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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Web tool analyzes political connections with one click | California Watch

Web tool analyzes political connections with one click | California Watch

Web tool analyzes political connections with one click

A new tool from the Sunlight Foundation identifies the people and organizations appearing on a Web page and reports back on any hits they produce in one of several government databases.
Poligraft lives on your browser toolbar and, in one click, tries to identify the recipients and donors of campaign cash at both the state and federal level. It also checks for lobbying activity by an individual or organization, and may even check for federal grants. I wasn't able to get the tool to report any federal grants back in my random testing.
You could also just use the website to do the analysis if you like.
With articles on the California Watch site, the tool performed remarkably well. In this