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First POST: Remembering Aaron Swartz

BY Miranda Neubauer | Monday, January 14 2013

Remembering Aaron Swartz

That's no moon, that's a petition response

  • The White House gave a tongue-in-cheek response to a petition demanding that the U.S. government construct a Death Star, moon-sized weapon of planetary destruction from Star Wars.

    In the answer titled "This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For," Paul Shawcross, chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget, declares that "the Administration does not support blowing up planets." The plan would add to the deficit, he explained, adding: "Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?"

    The White House also responded to a petition seeking Obama's impeachment, those seeking secession for various states, and those seeking deportation for those demanding secession.

    Macon Phillips from the White House Office of Digital Strategy highlighted a Redditor's comment in response to the Death Star answer: "This is the first time in my 65 years I felt a connection to the @WhiteHouse."

    Asked whether the White House would also respond to an Open Access petition, he replied, "respond to petitions that cross the threshold, we will."

Public records, online data, and privacy

  • As the debate rolls on over a map published by a newspaper that names gun owners in Westchester County, your First POST editor suggests that our current definition of "public record" is obsolete:

    While "public equals online" is uncomplicated where "public record" is concerned, the inverse is also true. Online equals public. That can be more complex. Online does not mean "public" as in "public record," as in it's-in-a-cabinet-somewhere, fill-out-this-form-and-the-city-clerk-will-get-back-to-you-next-year-maybe public. Online public means "I can find it on Google" public. When it comes to budget data, what Congress is doing or who's pumping money into elections, that's an automatic improvement. But when the Journal-News posted online a map with the names and addresses of all gun owners in Westchester County, N.Y., public-record public became, suddenly and without warning, online public. This was a concern because the records were not about public officials, but private citizens. If people like that even exist anymore.

  • David Carr writes about the wisdom of publishing public data in the wake of the Journal News case. A Republican state senator in New York blamed the newspaper's map for a break-in.

The Internet in civic life

  • Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: Over the last two years, some of the most serious-minded people focused on how to use the Internet to get more people involved in the care of their cities have been working on Change By Us, an online platform where visitors can propose ideas like a community garden or a neighborhood cleanup, find volunteers, and solicit support from foundations or the city.

    The platform's creators have struggled to bring people to the site, and have made promises to change the system in order to receive continued support. Plus subscribers get a detailed look at the problems facing the project.

Around the web

International

  • The University of Edinburgh along with thirteen partners from other European countries is launching a €8.5 million project called the Citizen Observatory Web to allow members of the public to collect environmental data for research, decision making and policy formation using crowdsourcing technology.

  • Eleven work and pensions civil servants in Britain have been fired for using social media, and 106 in that department have been fired for that offense since 2009.

  • A report recommends that the British military urgently draw up cybersecurity plans.

  • Reuters recently reported on Britain's plans to ramp-up its rollout of telehealth options for patients at home.

  • The Wall Street Journal looked at how North Korea covered Eric Schmidt's visit.

  • The Guardian recently reported on how "poor but sexy Berlin has tapped talent to be Europe's startup capital."

  • Almost 60 federal bureaucrats in Canada were caught plagiarizing information from the Internet on their promotion applications.

  • CNN recently reported on how the Internet Society of Bangalore is helping to educate local artisans on how to use Internet tools.

First POST is normally available only to Personal Democracy Plus subscribers. But as has been pointed out, it doesn't make much sense to limit access to today's post when the subject of today's headline and lead item is the freedom-of-information activist Aaron Swartz, who died Friday. — Nick Judd, managing editor

News Briefs

RSS Feed tuesday >

Honda Campaign Rolls Out Endorsements From Asian American Stars

Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) rolled out several additional endorsements from Asian American leaders and celebrities Tuesday, with one of them vouching for his high-tech bona fides. GO

Here Are The People President Obama Hopes Will Repair American Elections

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration established by President Obama after problematic 2012 elections now has a web presence at SupporttheVoter.gov. Obama established the commission by executive order on March 28 "to identify best practices in election administration and to make recommendations to improve the voting experience." GO

After Oklahoma Disaster, Neighbors Look Online for Ways To Help

In echoes of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast, social media sites and small business websites in and around tornado-wracked Moore, Okla., are full of offers of help, questions about missing pets and loved ones, and evidence that neighbors are willing to reach out to help one another in a disaster. On a single Facebook group, there's a Mexican restaurant in Oklahoma City promising free meals to first responders or people hit by the tornado; a mother a few hours' drive from Moore offering to open her door for children who might need a place to stay; a resident sharing a picture of a found dog and contact information for the owner to get in touch. GO

Change.org Lands $15 Million From Omidyar

Change.org capped an extraordinary few years of growth Tuesday with the announcement that it has landed a $15 million investment led by the Omidyar Network. GO

What German Politicians Think of Google Glass

The German government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel has not had the easiest relationship with Google. The company launched a public campaign against a law backed by her coalition that would require search engines to pay to show news articles in search results, with mixed results. What's more, Google has long had to navigate the privacy waters in Germany and throughout the European Union. But that has not stopped her federal minister for economics and technology, Philipp Rösler, from giving Google Glass an enthusiastic test run as he leads a delegation of German technology companies and politicians on a trip to Silicon Valley this week as part of German Valley Week. GO

Crowdsourcing Waste Management Solutions in Montenegro

For once we aren't talking about the worldwide scarcity of toilets, just good old-fashioned household waste. Montenegro has a garbage problem so bad even the tourists are complaining about it. A new mobile app sponsored by the Agency for Environmental Protection, NGO Ozon and United Nations Development Programme in Montenegro will hopefully get citizens involved in reporting illegal garbage dumps. GO

monday >

Her Majesty's Government Wants to Monetize Open Data

A new paper from the chair of the U.K. government's Open Strategy Board outlines the best practices for the government's open data policies. The government-commissioned Shakespeare Review – after author Stephan Shakespeare – looks into ways to monetize open data, and recommends an all-encompassing National Data Strategy.

