Zephyr Teachout

Zephyr Teachout is the national director of the Sunlight Foundation. Teachout was Internet director for Howard Dean's campaign in the 2004 U.S. presidential primary.

Profiles
According to her Sunlight Foundation profile, Teachout "is a pioneer in using technology to improve democracy. Prior to joining Sunlight, Zephyr was a lecturer at the University of Vermont, a fellow at the Berkman Center, and a technology consultant. She was Director of Online Organizing for Howard Dean's Campaign, spearheading the development of new web tools for local organizing, many of which are now routine in all political campaigns. In 2004 she was the co-founding Executive Director of the open source organizing experiment, Baobabs College Labs (a project of Music for America). As a lawyer, Teachout has represented indigent death row inmates in North Carolina for the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, and was the co-founding Executive Director of the Fair Trial Initiative, a fellowship program that trains young lawyers in death penalty trial work. Teachout has a BA from Yale, an MA in political science from Duke, and a JD from Duke Law School, summa cum laude, where she was the Editor in Chief of the Duke Law Journal. She telecommutes to DC from Burlington, VT."

On Congresspedia
"Zephyr Teachout, a lawyer in Burlington, Vt., who is involved with Congresspedia, said Wikipedia was reminiscent of old-fashioned civic groups like the Grange, whose members took individual responsibility for the organization's livelihood," Katie Hafner wrote June 17, 2006, in the New York Times.

"'It blows open what's possible,' said Ms. Teachout. 'What I hope is that these kinds of things lead to thousands of other experiments like this encyclopedia, which we never imagined could be produced in this way.'"

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * blogging / blogosphere
 * internet activism
 * U.S. presidential election, 2004

Profiles

 * Bio: Zephyr Teachout, Adjunct Professor, Master of Public Administration, The University of Vermont.
 * Sunlight Foundation website.
 * Zephyr Teachout's Blog at the Sunlight Foundation.
 * Zephyr Teachout Blog entries at Personal Democracy blog.
 * Zephyr Teachout in the Wikipedia.

Articles & Commentary

 * Felix Schein, "Behind Dean’s win on the Web. Attorney had virtually no Net experience before campaign," MSNBC, October 17, 2003.
 * Declan McCullagh, "The Cyberbrains Behind Howard Dean," CNET News.com, January 16, 2004.
 * Christopher Lydon, "The Soul of a New Machine," ''Christopher Lydon interviews..." Blog (Harvard University), January 17, 2004.
 * Alex Steffen, "Zephyr Teachout," WorldChanging.com, January 28, 2004.
 * Jeffrey Klineman '94, "Where Are They Now: Zephyr Teachout '93," Yale Alumni Magazine, September/October 2004.
 * Zephyr Teachout, "Zephyr Teachout: Wings on the Donkey," MyDD, January 11, 2005.
 * Rogers Cadenhead, "As an Ethics Expert, Zephyr Blows," Workbench, January 15, 2005.
 * Glenn Reynolds, "BLOGFLUENCE: Here's something from Zephyr Teachout that I didn't know," Instapundit, January 13, 2005.
 * Jerome Armstrong, "Zephyr Teachout: Donkey Splat," MyDD, January 13, 2005.
 * Katrina Vanden Heuvel, "Zephyr Teachout to Howard Dean," The Nation, February 13, 2005.
 * MrLiberal, "Zephyr Teachout for Congress? (VT-AL)," Daily Kos, July 13, 2005.
 * "VT Blogs: Zephyr Teachout Q&A on PoliticsVT," 802 Online Blog, July 27, 2005.
 * Craig Newmark, "What If They Gagged Gutenberg?" San Francisco Chronicle (FreePress.net), June 11, 2006.
 * Katie Hafner, "Growing Wikipedia Refines Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy," New York Times, June 17, 2006.