Google Admits Street View Project Violated Privacy

By David Streitfeld, NYT Technology, March 12, 2013

Google on Tuesday acknowledged to state officials that it had violated people’s privacy during its Street View mapping project when it casually scooped up passwords, e-mail and other personal information from unsuspecting computer users. In agreeing to settle a case brought by 38 states involving the project, the search company for the first time is required to aggressively police its own employees on privacy issues and to explicitly tell the public how to fend off privacy violations like this one.

For full text of the article, visit Google Admits Street View Project Violated Privacy – NYTimes.com.

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Study questions Twitter’s role in disaster aftermath

by Maria Elena Hurtado, SciDev.net, June 5, 2012

A study has cast doubt on the innovative role that some claim Twitter, the ‘microblogging’ social media tool, can play in generating new information during disasters, although it did find that ‘tweets’ speed up the exchange of existing information. An analysis of tweets sent by people in the United States following the emergency at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant found that most linked to traditional news outlets, such as the New York Times and CNN, for updates. “Since tweeters clearly did not have the expertise [on radiation] nor could they find others on Twitter or in the blogosphere who did, they relied on traditional news media,” study author Andrew Binder, at the department of communication at North Carolina State University, United States, told SciDev.Net. The paper, to be published in the June edition of Environmental Communication, shows changes in the quantity and content of 2,359 tweets from the United States on the nuclear emergency in the two weeks after 11 March 2011, when the disaster was first reported. …

For full text of this news article, visit Study questions Twitter’s role in disaster aftermath – SciDev.Net.

Link to abstract in Environmental Communication
Link to abstract in International Journal of Web Based Communities
Link to paper by Mendoza and colleagues [3.99MB]

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FCC’s Google Case Leaves Unanswered Questions

by David Streitfeld and Edward Wyatt,  New York Times, April 15, 2012

One of the most audacious projects ever to come out of Google was the plan to photograph and map the inhabited world, one block at a time. … The Federal Communications Commission censured Google for obstructing an inquiry into the Street View project, which had collected Internet communications from potentially millions of unknowing households as specially equipped cars drove slowly by. But the investigation, described in an interim report, was left unresolved because a critical participant, the Google engineer in charge of the project, cited his Fifth Amendment right and declined to talk. …

For the full text of the article, visit F.C.C.’s Google Case Leaves Unanswered Questions – NYTimes.com.

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The Use of Drones for Nonviolent Civil Resistance

Follow-up op-ed by Patrick Meier, iRevolution Blog, February 18, 2012

In my [Patrick Meier's] previous blog post on the use of drones for human rights, I also advocated for the use of drones to support nonviolent civil resistance efforts. Obviously, like the use of any technology in such contexts, doing so presents both new opportunities and obvious dangers. In this blog post, I consider the use of DIY drones in the context of civil resistance, both vis-a-vis theory and practice. While I’ve read the civil resistance literature rather widely for my dissertation, I decided to get input from two of the world’s leading experts on the topic. …

For full text of this article, visit The Use of Drones for Nonviolent Civil Resistance | iRevolution.

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Drones for Human Rights: Brilliant or Foolish? (Updated)

By Patrick Meier, iRevolution Blog, on February 10, 2012

My [Patrick Meier's] colleague Mark Hanis recently co-authored this Op-Ed in the New York Times advocating for the use of drones in human rights monitoring, particularly in Syria. The Op-Ed has provoked quite the debate on a number of list-serves like CrisisMappers, and several blog posts have been published on the question. I’ve long been interested this topic, which is why I included a section on drones in this official UN Foundation Report on “New Technologies in Emergen-cies and Conflicts: The Role of Information and Social Networks.” I also blogged about the World Food Program’s (WFP) use of drones some four years ago. …

For full text of Patrick Meier’s op-ed, visit Drones for Human Rights: Brilliant or Foolish? (Updated) | iRevolution.

