POLITICS
SITES
ARTICLES
Activists Use Computers in Protests
Protesters against various governments and corporate power are increasingly using high-tech gadgets to record police brutality, coordinate protests, and keep in touch. (1/18/2001 at Las Vegas Sun)
Amateur Newsies Top the Pros
Eyewitness accounts of the WTC and Pentagon attacks, as well as a diverse range of opinions, make amateur websites better places to go for information on the terrorist attacks of 9/11. (9/15/2001 at Wired News)
Anti-Attack Feds Push Carnivore
Within hours of the plane crashes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the FBI had visited numerous ISPs, asking to add Carnivore machines to their networks to monitor traffic. (9/12/2001 at Wired News)
As Public Records Go Online, Some Say They're Too Public
Privacy advocates are concerned about websites that publish public information like criminals' and witnesses' addresses, voter registration information, etc. - information previously protected by "practical obscurity." (8/24/2001 at The New York Times)
Bush Budget Likely to Rein In High-Tech
President Bush's proposed $2 trillion budget for 2002 has been released; it includes expanded funding for an e-government program, the end of the e-rate program (a subsidy for Net connections in schools and libraries), and less high-tech research. (2/28/2001 at The Industry Standard)
Bush: $55Mil Donated to Recovery Effort Over The Web
Over $55 million has been donated online to help with relief efforts in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. (9/18/2001 at NewsBytes)
Businesses Turn to Videoconferencing
Demand for tele-conferencing facilities and technology jumped in the wake of the WTC and Pentagon attacks, as people unable to travel sought to conduct business or contact loved ones. (9/17/2001 at ZDNet)
Candidate: Spam in Every Pot
Bill Jones, running for governor of Calfornia, sent unsolicited email to potential voters asking for their votes; the problem is, the company he hired forged the email headers, sent the mail through foreign servers, and mistook Canada for California. (3/1/2002 at Wired News)
Congressional Audit Takes IRS to Task
A General Accounting Office (GAO) audit indicates that in 2000, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) left their computers, and taxpayers' returns and personal information, unguarded against hackers. (3/16/2001 at ZDNet)
Create Your Own World on the Internet - and Democracy Crumbles
In his book Republic.com, Cass Sunstein warns against the Internet's power to let citizens build their own "echo chambers," in which they can isolate themselves from viewpoints they don't agree with, and solidify their own prejudices. (3/15/2001 at The Christian Science Monitor)
Elections 2000: The Net Was an Also-Ran
The Internet played host to a Nader vote-trading site and provided quick, extensive funding for John McCain; but it did not have the great effect on this year's presidential campaign that many predicted. (12/26/2000 at ZDNet)
Finding Disaster Coverage At Search Engines
An analysis of how well search engines and portals provided news and links related to the WTC and Pentagon attacks, hours after they occurred. (9/11/2001 at Search Engine Watch)
Gore/Bush: Web Tells Who's Fibbing
News, candidate, and political websites are providing both realtime and after-the-fact spins on the 2000 U.S. presidential debates, as well as fact-checking the candidates. (10/6/2000 at ZDNet)
Gov Sites Get It Together
Many state governments are improving their websites, making them more useful to citizens by taking lessons from corporate websites. (1/17/2001 at Wired News)
Government Web Sites Are for the People Not Incumbent Office-Holders
A columnist calls for government websites to provide useful information to citizens, not political aggrandizement for office-holders. (10/24/2002 at SF Gate)
Growing Number of Internet Scams Mar Relief Efforts
A number of scams related to the WTC and Pentagon bombings are appearing online; in some cases, con artists spam people with requests for donations to the Red Cross, but keep the donated money themselves. (9/13/2001 at InternetNews.com)
Guns, Money and Cell Phones
The worldwide demand for coltan is helping fuel violence in the Congo. (6/11/2001 at The Industry Standard)
Hacktivists Target Trade Summit
An "electrohippies collective" plans to protest "free trade" negotiations at the Summit of the Americas by overloading the summit's website and starting a letter campaign. (4/20/2001 at Wired News)
High-Tech Leaders to Lobby as They Two-Step in D.C.
Technology industry leaders from California, not used to the Washington, DC lobbying scene, will join the inaugural festivities to socialize and promote tech-biz-friendly policy. (1/18/2001 at Mercury Center)
Intelligence Data Pulled From Websites
Many U.S. government websites, as well as private websites, are pulling sensitive information (about chemical plants' emergency response plans, maps of military installations, etc.) from the Internet for fear of helping terrorists. (10/5/2001 at BBC News)
Interior Dept. Sites Still Down
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth has ordered the U.S. Department of the Interior's Internet access shut down, because lax security allows hackers to infiltrate department systems and alter Indian Trust financial records at will.
(12/10/2001 at Wired News)
Internet Voting: A Web of Intrigue?
A study by the National Science Foundation (NSF), initiated in December 1999, says that the risks of allowing citizens to vote over the Internet from their homes and offices is too great; but voting from controlled and monitored areas could work well. (3/7/2001 at The Washington Post)
IRS' Internet Review Worries Groups
The IRS is taking comments on how rules on lobbying by tax-exempt organizations (which are, essentially, barred from lobbying) should be applied online. Do links to external websites that take political positions consist of lobbying? (12/26/2000 at Mercury Center)
New Role for the Supreme Court's Web Site
Departing from previous practice, the U.S. Supreme Court is posting copious information on the Florida election case it reviewing to its website; and in a timely manner. (12/1/2000 at The New York Times)
Privacy, Net Tax Lead Congress' Agenda
In 2001, the new Congress will confront privacy, Net taxation, and export controls. (1/18/2001 at ZDNet)
Senator Calls for National IT Guard
Senator Ron Wyden, at the suggestion of Andrew Rasiej, CEO of New York's Digital Club Network, is proposing the creation of a National Emergency Technology Guard - NET Guard, made up of trained tech-savvy volunteers. (9/27/2001 at @NY)
Special EPIC Alert
A series of quotes from U.S. politicians urging that civil liberties not be curtailed due to Americans' desire for safety. (9/17/2001 at Electronic Privacy Information Center)
Tech Community Stunned by Loss of Friends
A number of executives and workers from the tech industry, including people from Compaq, Akamai, Sun, and other companies, died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. (9/14/2001 at InfoWorld)
Terrorism's Toll: Attacks Promise Wide Impact on Tech Sector
Experts expect consumers and investors to spend less money on goods - including technological ones - after the terrorist attacks on the WTC and Pentagon; but demand for teleconferencing and other communications services may increase. (9/17/2001 at NewsFactor)
Terrorists' Online Methods Elusive
U.S. federal officials, believing that Osama bin Laden and his associates are using encryption and steganography to communicate over the Internet undetected, are calling on Internet encryption experts to be ready to help investigations. (9/18/2001 at The Washington Post)
Total Info System Totally Touchy
"Critics say looking for terrorists by rooting around in private, commercial databases of Americans' personal information violates the Fourth Amendment -- not to mention citizens' privacy. Some ... even refuse to work on the project on ethical grounds." (12/2/2002 at Wired News)
U.S. Government Uses P-to-P to Share Data
Using what they call peer-to-peer technology, 70 U.S. government agencies will provide "fast access to facts and figures" through a portal called www.fedstats.gov. (4/20/2001 at InfoWorld)
UK Govt Shuts E-Govt Portal
The British government plans to shut down open.gov.uk in July, saying its functionality is duplicated at UK Online. (4/20/2001 at The Register)
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