democracy

See the following -

Google Reports Spike in Government Requests for Online Data

Josh Smith | NextGov | October 26, 2011

The 25th anniversary of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act on Friday prompted a range of tech companies to call for new rules to guide how the U.S. government gains access to personal information online, and lawmakers in Congress have vowed to revise the law by the end of the year. Read More »

Google Transparency Report Shows Rising Trend Of Government Surveillance

Katitza Rodriguez and Rebecca Bowe | Electronic Frontier Foundation | November 15, 2012

Each year, Google receives thousands of demands from governments around the world seeking information about its users. People who use any of the search engine giant’s free online services – such as Gmail, YouTube, Google+ or Blogger – leave digital footprints behind, and information relating to their accounts is increasingly sought out by law enforcement agencies. [...] Read More »

How Andrew Krzmarzick Uses Open Source To Empower Citizens In Government

As the Community Manager of GovLoop—a highly active online community connecting more than 50,000 public sector professionals, including Federal CTO Todd Park—Andrew Krzmarzick suspects his role is pretty similar to leading an open source project. The open source way guides the company's decisions, communications, and interactions. And open source solutions enable them to empower citizens around the country (and the world!) who don't want to wait for their cities to make updates to a page or build apps and resources that makes their lives easier. Read More »

How the Shutdown Is Devastating Biomedical Scientists And Killing Their Research

Brandon Keim | Wired | October 3, 2013

The federal shutdown’s effects on science and medicine are many. There’s halted food safety inspections, kids with cancer who won’t be able to join clinical drug trials, and suspension of disease outbreak monitoring. Conservation studies have been thrown into disarray and at least one NASA Mars mission is at risk of being delayed for years. Read More »

If Open Data Is The New Oil Are Primary Healthcare Organisations The Oil Pumps Of Our Townships?

Mark Herringer | Konekta | March 18, 2013

We are living in a new world. This world is driven by connection to one another and data that we generate. As a result we have opportunities to collaborate and find innovative solutions to long standing challenges. A key ingredient to this collaboration is open data. [...] Read More »

Is Roz Diane Lasker, MD on Your Radar Screen?

Max Hardy | GovLoop | July 4, 2012

This resource-rich post comes from NCDD member Max Hardy,
 Director of Twyfords
 — a prominent consultancy that works throughout Australia and New Zealand.  Max is co-author of the just-published book The Power of Co: The Smart Leaders’ Guide to Collaborative Governance.  Is Roz on your radar screen? Read More »

James Risen's Risk Of Prison Means Journalism Is Being Criminalised

Lindsey Bever | The Guardian | August 10, 2013

That a New York Times national security reporter may be jailed for refusing to name a source is a total affront to press freedom Read More »

Larry Ellison, NSA Database Supplier, Approves Of NSA Surveillance

Philip Bump | The Atlantic Wire | August 13, 2013

Larry Ellison is exceedingly rich and powerful. He is the third-most-wealthy person in the United States and runs Oracle, the database giant. And yet somehow, as he revealed during an interview on CBS Tuesday morning, he is hopelessly uninformed on the ramifications of NSA surveillance. Or, perhaps willfully uninformed. After all, the NSA is an Oracle client, which CBS didn't mention. Read More »

MAVC: Open For Business

Daudi Were | Ushahidi | October 10, 2013

Making All Voices Count (MAVC) is a global initiative that supports innovation, scaling-up, and research to deepen existing innovations and help harness new technologies to enable citizen engagement and government responsiveness. This Grand Challenge focuses global attention on creative and cutting-edge solutions [...] to ensure the voices of all citizens are heard and that governments have the capacity, as well as the incentive, to listen and respond. Read More »

Obama: Technology Will Make Health Insurance Transparent

Meghan Foley | Wall St. Cheat Sheet | July 9, 2013

President Barack Obama signed an executive order in May that made all federal data freely accessible in a form that can be used by software developers, which has come to be known as “machine-readable format.” [...] Read More »

Open Knowledge And Data Festival: Data Journalism And Visualization Session

Anahi Ayala Iacucci | Internews | September 20, 2012

Let us be honest: the Data Journalism and Visualization session at the Open Knowledge and Data Festival was aimed at an elite audience. Read More »

President Obama’s Tech Gurus Are Coming To TechCrunch Disrupt

Gregory Ferenstein | TechCrunch | May 9, 2012

We’re thrilled to announce that two of President Obama’s technology gurus, Todd Park, the US Chief Technology Officer, and Steven VanRoekel, its Chief Information Officer, will be joining us on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC on Wednesday, May 23... Read More »

Re:Publica Conference On Internet And Society In Berlin

Loren Treisman | Indigo Trust | May 17, 2013

After almost 2 month’s in West Africa, I flew straight into Berlin for the Re:publica Conference, one of the world’s leading gatherings of techies and social activists, exploring how technology can help improve society across a huge range of themes. Read More »

Senate Panel Approves Internet Freedom Resolution

Josh Smith | Nextgov | September 20, 2012

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution calling on the United States to prevent the United Nations from having a greater role in governing the Internet. Read More »

Senator Assails Court’s Decision on Montana Campaign Contributions

Jonathan Weisman | New York Times | June 25, 2012

Jon Tester, Montana’s buzz-cut farmer-senator, reacted angrily on Monday to the Supreme Court’s summary dismissal of his state’s 100-year-old ban on corporate campaign contributions, calling it another blow to democracy. Read More »