Back in the day, when Yahoo! was the only search game in town, many wondered why Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com), and eventually Google would attempt to break into that market. The answer continues to be the same - although they're good, there's still a lot to be done with Search. Contextual search is still being explored, and in terms of government and campaign information, most documents are not publicly or easily available to the search engines. With the goal of open government in mind, I decided to take a look at five relatively new search companies that recently launched sites, hoping that perhaps some of them could help make search of government and campaign data a little better, honing in on the FEC, OMB and more.

It was the sweltering late summer, 2007, in Washington DC. The House of Representatives was smack in the middle of debate over the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And members of Congress, expected to render judgment on legislation that would fundamentally impact core America rights, hadn't laid eyes upon the latest copy of the bill. It's "just absolute lunacy," said California Republican David Dreir of the situation at the time...On the point above, one of the fundamental questions of our time is this: how do we use all the government information the Internet might set free for public good? An open debate over that question is now taking place on the Google Group of the Sunlight Foundation's nascent Open Senate Project...The latest email from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe announcing the selection of the incoming administration's national security and foreign policy team includes a big ol' red button asking for contributions...and much more.

A week ago, the Obama-Biden transition team solicited ideas for improving health care. Today, the team responded to our comments with a video from Tom Daschle (recently nominated for Secretary of Health & Human Services) and Lauren Aronson.

Is this video something that we tech-politics geeks should be excited about? I'm cautiously optimistic.

Overnight, a new site went up detailing a push by Stanford professor Larry Lessig to petition the Obama-Biden transition to abide by not only the letter of open government principles, but the spirit...California-based David Kralik heads up internet strategy for Newt Gingrich's American Solutions organization, and he's out with a look in the DC Examiner at how America's first CTO -- what he calls the "Chief Transformation Officer" -- should function...In an ABC News opinion piece, the Center for Democracy and Technology Leslie Harris argues that the 'net-fueled political revolution of '08 wouldn't have been possible had the Federal Elections Commission embraced the regulations on online political speech that were bubbling up a few years back...and more.

A DoD program meant to assist military personnel in registering and voting is drawing Congressional fire over the hiring of a new overseer. A bipartisan group of Congressmen is irked that the Federal Voting Assistance Program has failed to meet the goal of making it easier for those in uniform to participate in the democracy they protect.

While not specifically an Internet issue, the Government Computer News (Yes, I read it. I'm that geeky) article had two passages that caught my eye.

History's Lessons for a Wired White House...Tracking the Evolution of Change.gov...Incoming Administration Faces Information Overload...Palin's Unstoppable Online Power...Just How Historic Was Obama's Presidential Run?...American Diplomacy in the Age of Facebook...and more.

I think it's still too early to talk about how useful Twitter was during this week's Mumbai attacks. The tendency is to assume it was more powerful than it actually was; Om Malik's take is the only skeptical viewpoint I've found so far. But we can say that Twitter has had a great month. Here's an incomplete list of Twitter's organizational/democratic/self-governance accomplishments in November...

Law enforcement in Mumbai, the Indian city that has been the scene of devastating terrorist attacks this week, invoked section 19 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act of 1995 in an attempt to clamp down upon TV networks' live reporting coming out of the city. "Coverage of the actions taken by the police against the terrorists in South Mumbai," reported India's Business Standard, "is causing impediment in the police action."

A news black out might stop TV crews from broadcasting. But it hasn't done much to stem the stream of live news about the coordinated attacks pouring out of Mumbai via all forms of social media, from Twitter to Flickr to Wikipedia.

"Does the Internet Matter?;" The Long Campaign's Lessons for Non-Profits; Should Obama Be Relying on YouTube?; The Promise and Peril of a Wired White House; Register Your Favorites in the Mashable Awards; A Gift from Us to You; and more.

Taken together, a handful of numbers are adding up to a powerful HIV/AIDS lifeline along South Africa's northeastern coast. Of the six million South Africans infected with the disease, just one in ten are currently in treatment. The HIV infection rate in KwaZulu-Natal province (KZN) stands at a breathtakingly 39 percent. Meanwhile, a whopping four-fifths of all South Africans have access to a cell phone.

But a new program called Project Masiluleke -- Zulu for "wise council" -- is using the 120 characters commonly left over in cell phone text messages to connect South Africans who desperately need testing and treatment with the nation's HIV/AIDS resources.