The folks at UK-based mySociety are developing a new site called WhatDoTheyKnow that simplifies to process of making freedom-of-information requests and uses RSS to make it impossibly easy to keep track of pet issues.
The site -- which is still very much in development -- looks simple, but there's a sophisticated engine running beneath the surface. UK citizens can search for the public authority they're interested in addressing, and then send off a request for information (under the UK's Freedom of Information Act, the government has to respond).
The fun part comes with the RSS (I challenge you to find a geekier sentence than that). When you search for "cars" in the search box at the top of the page it returns eight results for FOI requests that mention "cars."

At the bottom of that page is a link to an RSS fee; subscribe to it, and every time someone makes an FOI request mentioning "cars" you'll be notified.

This opens up all kinds of possibilities for term-tracking. Given that the site is still in development we anticipate more good stuff like this. How we wish mySociety could produce similar projects on this side of the Atlantic...

FOI | mySociety
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