The following is a quote from an article posted by John D. Sutter on CNN.com

“I see [these applications] as the death of a passive relationship with government,” said Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs, a group promoting Gov 2.0 apps.

“Instead of people saying, ‘Well, it’s the government’s job to fix that’ … people are taking ownership and saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Government is us. We are government. So let’s take a responsibility and start changing things ourselves.’ ”

Residents of Washington, for example, can use the DC 311 iPhone app to take photos of graffiti, potholes and other trouble spots.

The photos are paired with GPS locations and then uploaded straight from the street into a database that local officials can see.

The mobile phone app tells officials where the graffiti is. It also tells citizens which spray-paint murals, potholes, dying trees, broken parking meters and tipped-over street signs the city is aware of, which it plans to fix and which it may be ignoring.

The full article can be found at this source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/28/government.web.apps/