The future of government isn’t just created, it’s co-created
The British Government has launched GOV.UK, a new website that is designed to be the single place online for access to wide-ranging information and other content about government services available to citizens.
Twitter announced early Thursday morning that Wednesday night’s presidential debate in Denver was the most tweeted-about event in U.S. politics. There were over 10 million tweets during the debate, according to the company.
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The government of Afghanistan has blocked YouTube following violent protests in Egypt and the killing of an American diplomat in Libya.
“We have been told to shut down YouTube to the Afghan public until the video is taken down,” said Aimal Marjan, general director of Information Technology at the Ministry of Communications.
According to the report, Marjan would not go into any more detail concerning why YouTube has been blocked in the country – whether it was to prevent more violence or to simply prevent Afghan citizens from viewing the video.
The video in question is titled “Innocence of Muslims,” and depicts Mohammad as a philanderer and a fake prophet. The video was created by Sam Bacile, and Israeli-American who said that he made the film in order to draw attention to “hypocrisies” in the Islamic faith. The highly controversial video has sparked protests across the world, some of which have been violent.
The U.S. mission in Egypt was attacked earlier this week, as protesters violently stormed the walls of the compound. And in Libya, four people were killed when a mob fired rockets at the U.S. Consulate in anger over the video. One of the men killed was U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens.
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Wikileaks and Anonymous have been close for quite some time now. Many of the recent leaks that have come out of Wikileaks were obtained by members within Anonymous. With Julian Assange under fire at the Ecuadorian embassy, Anonymous have taken it upon themselves to back him up with their usual tactics.
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The United States House of Representatives passed a Concurrent Resolution aimed at preserving and advancing “the multistakeholder governance model under which the Internet has thrived.”
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2012 is shaping up to be the year of cyber legislation. After SOPA and PIPA were defeated early this year, all attention turned towards CISPA. Even though the Internet put forth a strong effort, the lack of support from major giants like Google or Wikipedia ensured its passing in the House. Whereas CISPA was passed without adding any amendments to protect consumer privacy, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 will be going up for debate tomorrow over any proposed amendments.
One of the major champions of Internet freedom, Sen. Ron Wyden, plans to introduce an amendment into the CSA tomorrow that would prevent warrantless GPS tracking. According to The Hill, Wyden feels it’s a natural fit with the CSA’s consumer protections:
“Because the law has not kept up with the pace of innovation, it makes sense to include the GPS Act’s requirement that law enforcement obtain a warrant for GPS tracking in the Cybersecurity Act. This will protect Americans’ location information from misuse. Part of the goal of the cybersecurity legislation is to update rules for information collection and privacy for the digital age, which is what the GPS Act is all about.”
Wyden’s amendment would be the latest privacy protection that has been introduced to the CSA. It would appear that the Senate is taking privacy concerns seriously as they debate and change the wording in their version of a cybersecurity bill. One such change is a clarification in the bill that only allows companies to share cybersecurity information with civilian agencies. CISPA puts this information in the hands of the NSA, a military agency.
After the debate process, the CSA will be going up for a vote before the Senate leaves for its August recess. If we’re lucky, all the privacy protections will be retained. There will definitely be some skepticism in regards to the proceedings after CISPA was up for debate, but was instead pushed for an impromptu vote without allowing any amendments to be considered.
We’ll keep you up to date on any changes that CSA may face. It’s the cybersecurity bill favored by President Obama so it may be the one that gets through.
The internet is still rejoicing after last week’s win over ACTA. The European Parliament overwhelmingly voted down the treaty which effectively kills it for the time being. It will be back later, but the Internet can celebrate another win for now. While our friends in Europe our celebrating, the U.S. must still be on the offensive in regards to the ever elusive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Read More…
As expected for a security breach of this magnitude, a class action lawsuit has begun against LinkedIn regarding its recently leaked passwords. The action, which has been filed with the U.S. District Court in Northern California, claims LinkedIn failed to “properly safeguard its users’ digitally stored personally identifiable information, including e-mail addresses, passwords, and login credentials”. Read More…
Ross Levinsohn, interim CEO of Yahoo, is facing more than just the continuing patent struggle with Facebook in terms of lawsuits. According to TechCrunch, This week could see a decision in a case that has Levinsohn as the defendant. The case accuses Levinsohn and other investors of fraud, breach of Contract and 10 other accusations. Read More…
The Federal Trade Commission has drafted Paul Ohm, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School and a well-regarded expert on internet privacy, as a senior advisor on mobile privacy and competition issues. Ohm is slated to assume his new position on August 27 of this year.
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The animosity between Yahoo! and Facebook is picking up pace once again as Yahoo! adds two more infringement claims against Facebook taking the total to 12.
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