Every day that we learn more about various countries’ data surveillance programs, one point keeps coming up: national data surveillance seems to have few privacy boundaries that the law has effectively protected. In a new essay that I just posted on “The Data Surveillance State in the United States and Europe,” I take a look […]
Local Expertise is Exceedingly Valuable- Principle #7 for Fostering Civic Engagement Through Digital Technologies
November 4, 2013 by
One of the most rewarding and enjoyable aspects of my research has been my series of conversations with innovators in civic engagement in various cities across the country. These conversations have been enlightening for me as I think about how Washington, DC can maximize its natural advantages to foster civic engagement in its neighborhoods. The […]
The 2008 Liberty Case: An Authoritive Ruling on Snowden's Disclosures
October 30, 2013 by
The other day, I was re-reading the 2008 Liberty vs. The United Kingdom ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECHR’). The case reads like any BREAKING / REVEALED news report on Edward Snowden’s disclosures, and will play a crucial role in the currently pending court cases in Europe on the legality of the […]
When an Ethnographer met Edward Snowden
October 18, 2013 by
If you talk about ‘metadata’, ‘big data’ and ‘Big Brother’ just as easily as you order a pizza, ethnography and anthropology are probably not your first points of reference. But the outcome of a recent encounter of ethnographer Tom Boellstorff and Edward Snowden (not IRL but IRP), is that tech policy wonks and researchers should […]
U.S. Citizenship and N.S.A. Surveillance – Legal Safeguard or Practical Backdoor?
October 15, 2013 by
The main takeaway of two recent disclosures around N.S.A. surveillance practices, is that Americans must re-think ‘U.S. citizenship’ as the guiding legal principle to protect against untargeted surveillance of their communications. Currently, U.S. citizens may get some comfort through the usual political discourse that ‘ordinary Americans’ are protected, and this is all about foreigners. In […]
