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First POST: Launch Codes

BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, March 4 2014

The latest on the Crimea crisis; Sen. Al Franken casts doubt on the Comcast-Time Warner merger; Vice, Brookings and GovLab all have new launches; and much, much more. Read More

First POST: The Internet Is...

BY Micah L. Sifry | Wednesday, February 26 2014

Just how bad is the Internet's future?; Why Marc Andreessen is bullish about the future of news; how one upstart gubernatorial candidate is innovating online; and much, much more. Read More

First POST: Post-Ambition and Fear Not

BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, February 25 2014

Cyberwar in Syria?; the Obama 2012 tech tools are being shared with lower ballot candidates; the debate over Netflix and Comcast continues; and much, much more. Read More

First POST: Secret-Spilling Machine

BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, February 24 2014

Some unanswered questions about Ukraine's #EuroMaidan protests; Julian Assange's ghostwriter speaks out on his subject's megalomania; Gawker's Nick Denton on the end of privacy; and much, much more. Read More

First POST: Too Big to Read Our Mail

BY Micah L. Sifry | Friday, February 21 2014

Why and how the NSA should be broken up; Comcast's lobbying blitz; the vital role of social media in Ukraine and Venezuela; and much, much more. Read More

First POST: Fingerprints and Fire Insurance

BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, February 18 2014

How the NSA and GCHQ targeted WikiLeaks, Anonymous and Pirate Bay; why collecting Americans' phone metadata is just like fingerprinting and buying fire insurance; how the paper lobby is hoping to keep the government from going online; and much, much more. Read More

First POST: Triple Play Special

BY Micah L. Sifry | Friday, February 14 2014

More on Comcast-TimeWarner; TED and TEDWomen's policy against bringing up abortion?!; and is social media making it harder for NGOs to get attention for their causes?; and much much more. Read More

First POST: Today's Big Disaster

BY Micah L. Sifry | Thursday, February 13 2014

Comcast's bid to buy Time Warner Cable could be a huge disaster for consumers and Internet users in America; the connections between online resistance, state surveillance, and data-driven political targeting; more roundups of The Day We Fight Back; and much, much more. Read More

First POST: Juggernautism

BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, November 4 2013

Google chairman Eric Schmidt calls the NSA's actions "outrageous"; the inside story of how Beltway politics doomed the launch of HealthCare.gov; Comcast's bid to knock out Seattle's mayor; and much, much more. Read More

Obama In Election-Year Push To Accelerate Broadband Development

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Thursday, June 14 2012

President Obama Is Pushing Broadband Development Image: Flickr/MikeCogh

In an election year push, President Obama on Thursday launched two initiatives meant to hasten the deployment of high-speed Internet access in the United States -- a key piece of national infrastructure that Obama has been mentioning frequently on recent campaign stops across the country. Read More

News Briefs

RSS Feed friday >

For Millennials, Institutions Are Out, Selfies, Social Networks and Diversity Are In

A Pew survey released Friday highlights that young Americans are noticeably detached from traditional institutions such as political parties, organized religion and marriage even as they are increasingly connected with their peers through online social networks. GO

Snowden EU Testimony Renews Calls to Grant Asylum

On Monday, Edward Snowden will participate in his first live discussion before an audience as part of SXSW Interactive through a video conference with his legal advisor Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, as well as digital privacy expert Christopher Soghoian. (Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo from Kansas, also a member of the House Intelligence Committee, has asked SXSW to cancel the webcast, The Hill reported). Snowden's discussion will come amidst renewed calls in Europe to grant him asylum. GO

Minnesota Announces Civic Tech Legislation

Can civic innovation be managed statewide? A bill in Minnesota is betting yes. It is looking to grab some of the state's $1.2 billion surplus to fund open data, open government, and civic technology. Openminnesota.org, a site set up to promote and explain the bill, says the following: "Open Minnesota will build an engine for public open data use, civic technology creation engaging start-up companies and technology volunteers, and help hundreds more government units get cost-effectively connected to the best global open government lessons for local adaptation." GO

wednesday >

Now You Can See Who Really Pays NYC Property Taxes

Property tax revenue makes up around a quarter of New York City's budget, but until now broader information about it has not been easily accessible. Users could only look up individual properties by entering lot and block information into a basic online form on a city website, and would have had to cross-reference that information with a building's address and other sources, explained Chris Whong, co-organizer of New York City's Code for America brigade betaNYC. "This data is much more powerful in the aggregate," he said. That's why, as part of last week's Code Across NYC hackathon, he along with several collaborators worked to develop an online platform "born out of curiosity" that maps New York City property data. GO

Facebook's Got A Finger in India's Political Pie

Facebook is an increasingly active political force in India. The company launched their Indian election tracker Tuesday to coincide with the first Facebook Talks Live digital broadcast, “Town Hall” style conversations in which 2014 candidates field questions submitted by Facebook users. These projects build on the get-out-the-vote collaboration between the Times of India and Facebook, which was announced in September.

GO

Civic Crowdfunding Looks to Bigger Projects with Phased Campaigns

Civic crowdfunding dreamed big but started small. The platform Neighbor.ly grabbed attention for a 2012 campaign to help fund a multi-million dollar rail car in Kansas City, but only raised $3,775 of its $10 million goal. The early campaigns of both Neighbor.ly and Citizinvestor that were actually successful reached for modest goals, usually less than $15,000. A look at the campaign pages of either platform today shows larger projects, in the tens or hundreds of thousands, creeping in as well. Civic crowdfunding is growing. To facilitate and attract more large projects Citizinvestor this week announced a plan to crowdfund projects in phases. GO

YanukovychLeaks.org Exposes a Corrupt and Violent Regime

Thousands of documents float and sink in a remote reservoir not far from a grand 345-acre estate contained within a sprawling wrought iron fence. As evocative as it may seem, this not the beginning of a spy thriller, but of Yanukovych Leaks, an online portal where the leaks have been uploaded by investigative journalists who say the extravagance detailed in those papers may prove ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's depth of corruption. GO

tuesday >

Surveillance in the Overlooked Corners of Africa

In the video below, filmed during the Oslo Freedom Forum in May 2013, Jacob Appelbaum breaks it to Rafael Marques, an Angolan investigative journalist and anti-corruption activist, that his laptop is being surveilled through a crude backdoor in spite of the fact that he is using Tor. He opens up a file where they can see all the images that have been stored and are waiting to be collected by the hackers. Appelbaum tells an understandably concerned Marques: “Every computer that's targeted is compromisable,”

GO

monday >

How To Follow… The Crisis in Ukraine (Updated)

The EuroMaidan Revolution has passed the 100 day mark and Russian forces have taken control of parts of Crimea. The New York Times described the escalating conflict between Russia and the West as “reminiscent of low points in the Cold War.” The Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has said that “we are on the brink of disaster.”

GO

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