September 2012

Department of Defense Reviewing Release of Sensitive Info to Media

In response to an inquiry from Rep Peter King (R-NY), the Department of Defense's Inspector General is expanding its review of how the department "interacts with the media" when it comes to the handling of sensitive or classified information, and how that information is released.

Rep King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, saw it as vindication of his concerns about that collaboration. "I commend the Department of Defense Inspector General for taking so seriously the concerns I raised beginning last year about the Obama Administration's extremely close, unprecedented, and potentially dangerous collaboration with these Hollywood filmmakers working on this election-year film."

Obama Cabinet Flunks Disclosure Test With 19 in 20 Ignoring Law

On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama ordered federal officials to “usher in a new era of open government” and “act promptly” to make information public. As Obama nears the end of his term, his administration hasn’t met those goals, failing to follow the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.

Nineteen of 20 cabinet-level agencies disobeyed the law requiring the disclosure of public information: The cost of travel by top officials. In all, just eight of the 57 federal agencies met Bloomberg’s request for those documents within the 20-day window required by the Act. The Bloomberg survey was designed in part to gauge the timeliness of responses, which Attorney General Eric Holder called “an essential component of transparency” in a March 2009 memo. About half of the 57 agencies eventually disclosed the out-of-town travel expenses generated by their top official by Sept. 14, most of them well past the legal deadline.

Private eyes: Lessons from the rent-to-own webcam cases

The charges outlined in the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuits against a software business and seven rent-to-own companies are surprising — and OK, some might say a little creepy. Software on rented computers gave the companies the ability to hit the kill switch if people were behind on their payments. But according to the complaints, it also let them collect sensitive personal information, grab screen shots, and take webcam photos of people in their homes. We hope no one else has cameras secretly poised on their customers. (Although if you do, cut it out right now. Really.) But the proposed settlements in the rent-to-own cases offer thought-provoking discussion fodder when evaluating your company’s policies and practices. Here’s some advice on: Check-up from the tech up. (Geo) location, location, location. To be or B2B. That is the question. Desperate times call for sensible measures. Just because the technology can doesn’t always mean the business should.

California universities to produce 50 open-source textbooks

Gov Jerry Brown (D-CA) gave his pen a workout. In addition to signing legislation prohibiting social network snooping by employers and colleges, he also signed off on a proposal for the state to fund 50 open source digital textbooks.

He signed two bills, one to create the textbooks and the other to establish a California Digital Open Source Library to host them, at a meeting with students in Sacramento. The law "require(s) the California Open Education Resources Council to determine a list of 50 lower division courses in the public postsecondary segments for which high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials would be developed or acquired." The council is to solicit bids to produce these textbooks in 2013. The law makes clear that the council has the option to use "existing high-quality digital open source textbooks and related materials" if those materials fit the requirements. The law specifies that the textbooks must be placed under a Creative Commons license, allowing professors at universities outside of California to use the textbooks in their own classrooms. The textbooks must be encoded in XML, or "other appropriate successor format," to facilitate re-use of the materials.

FTC Defends W3C's Do-Not-Track Initiative To Congress

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz told Congress that the agency supports the efforts of the standards group World Wide Web Consortium, which is developing voluntary guidelines for a do-not-track system.

"The Commission has repeatedly and forcefully called for industry -- not government -- to implement a Do Not Track mechanism that would allow consumers to decide whether to have their online activity ... collected," Chairman Leibowitz said in the letter to Congress. "The standard-setting work of the W3C, which includes a number of (Digital Advertising Alliance) members, is another important means for giving consumers greater control over the tracking of their online activities." He sent the letter in response to a request for information by Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and seven other Republican House members. They wrote to Chairman Leibowitz, asking about the FTC's role in the W3C's do-not-track initiative.

Sec Napolitano: Cyber Exec Order Under review

An interagency review of an executive order implementing new cybersecurity policies affecting both federal agencies and critical infrastructure in the private sector is under way, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

But she said she could not provide a timetable as to when the order would be issued. Sec Napolitano said such an order would be inherently limited. Only legislation can provide liability protection for companies who share sensitive information, she said, and give the Homeland Security Department relief from standard civil service requirements as it seeks to build its cybersecurity workforce. Federal agencies, Sec Napolitano said, need to work more effectively with the private sector in two key areas: real time information sharing and wider adoption of cyber best practices.

Additionally, Sec Napolitano said she doesn't use e-mail.

How Social and Traditional Media Differ in Treatment of Conventions and Beyond

As the candidates for president reintroduced themselves at their conventions and began the last phase of the campaign, they received markedly different treatment in social media than in the mainstream press, a new study finds.

The conversation on Twitter, blogs and Facebook about Mitt Romney and Barack Obama during this key period changed little with events -- even during the two candidates' own nominating conventions. The conversation in all of these platforms was also consistently negative, according to the study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. In the mainstream media, by contrast, both Romney and Obama received a version of the traditional convention bounce, with coverage about them becoming more positive during the week of their party's nationally televised gathering. The media portrait of this key month in the campaign is consistent with what PEJ has seen in social media throughout the campaign. Whether it would prove true in other campaigns cannot be known. But the differences raise a question about whether social media may make what Americans hear about politics more negative and may make it harder for political actors, particularly those trailing in the polls, to alter the media narrative.

Lofgren’s Task Force on the Global Internet

[Commentary] There has been a flurry of activity around Internet freedom recently. Not only have both parties included it in their platform, but Rep. Zoe Lofgren has taken an affirmative step in its favor by proposing the Global Free Internet Act of 2012, H.R. 6530. The newly proposed bill does not directly change substantive law. Rather, it creates a group whose job would be to tackle Internet freedom on a national and international level, and could potentially do something about regimes around the world that lack openness -- including, potentially, our own.

Shoddy TV science coverage

It’s been a bad week and a half for coverage of science on television. Stories about cancer at CNN and climate change at PBS NewsHour offered lessons in what not to do when chasing or promoting a scoop. Thankfully, critics quickly took the stations to school. Here’s what they taught them.

So, How Are We Doing?

[Commentary] What with Yom Kippur, some major addresses at the United Nations and, oh yeah, a presidential election in full bloom this week, you’re excused if you missed a major address on U.S. broadband policy. On September 25, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski visited the Washington (DC) headquarters of VOX Media to both recognize, once again, that broadband – high-speed Internet, wired and wireless – is transforming our economy and the way we live for the better – and to warn that significant challenges lie ahead in the global bandwidth race.

Benton

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