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Drones for Human Rights

Op-ed by Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Mark Hainis, NYT, January 30, 2012

DRONES are not just for firing missiles in Pakistan. In Iraq, the State Department is using them to watch for threats to Americans. It’s time we used the revolution in military affairs to serve human rights advocacy. With drones, we could take clear pictures and videos of human rights abuses, and we could start with Syria. The need there is even more urgent now, because the Arab League’s observers suspended operations last week. …

For full text of the op-ed, visit Drones for Human Rights – NYTimes.com.

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Drones May Set Off a Flurry of Lawsuits

by Somini Sengupta, Bits, NYT, February 20, 2012

Opening up the skies to the civilian use of drones in the United States is likely to lead to a number of new questions about surveillance by electronic means. Unmanned aerial vehicles can not only take photos and videos, they can also spot heat sources, read car license plate numbers, and perhaps soon capture other information about people and things down below.

For full text of article, visit Drones May Set Off a Flurry of Lawsuits – NYTimes.com.

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FCC Bars the Use of Airwaves for LightSquared Broadband Plan

By Edward Wyatt, NYT, February 14, 2012

A proposed wireless broadband network that would provide voice and Internet service using airwaves once reserved for satellite-telephone transmissions should be shelved because it interferes with GPS technology, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday. The F.C.C. statement revokes the conditional approval for the network given last year. It comes after an opinion by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which said that “there is no practical way to mitigate the potential interference at this time” with GPS devices. The telecommunications and information agency oversees telecommunications policy at the Commerce Department. …

For full text of the article, visit F.C.C. Bars the Use of Airwaves for a Broadband Plan – NYTimes.com.

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Department of Homeland Security Contractor Monitored Social Networking Sites

Federal Contractor Monitored Social Network Sites, By Charlie Savage, New York Times,  January 13, 2012

The Department of Homeland Security paid a contractor in 2009 to monitor social networking sites — like Facebook, blogs and reader comments on a news article — to see how the residents of Standish, Mich., were reacting to a proposal to move detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to a local prison there, according to newly disclosed documents. While it has long been known that the department monitors the Internet for information about emerging threats to public safety like a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, the documents show that its Social Networking/Media Capability program, at least in an early stage, was also focused on “public reaction to major governmental proposals with homeland security implications.” A department official said Friday that the social network monitoring program did not produce reports about public opinion, but instead focused exclusively on monitoring crises like hazardous material spills, shooting incidents and natural disasters. …

For full text of this article, Federal Contractor Monitored Social Network Sites – NYTimes.com.

How can DHS effectively use social media for rapid situational awareness to improve crisis response, while at the same time minimize the potential impact on privacy and first amendment rights? What do you think is the appropriate balance?

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Occupy Wall Street and Hackathons Produce Digital Tools and New Activitists

by Sarah Kessler Mashable, October 19, 2011

Groups of programmers gathered in three cities this weekend to build digital tools for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Several of those tools have already launched, and in many cases they’re being maintained by activists who’ve never held a sign in a park. “I was waiting to see how I should be involved,” says Jake Levitas, who attended the San Francisco hackathon.  … When he found out about the hackathon through Facebook, he knew how he wanted to participate. Levitas, working with a small team at the event, started a design library called OccupyDesign. … For full text of the Mashable article, click here.

The Power of Place by Timothy Zick, Concurring Opinions, October 16, 2011

Michael Kimmelman, the architecture critic for The New York Times, has an interesting piece in this morning’s Sunday Review about the manner in which the Wall Street protesters are using and creating public space.  The piece picks up many of the themes examined in Speech Out of Doors — the connection between medium and message; the human and social connections people have to actual places; the role of technology in mass public demonstrations; the solidarity and communicative values associated with public places; and the manner in which public places are inscribed with messages and memories. For full text of the NYT article, click on In Protest the Power of Place. For Tim’s book, click on Speech Out of Doors.

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