shouldn't forget that governing is something all of us are in charge of together, not something done by some alien entity called “the government”.