It's been a quiet week in D.C. so we decided to explore one of the arguments being advanced around the  proceeding at the FCC related to bringing broadcaster public files into the 21st century.

Broadcasters have argued that

Public interest groups like Free Press, think tanks like the New America Foundation, transparency groups like the Sunlight Foundation and crowdsourced journalism organizations like ProPublica are working to uncover who is behind these political ads.

One roof at a time, Preston Rhea is casting an invisible net across Mount Pleasant. The 26-year-old field researcher for the Washington-based think tank New America Foundation has spent the past nine months nudging his neighborhood into a community wireless network. Routers, installed on six rooftops so far, open up people’s wireless connections to the public and allow any neighbor within a nine-block radius free access to the Internet.

Starting in 2010, in the context of the FCC’s Future of Media Inquiry, the New America Foundation’s Media Policy Initiative began asking members of the public for help in collecting these public files and posting them on the Internet. Now, with the FCC’s recent proposal to require broadcasters to post the files online—and with TV stations’ adamant opposition to the proposal—the New America Foundation has reenergized its crowdsourcing campaign. Alysia Santo recently spoke with NAF media policy fellow Tom Glaisyer about the project.