Archive for the ‘Government’ Category

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Timeline of NSA Domestic Spying [Too Narrow a Focus?]

Monday, June 17th, 2013

Timeline of NSA Domestic Spying

From the post:

All of the evidence found in this timeline can also be found in the Summary of Evidence we submitted to the court in Jewel v. NSA. It is intended to recall all the credible accounts and information of the NSA’s domestic spying program found in the media, congressional testimony, books, and court actions. For a short description of the people involved in the spying you can look at our Profiles page, which includes many of the key characters from the NSA Domestic Spying program.

A very interesting timeline with links to supporting materials.

The oldest entry is 1791, to mark the Bill of Rights, including the Fourth Amendment going into effect. The next oldest entry is 1952, when President Truman establishes the NSA.

While I understand and applaud all attempts to keep the heat on the NSA because of its widespread domestic spying, we should not lose sight of the fact that the NSA and it programs are only a symptom.

Domestic spying on Americans has a long and sordid history separate and apart the NSA.

I will run down the details for another post but in the early 20th century, the government broke into a corporation’s office, stole documents, which they then copied.

When forced to return the originals, for lack of a search warrant, the government proceeded to prosecute the defendants based on the copies.

How is that for overreaching?

The case had a happy result, at least from one point of view but I will cover that separately.

Press the NSA for all we are worth but realize the government as a whole has interests and goals that are not ours.

And that are not calculated to benefit anyone outside of present office holders and their favorites.

Posted in Government, NSA | No Comments »

G8 countries must work harder to open up essential data

Monday, June 17th, 2013

G8 countries must work harder to open up essential data by Rufus Pollock.

From the post:

Open data and transparency will be one of the three main topics at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland next week. Today transparency campaigners released preview results from the global Open Data Census showing that G8 countries still have a long way to go in releasing essential information as open data.

The Open Data Census is run by the Open Knowledge Foundation, with the help of a network of local data experts around the globe. It measures the openness of data in ten key areas including those essential for transparency and accountability (such as election results and government spending data), and those vital for providing critical services to citizens (such as maps and transport timetables). Full results for the 2013 Open Data Census will be released later this year.

open data

The preview results show that while both the UK and the US (who top the table of G8 countries) have made significant progress towards opening up key datasets, both countries still have work to do. Postcode data, which is required for almost all location-based applications and services, remains a major issue for all G8 countries except Germany. No G8 country scored the top mark for company registry data. Russia is the only G8 country not to have published any of the information included in the census as open data. The full results for G8 countries are online at: http://census.okfn.org/g8/

Apologies for the graphic, it is too small to read. See the original post for a more legible version.

The U.S. came in first with a score of 54 out of a possible 60.

I assume this evaluation was done prior the the revelation of the NSA data snooping?

The U.S. government has massive collections of data that not only isn’t visible, its existence is denied.

How is that for government transparency?

The most disappointing part is that other major players, China, Russia, you take your pick, has largely the small secret data as the United States. Probably not full sets of the day to day memos but the data that really counts, they all have.

So, who is it they are keeping information from?

Ah, that would be their citizens.

Who might not approve of their privileges, goals, tactics, and favoritism.

For example, despite the U.S. government’s disapproval/criticism of many other countries (or rather their governments), I can’t think of any reason for me to dislike unknown citizens of another country.

Whatever goals the U.S. government is pursuing in disadvantaging citizens of another country, it’s not on my behalf.

If the public knew who was benefiting from U.S. policy, perhaps new officials would change those policies.

But that isn’t the goal of the specter of government transparency that the United States leads.

Posted in Government, Government Data, NSA, Open Data | No Comments »

Abuse of Classification

Saturday, June 8th, 2013

Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks by Glenn Greenwald.

From the post:

Barack Obama has ordered his senior national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber-attacks, a top secret presidential directive obtained by the Guardian reveals.

The 18-page Presidential Policy Directive 20, issued in October last year but never published, states that what it calls Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) “can offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging”.

It says the government will “identify potential targets of national importance where OCEO can offer a favorable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power”.

The directive also contemplates the possible use of cyber actions inside the US, though it specifies that no such domestic operations can be conducted without the prior order of the president, except in cases of emergency.

I can’t post the document here so you will have to go there to read it.

Some things to keep in mind while you read directive.

First, these are the guys who have extensive military contracts with vendors who are routinely hacked by script kiddies. And then try to blame China because their contractors fail to take basic computer security seriously.

It’s like leaving your Porsche running while you go in for a hair cut. Who could have possibly prevented the car theft? Think real hard, you have ten (10) seconds.

Second, it looks like abuse of classification to me. Here’s the test: Give the URL to 10 people in your office and ask them to all summarize the same paragraph from the document. Not more than 20 word summary.

Check the results. This document would be safe alongside the SSN printed on the LifeLock trailer. I won’t say it means nothing at all but certainly nothing worth protecting.

