What resources do I need ?
~ 1.5 - 2 gig of free disk somewhere, and 1024 + resolution on your monitor. Oh - and an Internet connection, at least for when you tell it to download files. After you get the files, you can drop the connection and work off-line if you want, it makes no difference.
Why no fancy-website ? This plain black and white text thing really sucks.
Yeh it does. So ??? This is not about pretty websites. A ) I really loath doing web design, and B ) the point here is the availability of the data in a format and with an interface that makes it easily accessible to more people. If anyone out there feels like doing up a really nice set of web pages for free, I'll gladly work with them on it, and look at the pages to consider them. Please provide pointers to samples of your work to kick off the discussions. There is no money in it for you ( or me ), so don't ask !
Who should use FECTOOL ?
Anyone who wants to dig deeper into the money that runs the political machine of this country. If all you want to do is some basic queries like 'How much did so and so donate to who ?', there are excellent online resources that do that for you right now, much easier than loading and installing FECTOOL. The purpose of FECTOOL is to allow myself, and others, to 'ask their own questions in their own way', outside of the boundaries of the options presented by other resources, and to look at things from angles that may not be readily available elsewhere.
The official FEC search site is here. The sites at http://www.opensecrets.org http://www.campaignmoney.com/ http://www.factcheck.org http://www.ontheissues.org are all fine and valuable non-partisan sites, for instance. There are many others, also. Google is your friend. No matter what Yahoo! tells you.
What does it cost, and what are the licensing restrictions ?
It's free, and there are no licensing restrictions. I do ask that you NOT mirror the downloads or re-distribute anything from any other site, just link to this site, which will always have the most current release. And that you give me credit if you use this resource to build your own tools, use FECTOOL as a data import mechanism, etc.
What is the data format and interface you refer to in 'B' several sections above ?
Microsoft Access MDB file. With an interface that totally automates the processes of getting the data from the FEC and loading it into the database. Plus, an easy to use intuitive interface for doing research that makes as many options and vectors available as I can think of. If you have suggestions for more, please drop me a note. PJM@FourCatsConsulting.com
For the programmers out there - the DB comes loaded with normalization tables ( one to many ), indexes, and a bunch of very simple queries for running DDL stuff ( Dog protect us all from Access and it's limits ! One line of DDL per query, etc ..... ARRGGGHHHH !!! ). You get the bulk transactional data from the FEC yourself, using FECTOOL's easy one-click interface for doing so.
Why MS-Access, not MS-SQL Server, MSDE, Oracle, MYSQL, etc etc ? Access is Soooo lame .....
I started out doing it in SQL-Server, out of force of habit. I also have the others available here, and on my web hosts, etc. But I asked myself 'How do I put this in the lowest common denominator, the format that makes it most readily available to 'Joe Citizen' that doesn't happen to have a bank of servers at home like I do ?
The process reminded me of how much I hate trying to do anything serious in Access, for sure. Ugghhh !!! One operation per DDL query ? Macros not exposed to ADO ? 2 gig file limit !!!! Limited subset of SQL terms ? I feel like I need Hazardous Duty Pay already ! But this is how I can give the most people the easiest route to their research, IMO. If you want to write a little DTS script etc to use FECTOOL as the back-end data acquisition tool, and then transmogrify it up to SQL, etc - go for it ! You have my permission, the license allows it, and it is encouraged that you 'take this to the next level' ! See the next entry here for more on this.
Can I run FECTOOL as an 'Automated server scheduled task' to update all the tables in the middle of the night ?
Yes. You will see a file 'FECTOOL_AUTORUN.bat' in the installation folder. Simply point your scheduler to this file and run it. Plan on a 2 - 3 hour run on a decent server. It will get all current files from the FEC website, and update the FECTOOL Database. You can then schedule any MS-SQL DTS scripts, or other transmogrifying stuff, from there, if you are transporting the data to a server or other app etc.
To auto-run just the Adds / Changes / Deletes, use the file 'FECTOOL_ACD.bat'. This is the daily changes since the last weekly ( Sunday Night ) master file update at the FEC website. It only contains transactions over $ 200 !!! Thus, it does not truly reflect 'all contributions', nor does it reflect new candidates or committees, etc..
The best plan is to 'Update All' once a week ( the FEC updates them Sunday Nights ), and do the Daily updates each day in between.
Does FECTOOL redact or edit the full FEC data in any way ?
No. In fact, you get the data yourself ( using FECTOOL to make it easy to do ) direct from the FEC. 100 % of all FEC data is stored in the MDB.
What are your political leanings, and what is your motivation is doing this for free ?
My politics are my own, they do not coincide with any 'party' in whole, ( although they have various different elements in common with MOST parties across the spectrum ). I hope that you can not tell from this website or from the program what my personal politics are. They are irrelevant to this project.
I am doing this for free because I believe our political system has become totally corrupted by 3 things : money, money, and more money. And I believe that the more sunshine that is focused on that money, the better off we all are. The FEC makes the data available, but there's a barrier of work-effort to get it from there into a modern useable format like a database. There's also a barrier of computer knowledge and work-effort to then actually do useful research with that data. I hope that FECTOOL goes a long way towards bridging those barriers for as many people as possible.
Do you care what part of the political spectrum the users are in, and do you want to discuss their politics or their advocacy with them ?
No, and 'Not even a little bit', in that order. Let's not even go there. This is not about politics to me - not mine, not yours. This is about the corrupt political system we all suffer under. Corrupted by money.