Thursday must-reads

• A strong showing from your techPresident team: Lisa Goldman examined the future of mapping in digital activism:

  ... [I]s mapping relevant to people who are impoverished, semi-literate or e-literate? Grassroots work involves going out and organizing people, not sitting them in front of a computer to stare at a map of their own neighborhood or city. They don’t need data visualization to show them their problems; they know what their problems are.

  Often, however, an acute crisis requires the help of foreigners who are unfamiliar with the region.

• Sarah Lai Stirland reported on a new consulting company launched by former Obama campaign director of digital analytics Amelia Showalter, the latest OfA alum to turn pro.

• In San Francisco, Yelp will premiere the arrival of restaurant inspection data on its platform — the first test of a new standard specification for inspection data and an experiment that will reveal what happens when sometimes controversial data gets a broad public audience.

• The White House emulated the design of the high-profile New York Times interactive Snow Fall article series for the design of the page presenting Obama's gun law proposals. The White House was also promoting the use of the hashtag #NowIsTheTime. A slew of digital observers caught this, including White House Director of Digital Strategy Macon Phillips and New York Times developer Josh Williams.

• The U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, Carmen Ortiz, has issued a statement on the prosecution of Aaron Swartz. Ortiz expressed sympathy for his death, but said "this office’s conduct was appropriate in bringing and handling this case." More reporting, analysis and reactions on Swartz and the legal implications comes from Orin Kerr, the Associated Press, Mike Bracken, Lawrence Lessig, Tarun Wadhwa, and James Grimmelmann.

• There's a new online effort to translate Swartz's Guerilla Open Access Manifesto into different languages and create a list of projects, groups and organizations supporting open knowledge. Memorial events for Swartz are planned in Cambridge on Friday, and in New York City on Saturday.

Around the web

• New Yorkers Against Gun Violence is encouraging supporters to make 20 calls in 20 days to federal lawmakers in memory of the Sandy Hook victims.

• Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) is proposing a ban on 3D-printed high-capacity magazines.

• Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan noted that Facebook's new Graph Search can show what people like who like both the NRA and Barack Obama.

• The Daily Beast created the Twitter account @RepsGunTweets to track how representatives reacted to the gun law proposals.

• A New York state senator's online petition against New York's new gun law has already gathered 35,000 signatures.

• A Guardian interactive shows gun laws state-by-state, and lets users look at laws in their friends' states through Facebook. A Washington Post interactive traces the NRA's influence on members of Congress.

• The Citizen Lab Internet research group says it has found evidence that U.S.-made Internet surveillance and censorship technology has been used by more than a dozen countries, including ones with questionable human rights records such as Syria, China and Saudi Arabia.

• Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said he wanted to remain on the Senate Judiciary Committee to help pass legislation requiring a warrant before authorities can access e-mails and other online messages.

• Businessweek reported on the possibility that the SEC could force more disclosure of publicly traded companies' political contributions.

• ICYMI: There's a Campaign Finance Disclosure Tumblr.

• Pandodaily traced how two L.A. entrepreneurs helped bring about the lobbying effort leading to the passage of the JOBS Act.

• The FBI only released severely redacted memos in response to an ACLU query about its interpretation of a unanimous Supreme Court decision which established that law enforcement does not have the authority to put a warrantless GPS tracker on a suspect’s car, ars technica reported.

• A recent symposium hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society marked the launch of a global network of interdisciplinary centers focused on Internet and society.

• A documentary premiering at the Slamdance Film Festive called "Terms and Conditions May Apply" focuses on websites' privacy polices.

• Ars Technica looked into which routers would actually support new WiFi spectrum that the FCC plans to release.

• Time Warner Cable says it is in negotiations with Netflix on using the service's content delivery network to offer 3D and other special content to subscribers, but also accused Netflix of unfairly holding back content in order to get preferential treatment, according to Multichannel News.

• AT&T has partially lifted a restriction on how its customers can use the FaceTime function without any additional cost, following criticism from groups like Public Knowledge.

• Developers of transit apps in Washington D.C. say the transit agency is limiting the data it provides, and that the data that is accessible is often inaccurate.

• New York City's MTA is now offering an application for all smartphone operating systems showing subway times for selected subway lines.

• Daniel X. O'Neil writes about turning civic hacking into civic innovation based on the example of Chicago.

• Researchers used Google Earth to produce a more accurate study of urban agriculture sites in Chicago.

International

• The International Herald Tribune reported on French deputy finance minister Fleur Pellerin's efforts to promote the digital economy.

• A leaked document from the German ministry of the interior reveals that Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office acquired software from Gamma Group for monitoring computer and Internet use in case it saw it as necessary to use, and is also developing its own surveillance software.

• Uber is preparing its launch in Berlin.

• The German music royalties collection agency recently announced it had broken off copyright negotiations with YouTube in an ongoing year-long dispute. The organization, GEMA, has also expressed dissatisfaction with the message YouTube shows to German users who can't access content due to the dispute with GEMA, calling it misleading and suggesting it unfairly negatively influences public and media opinion.

• The BBC and the Wall Street Journal reported on how controversy over a Chinese newspaper has affected Chinese Internet users. The BBC noted that several Chinese Weibo posters had written that they got an "invitation to tea," a euphemism for being questioned by the police, after posting comments in support of the newspaper's staff.

• Emily Jacobi wrote about attending BarCamp, a technology unconference, in Yangon in Myanmar/Burma.

• Twitter is opening an office in Brazil.

• The U.S. will only get limited, court-supervised access to Canadian Megaupload servers.

• Consultant Matt Rhodes praises the British Foreign Office's social media policy.

• The Guardian is launching a digital edition for Australia and has also incorporated the independent Tehran Bureau.