Third, if a case can be made for classifying this document, is it on the basis of abuse of language?

That is it is so poorly drafted that if others mimic its style, the semantic content of government documents will be reduced generally?

Posted in Cybersecurity, Government, Security | No Comments »

Whose Afraid of the NSA?

Thursday, June 6th, 2013

To Catch a Cyber-Thief

From the post:

When local police came calling with child porn allegations last January, former Saint John city councillor Donnie Snook fled his house clutching a laptop. It was clear that the computer contained damning data. Six months later, police have finally gathered enough evidence to land him in jail for a long time to come.

With a case seemingly so cut and dry, why the lag time? Couldn’t the police do a simple search for the incriminating info and level charges ASAP? Easier said than done. With computing devices storing terrabytes of personal data, it can take months before enough evidence can be cobbled together from reams of documents, emails, chat logs and text messages.

That’s all about to change thanks to a new technique developed by researchers at Concordia University, who have slashed the data-crunching time. What once took months now takes minutes.

Gaby Dagher and Benjamin Fung, researchers with the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering, will soon publish their findings in Data & Knowledge Engineering. Law enforcement officers are already putting this research to work through Concordia’s partnership with Canada’s National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, in which law enforcement organizations, private companies, and academic institutions work together to share information to stop emerging cyber threats and mitigate existing ones.

Thanks to Dagher and Fung, crime investigators can now extract hidden knowledge from a large volume of text. The researchers’ new methods automatically identify the criminal topics discussed in the textual conversation, show which participants are most active with respect to the identified criminal topics, and then provide a visualization of the social networks among the participants.

Dagher, who is a PhD candidate supervised by Fung, explains “the huge increase in cybercrimes over the past decade boosted demand for special forensic tools that let investigators look for evidence on a suspect’s computer by analyzing stored text. Our new technique allows an investigator to cluster documents by producing overlapping groups, each corresponding to a specific subject defined by the investigator.”

Have you heard about clustering documents? Searching large volumes of text? Producing visualizations of social networks?

The threat of government snooping on its citizens should be evaluated on its demonstrated competence.

The FBI wants special backdoors (like it has for telecommunications) just to monitor IP traffic. (Going Bright… [Hack Shopping Mall?])

It would help the FBI if they had our secret PGP keys.

There a thought, maybe we should all generate new PGP keys and send the secret key for that key to the FBI.

They may not ever intercept any traffic encrypted with those keys but they can get funding from Congress to maintain an archive of them and to run them against all IP traffic.

The NSA probably has better chops when it comes to data collection but identity mining?

Identity mining is something completely different.

(See: The NSA Verizon Collection Coming on DVD)

Posted in Cypher, Government, Privacy, Security | No Comments »

The NSA Verizon Collection Coming on DVD

Thursday, June 6th, 2013

Don’t you wish! ;-)

Sadly U.S. citizens have to rely on the foreign press, NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily for minimal transparency of our own government.

According to the post:

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The order expires July 19, 2013. One response to get a Verizon account and setup a war games dialer to make 1-800 calls between now an July 19, 2013.

The other response is to think about the subject identity management issues with the Verizon data.

Bare Verizon Data

Let’s see, you get: numbers of both parties on a call, location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls.”

Not all that difficult to create networks of the calls based on the Verizon data but that doesn’t get you identity of the people making the calls.

Identifying Individuals

What about matching the phone numbers to the major credit bureaus?

Where the FTC found:

A Federal Trade Commission study of the U.S. credit reporting industry found that five percent of consumers had errors on one of their three major credit reports that could lead to them paying more for products such as auto loans and insurance.

Overall, the congressionally mandated study on credit report accuracy found that one in five consumers had an error on at least one of their three credit reports.

In FTC Study, Five Percent of Consumers Had Errors on Their Credit Reports That Could Result in Less Favorable Terms for Loans

Bear in mind that the sources in credit reports have their own methods for identifying individuals, which are not exposed through the credit bureaus.

As I recall, credit reports don’t include political or social activity.

Identifying Social Networks

Assuming some rough set of names, it might be possible to match those names against FaceBook and other social media sites. And then to map the relationship there back to the relationships in the original Verizon data.

The main problem being that every data set uses a different means to identify the same individuals and associations between individuals.

You and I may be friends on FaceBook, doing business together on LinkedIn and have cell phone conversations in the Verizon data, but the question will be mapping all of those together.

And remembering that all those systems are dynamic. Knowing my network of contacts six (6) weeks ago may or may not be useful now.

To be useful, the NSA will need to query along different identifications in different systems for the same person and have the results returned across all the systems.

Otherwise, Verizon will show a healthy profit after July 19, 2013 in fees for delivery electronic copies of data it already collects.

“Secret” court order was necessary to make the sale.

The NSA will have a data set just because it exists. “Big data” supports funding goals.

