Ethics | Data.gov Communities

Under the umbrella of the Data.gov website is Ethics.Data.gov which was designed to, "bring records and data from across the federal government to one central location, making it easier for citizens to hold public officials accountable.” The website was created by the Obama administration to demonstrate “a commitment to promoting ethics, transparency, and accountability across government” and is part of the President’s pledge “to create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings in a searchable, sortable, and downloadable format.” Specifically, the Ethics.Data.gov website houses the following seven datasets: [1] White House Visitor Records [2] Office of Government Ethics Travel Reports [3] Lobbying Disclosure Act Data [4] Department of Justice Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Data [5] Federal Election Commission Individual Contribution Reports [6] Federal Election Commission Candidate Reports [7] Federal Election Commission Committee Reports. The website provides these additional explanations: “While all this information has previously been available elsewhere, it's never before been aggregated in a centralized location. In other locations, this data exists in a range of formats. At ethics.data.gov, the information all exists in a uniform, digestible, user-friendly format. As with other sites in the data.gov community, ethics.data.gov is designed to grow and change over time. We'll seek out additional datasets to add and make improvements whenever possible...” The “Resources” tab on the website provides greater detail on the use of open source software, making data more useful and more accessible. Links to the code, through Github, are provided as well as permission for its modification or redistribution. The Ethics.Data.gov website can be searched by entering a name in the dialog box. Searching for a specific name will provide a results list of “every record of that person across the entire collection of ethics data—including campaign finance, lobbying, and White House visitor records.” Browsing datasets is also possible and the website offers the following instructions: “Use the catalog below to access the full version of ethics datasets from across the government. Click on the name of a dataset to view the data, search within datasets, sort and filter data, export into different formats, and access the API.”