The United States federal government is a vast, huge, largely unorganized, and independent collection of various agencies, most of which affect your daily life, and most of which you have little knowledge.  These Web sites have been set up to help improve your understanding of the government and to how to get it to work for you.  After all, you pay the taxes to keep these sites up and running so you might as well learn where they are located.

Certainly, one of the best and largest databases of domestic legislative information is Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet.  This site lets you search current congressional bills by bill number, word, or phrase.  For example, a recent search on the word, Internet" yielded 50 bills covering everything from spam to online investor protection.  Also, you can find out the current activities of various congressional committees, view roll-call votes all the way back to 1989, and see up to date proceedings of the House and Senate.  Finally, this site links to historical documents, the House and Senate home pages, and other governmental agencies.  Probably, this is the place to start for a U.S. government search.

The U.S. Federal Government Agencies Directory is hosted at the Louisiana State University.  Use this site if you want to find a particular organization's Web site, but can't remember its exact name.  Here, you can type in key words and the directory will list agencies whose names include these words.  The directory also provides hyperlinks to most of the agencies in question.

Project Vote Smart is a national, nonpartisan, not-for-profit Web site that researches, tracks, and reports on political candidates and elected officials.  Here, you can find a particular candidate's biography, opinions, campaign finances, and contact information.  There is also a section devoted to legislation, congressional votes, and floor schedules. If you can't remember your elected federal and state officials, there is a place on this site where you can enter your nine-digit Zip code and retrieve their names, as well as the number of your district.

GPO Access is the Government Printing Office site.  Here, you can search one or more databases at a time and can retrieve informatoin on Congressional Hearings, federal Register, Supreme Court Decisions, and more.

If you want to get information on each of the two houses of government, you can go to the U.S. House of Representatives site or the U.S. Senate site.  These sites offer much of the same information as the Thomas site, but will also provide member directories and lists of individual sites maintained by each representative and senator.  Alternatively, you may want to take your business to the tope - to The White House - otherwise known as the "people's house" - but just try to visit it in person!  The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress 1774-Present is an interesting area that helps you find a particular official from the past or present by first and last name, position hel, and state.

The Library of Congress Country Studies offers information outside of the United States.  It currently contains substantial information on 100 countries and is planning to add more in the future.  You browse the table of contents for a particular nation, or search for a particular word or words in the entry for one country or a combination of countries.  This site covers everything from history and business, to government and national security.

The U.S. State Department offers another list covering foreign governments, posting policies, travel advisories, news, archives, and more - all searchable by key word.  This site might be particularly valuable, for example, for somebody planning to travel outside of the United States, and is a great place to find out about obtaining and renewing passports and applying for visas.

Information concerning the Chiefs of State of various countries can be located at Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments.  While this site is not searchable, it does let you find leaders by clicking on country links which are listed alphabetically.  This site contains all the chief members of government from the prime minister to lesser officials such as the minister of agriculture.

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