doctorparadox/datasette-spike-fara

Datasette spike — FARA Active Foreign Principals

For: CoS → WordPress Guru (doctorparadox.net embed/link) Built: 2026-09-17 (ET) Status: DATA half ready — public SQLite + Datasette Lite URL

Why this dataset

Doctor Paradox already centers corruption / foreign influence / authoritarian-adjacent reporting (Corruption Tracker, Corruption Daily cards). FARA filings are the federal public ledger of who lobbies in the U.S. on behalf of foreign principals.

We use the official DOJ FARA bulk CSV (public domain U.S. government data), keep active principals only, filter to a public-interest country set (~Doctor Paradox beat), and drop street addresses for a low-PII spike table.

Not chosen: Full 17k historical principals (too big for spike); House gift-travel dumps (also good, but FARA maps more directly to DP foreign-influence framing).

Files (this folder)

Publish path A — Datasette Lite (ready)

Hosted (CORS-friendly): Hugging Face dataset https://huggingface.co/datasets/doctorparadox/datasette-spike-fara

Open interactively (Barb / readers)

Datasette Lite (SQLite): https://lite.datasette.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhuggingface.co%2Fdatasets%2Fdoctorparadox%2Fdatasette-spike-fara%2Fresolve%2Fmain%2Fspike.db

CSV-only Lite (optional): https://lite.datasette.io/?csv=https%3A%2F%2Fhuggingface.co%2Fdatasets%2Fdoctorparadox%2Fdatasette-spike-fara%2Fresolve%2Fmain%2Ffaraactiveforeign_principals.csv

Pattern: https://lite.datasette.io/?url=<absolute-https-url-to-.db>

CORS checked 2026-09-17: HF resolve → CDN responds with Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * for Lite.

Suggested WordPress iframe (Custom HTML block)

<figure class="dp-datasette-embed">
  <iframe
    title="FARA active foreign principals — Datasette Lite"
    src="https://lite.datasette.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhuggingface.co%2Fdatasets%2Fdoctorparadox%2Fdatasette-spike-fara%2Fresolve%2Fmain%2Fspike.db#/spike/foreign_principals?_facet=country_location"
    width="100%"
    height="720"
    loading="lazy"
    referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade"
    style="border:1px solid #c9bfb0;border-radius:8px;background:#fff;"
  ></iframe>
  <figcaption>
    Interactive table: active FARA foreign principals (DOJ public data, Doctor Paradox spike).
    <a href="https://lite.datasette.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhuggingface.co%2Fdatasets%2Fdoctorparadox%2Fdatasette-spike-fara%2Fresolve%2Fmain%2Fspike.db">Open full screen</a>
    ·
    <a href="https://efile.fara.gov/ords/fara/f?p=107:21">Source: DOJ FARA bulk data</a>
  </figcaption>
</figure>

If the theme strips iframes, use a prominent button/link to the Lite URL instead (same reader value).

Suggested WP page blurb (2–3 sentences)

Who is registered to influence U.S. policy on behalf of foreign governments and entities? This interactive table is a curated extract of currently active Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) foreign principals from the Department of Justice’s public bulk data — focused on countries that often appear in Doctor Paradox foreign-influence reporting. Search by principal, registrant, or country; every row links back toward the official FARA filing system. Street addresses were stripped for this spike; the underlying filings remain public at justice.gov / efile.fara.gov.

Alternate static hosts (if HF ever blocked)

Upload /workspace/datasette-spike/public/spike.db (and optionally the CSV) to any HTTPS host that sends CORS * or allows https://lite.datasette.io:

1. 1.DreamHost / doctorparadox.net — e.g. public/data/spike.db via SFTP or File Manager, then: https://lite.datasette.io/?url=https://doctorparadox.net/data/spike.db Confirm response headers include Access-Control-Allow-Origin for Lite (Cloudflare Cache Rule / Transform Rule may be needed).
2. 2.GitHub Pages — commit public/spike.db to a public repo Pages site; use the raw/Pages HTTPS URL in the Lite ?url= param.
3. 3.Cloudflare R2 public bucket + custom domain — same pattern.

Publish path B — datasette publish (skipped)

No Fly.io credentials / CLI login on this box; gh CLI not authenticated (GitHub MCP is account-linked but no datasette publish path). Skipped Fly. HF static + Lite covers the spike.

To publish later on Fly (when logged in):

source /workspace/datasette-spike/.venv/bin/activate
datasette publish fly spike.db --metadata metadata.yml --app dp-fara-spike

Local verify

source /workspace/datasette-spike/.venv/bin/activate
cd /workspace/datasette-spike
datasette spike.db --metadata metadata.yml -p 8001
# open http://127.0.0.1:8001/

Rebuild from CSV:

source /workspace/datasette-spike/.venv/bin/activate
cd /workspace/datasette-spike
# (see build notes in REPORT; sqlite-utils insert + enable-fts)

Hand-off checklist (WP Guru)

• —[ ] Paste iframe or link Lite URL on a draft WP page under doctorparadox.net
• —[ ] Credit DOJ FARA + note “curated active subset / addresses removed”
• —[ ] Optional: facet deep-link #/spike/foreign_principals?_facet=country_location
• —[ ] Optional later: swap HF URL for doctorparadox.net/data/spike.db once CORS confirmed

Lite URL (copy-paste): https://lite.datasette.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhuggingface.co%2Fdatasets%2Fdoctorparadox%2Fdatasette-spike-fara%2Fresolve%2Fmain%2Fspike.db