Category «Freedom of Information»

Mastodon and the pros and cons of moving beyond Big Tech gatekeepers

Ars Technica: “As Elon Musk’s Category 5 tweetstorm continues, the once-obscure Mastodon social network has been gaining over 1,000 new refugees per hour, every hour, bringing its user count to about eight million. Joining as a user is pretty easy. More than enough ex-Twitterers are happy finding a Mastodon instance via joinmastodon.org, getting a list …

Subjects: Education, Financial System, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Social Media

America’s culture warriors are going after librarians

.coda: “…It’s a tale playing out in cities and states across the country, as a book-banning fever courses through the country’s body politic. Nationally, attempts to remove books from school and public libraries are shattering previous records. The effort is being driven by a loose collection of local and national conservative parents’ groups and politicians …

Subjects: Censorship, Education, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Libraries

Fifth U.S. Open Government National Action Plan

USAGov via White House: “The American people have strived for a more inclusive, accountable, transparent, and responsive government since our Nation’s founding. That spirit is embodied in key milestones across U.S. history, including expansions of the right to vote, broadening of basic civil rights protections to ensure dignity and equal treatment, improving protections for press …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Records, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management

No free PACER as U.S. lawmakers exclude proposal from spending bill

Reuters: “U.S. lawmakers have left a proposal to make the federal judiciary’s PACER online court records system free out of a sprawling, $1.66 trillion spending measure unveiled on Tuesday, a setback for advocates as the current Congress nears its end. Supporters of the Open Courts Act had been pushing to get the stalled, bipartisan legislation …

Subjects: Courts, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research, Legislation

JFK Assassination Records – 2022 Additional Documents Release

“The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is processing previously withheld John F. Kennedy assassination-related records to comply with President Joe Biden’s Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on the Temporary Certification Regarding Disclosure of Information in Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, requiring disclosure of releasable …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

Here’s When You Should Use Tor Instead of a VPN

How-To-Geek: “If you’ve been looking into the different ways to browse anonymously, two terms will come up regularly: VPNs and Tor. However, when you compare these two, you’ll quickly see that they have very different use cases. To figure out when you should use Tor rather than a VPN, let’s first go over how they …

Subjects: Censorship, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines

Tracking Social Media Bans

Center for Data Innovation: “Researchers at Surfshark, a cybersecurity company based in the Netherlands, have created a dataset tracking governments that have imposed restrictions on Internet service or social media companies from 2015 to the present. For each restriction, the dataset contains the dates, duration, affected population, available context, and notes on the restricted platforms …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

‘Our mission is crucial’: meet the warrior librarians of Ukraine

The Guardian – “When Russia invaded Ukraine, a key part of its strategy was to destroy historic libraries in order to eradicate the Ukrainians’ sense of identity. But Putin hadn’t counted on the unbreakable spirit of the country’s librarians… The battles of the 21st century are hybrid wars fought on any and all fronts: military, …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Education, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries

The Uncensored Library

The Uncensored Library: “In many countries, websites, social media and blogs are controlled by oppressive leaders. Young people, in particular, are forced to grow up in systems where their opinion is heavily manipulated by governmental disinformation campaigns. But even where almost all media is blocked or controlled, the world’s most successful computer game is still …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Legal Research, Libraries

Redacted Documents Are Not as Secure as You Think

Wired: “Popular redaction tools don’t always work as promised, and new attacks can reveal hidden information, researchers say. For years, if you wanted to protect sensitive text in a document, you could grab a pair of scissors or a scalpel and cut out the information. If this didn’t work, a chunky black marker pen would …

Subjects: Congress, Courts, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Department of Energy computer systems target of relentless cyberattacks

“Cyber attackers successfully compromised the security of U.S. Department of Energy computer systems more than 150 times between 2010 and 2014, according to a review of federal records obtained by USA TODAY. Incident reports submitted by federal officials and contractors since late 2010 to the Energy Department’s Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center shows a near-consistent barrage …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Energy, Freedom of Information, Government Documents

Internet Archives – We have added a Mastodon Server

“The Internet Archive has recently set up its own Mastodon server– a federated/decentralized open source social media package– that has garnered lots of attention lately.We use it in ways that we use twitter now (we are not leaving twitter): • @[email protected] for events, announcements, and fun things • Staff accounts (e.g. my account @[email protected]) for, …

Subjects: Energy, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management