Why the FCC balked at the Comcast-TimeWarner deal; Sheryl Sandberg wants Hillary Clinton to lean into the White House; the UK's Democracy Club brings a lot more information to election season; and much, much more. Read More

A return to pre-Watergate days?; Jeb Bush has already, apparently, forgotten about "transparency matters"; ghostwriting for government agencies; X-Lab going independent; and much, much more. Read More

Official net neutrality rules are here; Governor Andrew Cuomo 90-day deletion policy is an "electronic shredder"; the FBI's Terrorism Task Force was tasked with a #BlackLivesMatter protest; take this stop-and-frisk data and run with it; and much, much more. Read More

How Canada spies on its citizens' web behavior; with uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan quitting the field, whither political blogs; how big data is helping prevent homelessness in NYC; and much, much more. Read More

A request for proposals under consideration for a new revamping of recreation.gov, the government's portal for outdoor trip planning, could be an opportunity to apply the innovative vision of 18F, the new digital services team within the General Services Administration, established in the spring, and of the new U.S. Digital Service within the Office of Management and Budget, civic technologists say. Read More

At a time when the public's trust in institutions is at historic lows, the federal government's use of technology has an unusual place in the national discourse. After the first Internet president's administration was responsible for the high-profile failure of Healthcare.gov, the issue seemed ripe to drive significant reform on Capitol Hill. Even if some 10 million adults gained health insurance through the Affordable Care Act after "Obama's trauma team" made successful fixes to Healthcare.gov, negative public perception has lingered, and for good reason. Under the radar, other projects have continued to sputter, like a $300 million dollar Social Security government IT boondoggle that still has not delivered a working system for submitting disability claims. The crash of the FCC's dated website under the weight of 1.1 million comments this summer didn't help, either. At the same time, the confidence of the technology community has been damaged by revelations of dragnet surveillance and surreptitious backdoors planted in software. Now, the executive branch has launched two new initiatives aimed squarely at these issues, 18F and the just-announced US Digital Service, Alex Howard reports. Read More

How the NSA hacks into some computer networks the old-fashioned way; the early notices on Glenn Greenwald's Snowden book; how 18F is pioneering a better way of building US government websites; and much, much more. Read More

Can a new small office inside the General Services Administration start to revolutionize how the U.S. government does information technology? That's the premise behind 18F. Longtime open government observer Alex Howard offers this in-depth report. Read More