Guns of Silicon Valley

• Check out Sarah Lai Stirland's must-read look at the Silicon Valley libertarians who are bucking Northern California's reputation for progressive causes and opposing a ban on assault weapons:

  Gene Hoffman, an affable Silicon Valley entrepreneur, speaks rapidly and logically, and his hands whiz expertly around the weapon as he attaches the lower receiver into the rest of his LCW-15, a type of AR-15 rifle. At 38, he is the CEO of Vindicia, a digital subscription payments processing firm. But he's also chairman of the non-profit Calguns Foundation, which is part of a national network of gun-rights activists that are defending Second Amendment rights in court and fighting legislative battles in statehouses.

  "It's weird for me to hear about technologists in the wake of Sandy Hook saying that we should ban guns -- gun control is simply technology control," Hoffman says.

Is the White House moving to regulate online speech?

• Here's a curious post from the White House blog we're just seeing today:

  As a starting point to prevent online radicalization to violence in the homeland, the Federal Government initially will focus on raising awareness about the threat and providing communities with practical information and tools for staying safe online. In this process, we will work closely with the technology industry to consider policies, technologies, and tools that can help counter violent extremism online. Companies already have developed voluntary measures to promote Internet safety ─ such as fraud warnings, identity protection, and Internet safety tips ─ and we will collaborate with industry to explore how we might counter online violent extremism without interfering with lawful Internet use or the privacy and civil liberties of individual users.

Around the web

• With friends like these: The secret's out about the nasty rumor that prospective Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel spoke at an event hosted by a group called "Friends of Hamas." The group doesn't exist. A New York Daily News reporter, Dan Friedman, came up with the name as part of a hypothetical question posed to a source who, Friedman surmises, then planted the name in the ear of Breitbart.com's Ben Shapiro.

• This is what Ben Shapiro's public shaming looks like.

• The Albany Times-Union does not like the New York State government's move to mark more public records as "private."

• British public-sector workers understand they should say open data is important, but don't get benefits of transparency.

• Evgeny Morozov doesn't think transparency is so great, either.

• Susan Crawford, the law professor and former White House advisor, has been talking a lot about her book, which makes the case for changing broadband Internet regulations.

• Here she is with fellow White House alumnae Beth Noveck and techPresident publisher Andrew Rasiej, talking at a Social Media Week event.

• The NYPD questioned, then arrested, an Occupy Wall Street sympathizer and grassroots organizing consultant connected with a stunt in which activists projected an image against Mayor Michael Bloomberg's house. The activist, Charles Lenchner, was officially arrested for driving with a suspended license. But he wonders if he wasn't stopped because he was under surveillance.

• A controversial online petition in Spain is teaching the petition-hosters at Change.org new things about serving as a platform for political speech.

• Data.gov.uk is releasing site usage data.

• President Barack Obama to a joke-telling Clay Johnson: "Not bad," probably.