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Daily Digest: Working to Catch the Presidential Ear

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, November 6 2008

  • "Congratulations! Now, Hear Me Out on...": Let's hope President-elect Barack Obama had a restful Tuesday night, because it's about the only time in the next two and a half months that he won't have someone whispering in his ear with advice on what kind of presidency his should be. Popular Science's Daniel Engber has penned a Dear Mr. President letter on suggesting Obama "give the executive branch a complete technological makeover, endowing it with all the extraordinary capabilities of the modern Internet." The Center for American Progress' Science Progress, Mark Drapeau has advice on how social media can help his transition team manage the tremendous flow of information headed their way. Change.org has launched a Digg-like "Ideas for Changing America" exercise, with the goal of sending the top ten ideas on to someone involved in building the Obama administration. Then there is PdF/tP partner BigDialog, which is crowd-ranking questions for the next POTUS. The top three questioners will be flown to MIT next month to present their questions in a live networked event with members of the Obama transition team.

  • America's First CTO -- Who and What Power?: Perhaps even more important than the question of who will be the nation's first Chief Technology Officer is the matter of how much real juice he or she will have. Our Andrew Rasiej told Information Week's K.C. Jones that it remains to be seen whether the CTO job will be a Cabinet-level post, a special assistantship, or a position slotted into the White House hierarchy under the Chief of Staff. Andrew sees Google CEO Eric Schmidt as a likely candidate. Schmidt, however, has no government experience, and so another approach would be for Obama to pluck someone out of the small but vibrant government CTO world, like Virginia's able Secretary of Technology Aneesh Chopra. What America's first CTO would wants to avoid: the fate of John DiIulio, President George Bush's first pick as director of faith-based initiatives, who quit the administration when he realized he was little more than window dressing.

  • How Obama Won, Online: As we look forward, let's not forget to look back at how we got to where we are. The Root.com's Omar Wasow has a look at how Obama went from "Internet darling to leader of the Free World" by marrying online social organizing and offline grassroots politics. Wired's Sarah Lai Stirland makes her case for how the Internet won Obama the White House. (Sarah has a great quote from NDN's Simon Rosenberg, comparing Obama '08 to Bill Clinton's shoestring '92 campaign: "This is like a multi-national corporation versus a non-profit.") And the Nation's Ari Melber says forget what videos the campaigns or other pros cooked up -- voter-created spots topped YouTube's charts.

  • The Revolution Will Be Tweeted: Tuesday's electoral contests across the country certainly gave people something to talk about. Traffic on Twitter shot up 43% on Election Day, according to a release from the online tracking firm Hitwise -- and with nary a fail whale in sight. Other Hitwise numbers show that Tuesday's traffic on MySpace and Facebook only saw a slight 6% bump, though 4.5 million Facebookers did take to the site to say that they had cast a ballot. And in official campaign site news, while traffic to Obama's website showed a slight 6% bump on Election Day, visits to McCain's site actually dropped 18% on the day most of America was picking its next president.

  • Campaigns Were Hacked from Overseas: From Newsweek's almost sinfully delicious peek behind the scenes at the Obama and McCain campaigns, it turns out that earlier this summer both Obama and McCain's were the victims of computer attacks by an unknown "foreign entity." The FBI and Secret Service came in to investigate, delivering to the Obama campaign the ominous warning that "a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system."

  • Fake Sarah Calls It Quits, Inspires: Exiting with a eloquent goodbye note on the need to take government seriously again, the Twittering @FakeSarahPalin has called it quits. She leaves behind some 7,500 followers. We'll let Fake Sarah have the last word: "It has been fun making you laugh through this election. If you've laughed at us and found us funny, do us (and America) a favor: spend the next four years working to make America better."

In Case You Missed It...

Micah Sifry takes a quick pre-launch look at Change.gov, the site being built by Blue State Digital for the Obama-Biden transition to the White House. Alan Rosenblatt explores what he says are the two ways to make use of MyBarackObama from here on out: keep it alive as an outside political community, or use it to make government more transparent and connected. And Colin Delany looks at four particular moments in the Obama campaign where, he says, the Internet saved the day.

News Briefs

RSS Feed wednesday >

Facebook Becomes Full Member of Global Network Initiative

Facebook announced today that it has opted to become a full member of the Global Network Initiative, a group founded by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to address the challenges technology companies face when dealing with governments about issues like freedom of expression and data privacy. GO

Russia's OGP Concerns Show That Transparency Matters

Last week, Russian officials announced they have withdrawn their letter of intent to join the Open Government Partnership. The Moscow Times has a statement to the Russian paper Kommersant from a presidential spokesman, saying, "We are not talking about winding up plans to join, but corrections in timing and the scale of participation are possible." So Russia may still be in. Just not soon. And maybe never. Confused? You're not alone. I actually find it fascinating that the Kremlin acts like "openness" and transparency matter. Here's why. GO

In Denmark, Online Tracking of Citizens is an Unwieldy Failure

Six years after Denmark passed a law mandating that telecommunication companies retain and store their customers' personal data for up to two years, local advocacy groups and the telecom industry are pushing for immediate changes to the legislation. The practice of keeping records of private citizens' Internet use is an unjustifiable invasion of privacy, they say. The police, meanwhile, have concluded that requiring telecoms to store subscriber data has not helped them track criminals, which was the the ostensible purpose of the practice. But the Danish government still wants to postpone an evaluation of the law for another two years. GO

"Accidental" Blocking of Australian Websites Raises Concerns About Government Censorship

An Australian government agency admitted last week to unintentionally blocking more than 1,200 perfectly legal websites in the process of shutting down one allegedly fraudulent site. In their defense, they pointed out that they have successfully blocked a number of websites in the past nine months without such digital collateral. This assertion came as no consolation to Australian netizens concerned about Internet censorship, especially opaque and hazily legal censorship.

GO

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

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