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Google and Twitter "Transparency Reports" a Window On Surveillance, and Maybe a Call for Reform

BY Miranda Neubauer | Wednesday, January 30 2013

The ever-expanding focus of "transparency reports" released by Google and Twitter are among the best tools available to advocates for reforming electronic privacy laws, Electronic Frontier Foundation activist Trevor Timm said Tuesday. Read More

Slate Partners With Anonymous Tweeter @GunDeaths To Map Ongoing Reports of Gun Incidents

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Friday, December 21 2012

There's a ton of statistics out there on gun-related violence in the United States, but as two of Slate's editors pointed out this morning, there's not much out there that tracks statistics in real time. So the duo, Chris Kirk, Slate's interactives editor, and Dan Krois, a senior editor there, decided to try and change that by partnering with the anonymous Tweeter at @gundeaths to map every reported death that @gundeaths finds through news alerts and tips. @gundeaths began the Twitter reporting this July. Read More

Online, Shaping a Narrow Debate After Newtown Shooting

BY Nick Judd | Tuesday, December 18 2012

When President Barack Obama spoke Sunday at Newtown High School in Newtown, Conn, he promised to take action to fix what's broken in an American society that could not protect 20 young children and seven adults from death at the hands of a single disturbed person, and could not protect that killer from himself.

"We can't tolerate this anymore," he said. "These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law -- no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society."

But he was really just setting the table for a narrower conversation about gun control.

Most people, or anyway, most people on Twitter, seem to have got that point.

Read More

WeGov

In Egypt, the Government Issues Official Announcements on Facebook

BY Lisa Goldman | Monday, December 17 2012

Cairo protester's sign says "no to the constitution" (credit: Hossam El Hamalawy)

Last week the Egyptian government announced draconian tax increases and subsidy reductions that caused a huge wave of protest. Within hours, the president revoked the announcement — in the middle of the night, on Facebook. Read More

WeGov

Despite Some Glitches, Ghana's New Biometric Voting System Widely Viewed as a Success

BY Gabriela Barnuevo | Thursday, December 13 2012

Biometric voting machine at a Ghanaian polling station (credit: Gabriela Barnuevo)

Technology dominated Ghana's recent presidential elections, with candidates using popular social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to spread their messages. But it was the introduction of a biometric voter identification system that captured the most attention. Read More

WeGov

Chinese Social Media App Poses a Threat to Activists and Authorities Alike

BY Julia Wetherell | Thursday, December 13 2012

Image from WeChat app homepage

The most popular new social media app in China is raising suspicions over its geolocational abilities. WeChat, a phone app that combines the functions of Skype, Twitter, and Facebook with the power to locate nearby users, has ousted traditional texting as a contact method for many young people in China. But as the Guardian reported last week, a technology that tracks its users’ movements can be dangerous: Read More

Pope Benedict iOS

BY Julia Wetherell | Wednesday, December 12 2012

Pope Benedict XVI's Twitter avatar.

Two weeks after the Vatican announced that the Pope would be joining Twitter, Benedict XVI sent his first message to 1.3 million followers in eight different languages Twitter accounts earlier today. Read More

WeGov

D.C.-based NGO Asks the Crowd to Map an Israel-Palestine Border

BY Lisa Goldman | Monday, December 10 2012

Screenshot from Is Peace Possible.

A Washington, D.C.-based NGO has launched a interactive map called Is Peace Possible that seeks suggestions for a border between Israel and the West Bank via crowdsourcing. Read More

WeGov

After 3-Day Internet Shutdown, Syria's Regime is Now Targeting Activists with Powerful New Malware

BY Lisa Goldman | Thursday, December 6 2012

When the Syrian Internet system was cut off last week, observers feared the regime had cut the civilian population off for good so that the army could do its worst without having to worry about activists filming massacres and uploading the footage to YouTube. In fact the Internet was restored after three days. But now the regime is using powerful new malware to target activists. Read More

WeGov

Phone Apps for Toilets: Hackathon Mobilizes Techies for Hygiene Solutions

BY Lisa Goldman | Thursday, December 6 2012

Last weekend the International Sanitation Hackathon took place simultaneously in 40 cities across the globe, from Vancouver to Jakarta and Helsinki to Porto Alegre. The World Bank-organized event brought together development workers and techies to brainstorm solutions to a problem that confounds the developing world — poor sanitation and waste disposal, which causes disease and raises mortality rates. Read More

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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.

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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.

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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

wednesday >

White House Innovation Fellows Project Spins Off Into A Business

Clay Johnson and Adam Becker joined the Presidential Innovation Fellows program to help the White House fix the way government does business. Now they're turning that mission into a business themselves. GO

Fighting Fires With Data, New York City Launches New Safety Inspection System

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today that New York City has implemented city-wide a new risk based inspection system focused on fire safety that is driven by analytics from multiple city agencies. GO

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