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WeGov

Israeli Transparency NGO Shows Voters How to Cast Informed Ballots

BY Lisa Goldman | Thursday, January 3 2013

Screengrab from Open Knesset website

As Israelis prepare to cast their ballots in national elections on January 22, the country's only transparency NGO has launched a campaign to encourage voters to educate themselves by consulting their Open Knesset website, where they can find previously unavailable information about how their legislators are doing their jobs and whether they are representing their constituents as they would wish to be represented. Read More

WeGov

Years In the Making, India Delivers an Open Data Portal

BY Julia Wetherell | Tuesday, December 18 2012

Screengrab of Data Portal India homepage

India has joined in on the open data movement with Data Portal India, an initiative to provide transparency across a diverse array of governmental agencies. The new site comes on the tails of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy, which was announced by the nation’s Department of Science and Technology earlier this year, and the 2005 Right to Information Act, a transformative piece of legislation that made government records accessible to ordinary citizens. Read More

WeGov

Thawing Relations Between Transparency Activists and Government in Russia Yield Results

BY David Eaves | Monday, December 17 2012

The Russian transparency environment is not without both opportunities and innovations. Legally, there are requirements for government transparency encoded in Russian law — they are however infrequently adhered to. But this does give advocates some legal ground to stand on. And politically, there is opportunity as well. The government is talking more and more about fighting corruption, creating room for both advocates and government officials to talk about how transparency could play a role in addressing this issue. Read More

WeGov

New Data Visualization of Poverty and Corruption in Colombia

BY Julia Wetherell | Friday, December 14 2012

Screengrab from Transparency International Blog

A new data map compares poverty rates and World Bank aid with the Colombia Transparency Index in regions across the Latin American nation. Transparency International writes that the visual correlation between these factors brings issues of corruption to the fore. Read More

Philadelphia Opens Up Crime Incident Data

BY Sam Roudman | Wednesday, December 12 2012

Today the City of Philadelphia released crime incident data for all major crimes going back to 2006, and started mapping the last 30 days of crime data on the city’s portal. The release puts the city in line with similar programs in Chicago and Baltimore. Read More

WeGov

Dashboard Government: The Politics of Measurement

BY David Eaves | Wednesday, November 28 2012

The other week I was informed that the city of Edmonton, Alberta, published an online dashboard of various metrics that it hopes will both educate residents about the city's services. As more and more of what governments do — from running buses to fixing potholes to processing paper — is managed by computers, there is an ever-increasing capacity to measure, and make public, the results of any given activity. The opportunity to create more accountable systems and governments is real. If we are going to end up with government dashboards all over the place — and frankly, I hope we do — dashboard-makers had better do a bunch of things right. Read More

WeGov

Pakistan Considering Bill that Would Ban Independent Mapping Projects

BY Nighat Dad | Wednesday, November 28 2012

Image from Pakistan Flood Response

The government of Pakistan is about to propose a law that would make it illegal for independent bodies to engage in mapping. The Land Surveying and Mapping Bill 2012, proposed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), transfers all mapping authority in Pakistan to Survey of Pakistan (SoP), which reports to the MoD and takes its orders from General Head Quarters (GHQ). Read More

WeGov

Montreal Hackathon Aims to Combat Government Corruption

BY Elisabeth Fraser | Monday, November 12 2012

Hackons la Corruption (credit: QuebecOuvert)

Canada's first anti-corruption hackathon was held this past weekend in Montreal, which has been rocked by nearly two years of corruption scandals involving construction kickbacks, organized crime and prominent politicians. Read More

WeGov

EU Initiative Will Map Cyber Repression Around the World

BY Lisa Goldman | Thursday, November 8 2012

The EU is about to launch "a global monitoring system that will help chart digital repression by mapping the Internet’s "cyber geography" in near real time," reports Slate. Read More

WeGov

After a Shaky Start, Slovakia's Open Gov't Portal Succeeds With Help from Open Contracts

BY Lisa Goldman | Thursday, November 8 2012

Earlier this year the government of Slovakia launched a portal that was supposed to make all public contracts and invoices available online. But as Sunlight Foundation International Fellow Matej Kurian recounts, there were serious problems from the outset: The site "...was half-baked, missing full-text search, documents preview or space for comments. While the policy produced more data (“transparency,” if you will), it left accountability untouched." Read More

News Briefs

RSS Feed friday >

Organizing for Action Says It Can’t Move Climate Change Legislation In Congress

Beleaguered on one side by pressure to take a stand on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and hoping, on the other, to hang on to the activist energy of the president's progressive base, Organizing for Action leadership and partners aren't holding out much hope for the power of grassroots organizing to motivate action in Congress. GO

Code for America Launches International Partnerships in Mexico, Germany and the Caribbean

Code for America today announced the launch of its first official international partnerships in Mexico, Germany and the Caribbean. After several years of recruiting technologists to spend a year in city halls across America, the organization will bring programmers and designers into close contact with governments in each of those three places to work on a specific problem area. GO

Top Russian Social Network VKontakte Briefly Banned "By Mistake"

The most popular social network in Russia worked its way onto a blacklist this Friday, allegedly “by mistake,” according to the state communications regulator. However, Pavel Durov, the founder of VKontakte, has had run-ins with the authorities in the past for allowing activists to organize protests on the platform. Some interpret this supposedly accidental blocking as a warning shot.

GO

thursday >

Anthony Weiner Launches NYC Mayoral Campaign Online With An Image of Pittsburgh

Former Congressman Anthony Weiner waxed lyrical about New York City in a YouTube video as he launched his bid to be the city's next mayor on Wednesday, but he did it against a backdrop that turned out to be the skyline for Pittsburgh, as a sharp-eyed observer on Twitter first noted Wednesday afternoon. GO

Revamped Data.gov Includes API Catalog

Federal officials are now offering a list of all APIs that have been released across the federal government as part of the Digital Government Strategy and a new data catalog that allows users to more easily search, sort and tag datasets, according to a post by Hyon Kim, deputy program director at the U.S. General Services Administration. With the announcements, the team behind Data.gov, a central public repository of machine-readable federal government data, is marking its fourth anniversary and the one year anniversary of the release of the Digital Government Strategy. GO

French Authorities Want to Tap (and Tax) Skype Calls

In spite of repeated requests from the French telecommunications authorities ARCEP, Skype has refused to classify itself as an electronic communications operator in France, which would require them to route emergency calls and allow the French police to intercept conversations. ARCEP has informed the Paris public prosecutor of Skype's refusal, and criminal charges might be brought against the company for failing to comply. This is yet another instance in recent months of France making things difficult for tech companies. Some worry that the overzealous government is discouraging technological progress in France, hindering business and economic growth.

GO

New Online Platform for Crowdsourced Videos About Human Rights Issues

Anyone with a phone and an Internet connection can be a citizen journalist, as was made clear in the hours and days after the Boston Marathon Bombings. Citizen journalism has its pros and cons, but it has popped up where most needed: after natural disasters or in war torn regions where career journalists might be barred. A new human rights initiative seeks to link citizen reporting in the form of online videos with mainstream media, governments and other policy makers. The online platform, called Irrepressible Voices, will both document human rights issues and work on solutions as a community.

GO

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

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