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On Tweeting in a Tornado

BY Nick Judd | Thursday, May 5 2011

Federal Emergency Management Administration Administrator Craig Fugate is now discussing social media and disaster response with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs. C-SPAN is offering ... Read More

Inside the Senate E-Mail Hoaxes

BY Nancy Scola | Friday, July 9 2010

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From the Greatly Exaggerated Senate Email Files

BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, July 7 2010

Capitol Police are looking into email spoofs engineered to look like they were coming from the offices of Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that announced their respective ... Read More

The 15,000

BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, February 10 2010

Credit: GRITtv Yesterday's episode of Laura Flanders' daily GRITtv program was on the topic of whether or not the United States Senate ha Read More

Massachusetts Special: The State of the Brown vs. Coakley (Online) Race

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, January 19 2010

As we reach the very end of the Massachusetts special election, we're seeing a ramping up of folks working to extract what the race means for the state of online politics. Read More

Rebuilding Through Bombs: Scott Brown's One-Day, One Million Dollar (Plus) Haul

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, January 12 2010

The Massachusetts Senate seat up for grabs in next week's suddenly very exciting special election has leading Republicans gearing up their online operations on behalf of Republican candidate Scott Brown, who is ... Read More

Solving the health care reform puzzle (video)

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, December 14 2009

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OFA's Ready with Tweets to Send Your Senator

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, July 27 2009

Throughout the past several months of the health reform debate, the theme that significant health reform can't wait has been one of the most consistent themes in the approach of President Obama and other strong advocates ... Read More

Aneesh Chopra's Not-So-Grueling Day on Capitol Hill

BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, May 20 2009

NextGov's Aliya Sternstein has really been doing some tremendous reporting about the nitty-gritty of the DC tech and policy scene. In her latest report, Sternstein tells of a rather airy Senate confirmation hearing for ... Read More

The U.S. Senate, Networked

BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, May 6 2009

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News Briefs

RSS Feed thursday >

Mastercard Funding New Mobile-Based Financial Services in Kenya (Updated)

MasterCard is funding a Grameen Foundation initiative to bring financial services to the poor and the unbanked in Kenya.

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Transparency and Public Shaming: Pakistan Tackles Tax Evasion

In Pakistan, where only one in 200 citizens files their income tax return, authorities published a directory of taxpayers' details for the first time. Officials explained the decision as an attempt to shame defaulters into paying up.

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wednesday >

Facebook Seeks Approval as Financial Service in Ireland. Is the Developing World Next?

On April 13 the Financial Times reported that Facebook is only weeks away from being approved as a financial service in Ireland. Is this foray into e-money motivated by Facebook's desire to conquer the developing world before other corporate Internet giants do? Maybe.

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The Rise and Fall of Iran's “Blogestan”

The robust community of Iranian bloggers—sometimes nicknamed “Blogestan”—has shrunk since its heyday between 2002 – 2010. “Whither Blogestan,” a recent report from the University of Pennsylvania's Iran Media Program sought to find out how and why. The researchers performed a web crawling analysis of Blogestan, survey 165 Persian blog users, and conducted 20 interviews with influential bloggers in the Persian community. They found multiple causes of the decline in blogging, including increased social media use and interference from authorities.

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tuesday >

Weekly Readings: What the Govt Wants to Know

A roundup of interesting reads and stories from around the web. GO

Russia to Treat Bloggers Like Mass Media Because "the F*cking Journalists Won't Stop Writing"

The worldwide debate over who is and who isn't a journalist has raged since digital media made it much easier for citizen journalists and other “amateurs” to compete with the big guys. In the United States, journalists are entitled to certain protections under the law, such as the right to confidential sources. As such, many argue that blogging should qualify as journalism because independent writers deserve the same legal protections as corporate employees. In Russia, however, earning a place equal to mass media means additional regulations and obligations, which some say will lead to the repression of free speech.

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Politics for People: Demanding Transparent and Ethical Lobbying in the EU

Today the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) launched a campaign called Politics for People that asks candidates for the European Parliament to pledge to stand up to secretive industry lobbyists and to advocate for transparency. The Politics for People website connects voters with information about their MEP candidates and encourages them to reach out on Facebook, Twitter or by email to ask them to sign the pledge.

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monday >

Security Agencies Given Full Access to Telecom Data Even Though "All Lebanese Can Not Be Suspects"

In late March, Lebanese government ministers granted security agencies unrestricted access to telecommunications data in spite of some ministers objections that it violates privacy rights. Global Voices reports that the policy violates Lebanon's existing surveillance and privacy law, Law 140, but has gotten little coverage from the country's mainstream media.

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