Santa Fe Reporter Unveils Online Citizen Muckrakers Guide

What a resource -- I love it already. Dave Maass and the folks at the Santa Fe Reporter have put together a comprehensive guide to snooping on the powers that be (and others) in New Mexico. The Citizen Muckraker's Guide to New Mexico, subtitled A reference manual for digging up dirt on politicians, corporations, and other citizens, is described as follows:

It reveals the data-capturing tools employed by investigators, bounty hunters, landmen and journalists. With it, you’ll be able to find out which city councilor had a bench warrant issued against her in Clovis for a two-year-old speeding ticket (Patti Bushee). You’ll be able to download a mugshot of Kent Nelson, the investment advisor who admitted dishing out $3 million in kickbacks in the New Mexico Treasurer’s Office scandal. And you’ll do it from the comfort of your local wireless cafe.

... There aren’t enough eyes in the media to watch everything all the time in the Information Age. SFR hopes this guide will inspire readers to join us as independent watchdogs and personally hold the powers that be, in the government and corporate worlds, accountable.

To learn more about how the new digging tool can be used, you should first check out Dave's article, The Paperless Chase. It explains how the online guide is organized, and offers tips for using it for tasks like running a basic background check, connecting campaign contributions to legislative earmarks, tracking corporate maneuvers, fact checking claims about the War on Terror and finding out who's exploiting natural resources.

There are sections on Campaign Finance, Crime, Courts and the like, where you can chase down People, Politicians or Corporations. There are also links to data related to topics like The War on Terror; Land, Environment and Natural Resources; and Health, Doctors and Drugs. You can also access info by using the Guide's Complete Link Roll, The Citizen Muckraker's Guide on Del.icio.us or a Del.icio.us Tag Cloud.

Maass says they'll keep adding to the Guide as time goes on. I haven't had much time to play around with it yet, but I certainly intend to dig in soon -- and expect to get lost for hours in the links. Who knows what evil lurks in the URLs of the Guide? Try it and see. And if you find anything particularly juicy, let Maass know at davem@sfreporter.com. They'll be keeping track of newfound dirt in New Mexico as it filters in from all corners of the internet. (Does the internet have corners?)

I expect that the bloggers of New Mexico -- and other dirt diggers in the state -- will have a field day being modern-day muckrakers for the cause, uncovering crime, corruption, waste, fraud and abuse (and maybe some data on that weird guy down the street).