OpenCongress

I came across an awesome website this week: OpenCongress. What they're about:

OpenCongress brings together official government data with news coverage, blog posts, comments, and more to give you the real story behind what's happening in Congress. Small groups of political insiders and lobbyists already know what's really going on in Congress. We think everyone should be an insider.

OpenCongress is a free, open-source, non-profit, and non-partisan web resource with a mission to make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement. OpenCongress is a joint project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation. To read more about our approach, our data sources, and how Congress works, see About OpenCongress.

By creating an account, you can not only track bills, legislators, and issues but also engage in dialogue with other OpenCongress members. And this feature is really cool: you can create an RSS feed for the specific items you're tracking, so you can get updates in your normal feed reader (I use Google Reader).

It's good stuff... and has already been useful in learning more about the FISA bill (H.R. 6304) and the bill to end the ban on HIV-positive travelers coming to the U.S. (S. 2731).