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President George W. Bush's response to the NSA wiretapping story

The purpose of the Progressive Information Project is to more widely share resources and information created to advance progressive causes. A lot of good work is being done, but the average progressive often doesn't learn about it or know what is available. This series is designed to help alleviate that problem.

History Commons is one of the most data-intensive websites on the Internet and it is an invaluable research tool not just for history, but the type of history that progressives are most interested in. The site has a particular focus on more recent history (mostly post 1970) and includes mostly political events, particularly those of high importance and significant controversy. The purpose of the site is stated as:

To provide a means for members of civil society to monitor the activities of powerful entities, such as governments, large corporations, and wealthy and influential individuals. In this capacity, the website should be regarded as an IT toolset that enables members of the public to operate as a sort of people’s intelligence agency. To initiate an investigation of a certain issue, entity, or event, a user first creates a timeline project. The user then becomes the project manager of that project and begins adding events, entities, and relationships. The data is displayed as a chronology. Project managers can define an unlimited number of category sets and categories that s/he can use to classify the events. This gives the data some structure and makes it more readable for visitors.
 

To further blur the line between readers and journalists. This website, like blogs and other applications that allow self-publishing, allows Big Media’s former audience to assume the roles of content creators, editors, and publishers.
 

To increase the efficiency of information production. This project is premised on the notion that collaboration in a networked “open-content” environment can greatly improve the efficiency and quality of information production in the public sphere as it allows contributors to build upon and improve the work of others in real time as part of a global community. This arrangement allows the production of information to take place at a level of efficiency comparable—if not superior—to that of the capital-intensive efforts of hierarchically structured private enterprises. The Center believes this improved efficiency is socially significant because products resulting from this system of production are inherently more democratic than those of the private sector since they are created by a much broader spectrum of interests and perspectives.
 

To increase the efficiency of information acquisition. Another objective of the Center is to increase the efficiency of research by reducing the tendency for researchers to duplicate the efforts of others. All too often, researchers—largely because of a fragmented historical record—needlessly spend a significant amount of time and energy bringing material together and identifying relationships, even though this work may have already been done by someone else. By collecting a mass of extensively cited data, this website should reduce the frequency of duplicated efforts.
 

To reduce the fragmentation of the historical record. This project seeks to help reduce the fragmentation of the historical record by connecting events whose temporal and spatial relationships are often obscured by a mass of contradicting and disconnected literature, the biases of the media, and the tendency for important past events to be relegated to the annals of forgotten history. By reducing the fragmentation of the historical record, this project hopes to reduce the amount of time it takes for the public to acquire a full and coherent picture of an event or issue.
 

To create a “history commons.” All the data in the History Commons database will be exportable into XML so it can be used by other individuals and groups for non-commercial purposes. As such the historical data collected by contributors and stored in the History Commons database will serve as a sort of commons for historical data.

The website is published by the Center for Grassroots Oversight, which is a 501(c)3, and began in late 2006. A massive amount of information has been posted on the site since then. Nearly 20,000 historical events have been cataloged on the site, as well as 5,000 people and organizations. The main format of the website are timelines that have extensive detail and information about the specific event, that are painstakingly documented and sourced, using legitimate mainstream sources. The list of major topics covered so far includes: