The NSA's spying tools; go file a complaint with the UK's Investigatory Powers Tribunal to see if the NSA illegally shared your communications with GCHQ before December 2014; Obama's former campaign manager David Plouffe bats for Uber; and much, much more. Read More

This Thursday, Civic Hall is welcoming digital ethnographer Mark Pesce, in town briefly from his home base in Australia, to give a talk on "Hypercivility" and I want to give some background on why I am personally so excited to hear what he has to say. In a sentence, it's this: Pesce has been consistently ahead of the curve on how mass connectivity is changing politics and civic life, and I always learn something new when I hear him speak. Read More

Earlier this week a Little League baseball team was stripped of their championship title because of a whistleblower. That is what Chris Janes is: a concerned citizen who perceived an injustice and acted accordingly, trawling through public records until he had the evidence to take to the appropriate authorities. So why does his triumph make people feel so bad?

Why so many media folks are mourning David Carr's death; what to make of Jeb Bush's tech stumbles; more pushback on 'sharing economy' companies Uber, Lyft and Waze; and much, much more. Read More

Transparency and open government advocates have been successful in convincing governments around the world to share some of their data with society at large. (And thanks to the Sunlight Foundation, we'll soon know which data they're not sharing, as well). But there is plenty of important civic information that isn't collected or maintained by governments. We need to supplement open government data with data from others to give nonprofits, governments, and researchers a more holistic understanding of reality.

The big ideas from yesterday's NetGain conference; sifting internal Airbnb data for NYC; new tools for civic hackers; and much, much more. Read More

Last fall, Parisian voters decided how to spend 20 million euros of their city budget, the city's first participatory budgeting (PB) experience. This year there is more than triple that at stake, and the process of crafting proposals for funding has been opened to the general public. As host to Europe's largest PB experiment, Paris is leading by example. Read More

The internal combustion of the New Organizing Institute; why sexist and homophobic tweets are still not a good idea; lessons from John Ellis (Jeb) Bush on how not to do transparency; and much, much more. Read More

The biggest challenges at the intersection of the Internet and philanthropy; why Facebook users in the developing world might not know they're using the Internet; takeaways from the Twitter transparency report; and much, much more. Read More

Why it's a bad idea to ban strong encryption; lessons from the rollout of Google Fiber in Kansas City; lessons from the first five years of Code for America; and much, much more. Read More