GO

Will Silicon Valley "Disrupt" Politics With a Candidate for Congress?

Sean Parker, of Napster fame and now executive general partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund, has invested in political startups before. But last week, he went a step further — co-hosting a fundraising event for a candidate for Congress. Parker and SV Angel co-founder Ron Conway organized a crowd of Internet industry luminaries to support Ro Khanna, a former assistant deputy secretary in Barack Obama's Commerce Department. Khanna is preparing a challenge to Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), whose newly redrawn congressional district encompasses Silicon Valley. GO

Burma's Upcoming Telecom Revolution Will Probably Not Bring Internet Freedom

Burma (Myanmar) is on the threshold of an Internet revolution, but Human Rights Watch has warned companies to proceed with caution or risk trampling Burmese citizens' rights. GO

friday >

Chilean Anti-Corruption Resource: A Crowdsourced Database of Social and Political Connections

In countries where a small minority of social circles have a majority of the political and economic power, personal relationships can affect major decision-making, a serious concern of anti-corruption activists. A new web platform stores personal profiles of key players in Chilean business and politics, complete with biographies and personal and professional connections through family, education, social circles, employers and coworkers, to make tracking social relationships and conflict-of-interest easier. Called Poderopedia (from the Spanish word for power), the project sounds kind of like LinkedIn, but the creation and management of profiles is being crowdsourced out to journalists, activists and concerned citizens.

GO

Middle Eastern Telecom Accused of Working With Saudi Arabia to Spy on Citizens

Mobily, an arm of the state-owned Middle Eastern telecom giant Etihad Etisalat, has been accused of working with Saudi Arabia to develop software that would allow the government to bypass protections for social media users. The exposé comes from Moxie Marlinspike (neé Matthew Rosenfield), an expert in a certain type of malicious Internet attack called MITM (man-in-the-middle), whereby attackers intercept and secretly alter private messages exchanged via email and other social media platforms. GO

Saudi Religious Leader Warns Twitter Users of Consequences in the Afterlife

In late March, Saudi Arabia's top religious cleric said Twitter was for clowns and corrupters. Earlier this week, he said anyone using social media, in particular Twitter, “has lost this world and the afterlife.” His comments might be laughable, if they did not come at a time when the Saudi government is looking into monitoring or blocking social media sites and eliminating user anonymity.

GO

thursday >

What The Other Silicon Valley Immigration Group Is Doing This Month

A bipartisan coalition of political advocacy, business and tech groups are moving ahead to launch a social media blitz next week designed to persuade members of the Senate to vote in favor of immigration reform legislation supported in Silicon Valley. "We're going to create a virtual digital storm," said Jeremy Robbins in a Wednesday ... GO

The New Yorker Hopes "Strongbox" Is a Wiretap-Proof Sieve for Leaks

The New Yorker yesterday became the first outlet to implement DeadDrop, a new system for sources to submit information to journalists online in a more secure and anonymous way than, for example, email. GO

Female Organizer of Pakistan's First Hackathon Stresses Collaboration Over Competition

After Pakistan banned Valentine's Day this year, Sabeen Mahmud started an online protest in which people uploaded photos to mock the government ban. In the weeks following she received death threats and menacing phone calls, and early on she had to stay home from work. That did nothing, however, to keep her from further organizing. Last month, the café she started in Karachi hosted Pakistan's first ever hackathon, which tackled problems including sanitation, crime, disaster management, and education. She even invited a government representative to observe the initial conversations, tackling sensitive areas like government inefficiency and elections.

GO

wednesday >

White House Innovation Fellows Project Spins Off Into A Business

Clay Johnson and Adam Becker joined the Presidential Innovation Fellows program to help the White House fix the way government does business. Now they're turning that mission into a business themselves. GO

Fighting Fires With Data, New York City Launches New Safety Inspection System

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today that New York City has implemented city-wide a new risk based inspection system focused on fire safety that is driven by analytics from multiple city agencies. GO

Chinese Netizens Use Digital Initiative to Gain Media Attention for Unsolved Poisoning Case

Last month a medical science student at a Shanghai university died from poisoning, allegedly murdered by his roommate. The specifics of the crime echoed a case from the mid-1990s, in which a 19-year-old student was poisoned with thallium. That case has once again been thrown into the media spotlight, but after 18 years the media has changed and the spotlight means a trending hashtag on Sina Weibo or an online petition to the U.S. President.

GO

PDF France 2013: “Au Code, Citoyens!”

This year PDF France will take place in Paris on June 13, with the theme "Au Code, Citoyens!" ("To Code, Citizens!") The speakers' lineup includes some of the continent's leaders in the digital revolution. GO

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