Verizon users? No less privacy than they had when only Verizon had the data.

Posted in Cybersecurity, Government, Privacy, Security | 1 Comment »

The Banality of ‘Don’t Be Evil’

Monday, June 3rd, 2013

The Banality of ‘Don’t Be Evil’ by Julian Assange.

From the post:

“THE New Digital Age” is a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of its leading witch doctors, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the 21st century. This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley, as personified by Mr. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, and Mr. Cohen, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton who is now director of Google Ideas.

The authors met in occupied Baghdad in 2009, when the book was conceived. Strolling among the ruins, the two became excited that consumer technology was transforming a society flattened by United States military occupation. They decided the tech industry could be a powerful agent of American foreign policy.

The book proselytizes the role of technology in reshaping the world’s people and nations into likenesses of the world’s dominant superpower, whether they want to be reshaped or not. The prose is terse, the argument confident and the wisdom — banal. But this isn’t a book designed to be read. It is a major declaration designed to foster alliances.

“The New Digital Age” is, beyond anything else, an attempt by Google to position itself as America’s geopolitical visionary — the one company that can answer the question “Where should America go?” It is not surprising that a respectable cast of the world’s most famous warmongers has been trotted out to give its stamp of approval to this enticement to Western soft power. The acknowledgments give pride of place to Henry Kissinger, who along with Tony Blair and the former C.I.A. director Michael Hayden provided advance praise for the book.

In the book the authors happily take up the white geek’s burden. A liberal sprinkling of convenient, hypothetical dark-skinned worthies appear: Congolese fisherwomen, graphic designers in Botswana, anticorruption activists in San Salvador and illiterate Masai cattle herders in the Serengeti are all obediently summoned to demonstrate the progressive properties of Google phones jacked into the informational supply chain of the Western empire.

(…)

I am less concerned with privacy and more concerned with the impact of technological imperialism.

I see no good coming from the infliction of Western TV and movies on other cultures.

Or in making local farmers part of the global agriculture market.

Or infecting Iraq with sterile wheat seeds.

Compared to those results, privacy is a luxury of the bourgeois who worry about such issues.

I first saw this at Chris Blattman’s Links I liked.

Posted in Government, Government Data, Privacy | No Comments »

CIA, Solicitation and Government Transparency

Monday, June 3rd, 2013

IBM battles Amazon over $600M CIA cloud deal by Frank Konkel, reports that IBM has protested a contract award for cloud computing by the CIA to Amazon.

The “new age” of government transparency looks a lot like the old age in that:

  • How Amazon obtained the award is not public.
  • The nature of the cloud to be built by Amazon is not public.
  • Whether Amazon has started construction on the proposed cloud is not public.
  • The basis for the protest by IBM is not public.

“Not public” means opportunities for incompetence in contract drafting and/or fraud by contractors.

How are members of the public or less well-heeled potential bidders suppose to participate in this discussion?

Or should I say “meaningfully participate” in the discussion over the cloud computing award to Amazon?

And what if others know the terms of the contract? CIA CTO Gus Hunt is reported as saying:

It is very nearly within our grasp to be able to compute on all human generated information,

If the proposed system is supposed to “compute on all human generated information,” so what?

How does knowing that aid any alleged enemies of the United States?

Other than the comfort that the U.S. makes bad technology decisions?

Keeping the content of such a system secret might disadvantage enemies of the U.S.

Keeping the contract for such a system secret disadvantages the public and other contractors.

Yes?

Posted in Government, Government Data, Transparency | No Comments »

White House Releases New Tools… [Bank Robber's Defense]

Sunday, June 2nd, 2013

White House Releases New Tools For Digital Strategy Anniversary by Caitlin Fairchild.

From the post:

The White House marked the one-year anniversary of its digital government strategy Thursday with a slate of new releases, including a catalog of government APIs, a toolkit for developing government mobile apps and a new framework for ensuring the security of government mobile devices.

Those releases correspond with three main goals for the digital strategy: make more information available to the public; serve customers better; and improve the security of federal computing.

Just scanning down the API list, it is a very mixed bag.

For example, there are four hundred and ten (410) individual APIs listed, the National Library of Medicine has twenty-four (24) and the U.S. Senate has one (1).

Defenders of this release will say we should not talk about the lack of prior efforts but focus on what’s coming.

I call that the bank robber’s defense.

All prosecutors want to talk about is what a bank robber did in the past. They never want to focus on the future.

Bank robbers would love to have the “let’s talk about tomorrow” defense.

As far as I know, it isn’t allowed anywhere.

Question: Why do we allow avoidance of responsibility with the “let’s talk about tomorrow” defense for government and others?

If you review the APIs for semantic diversity I would appreciate a pointer to your paper/post.

Posted in Government, Government Data, Transparency | 1 Comment »

Deepbills

Saturday, May 25th, 2013

Cato’s “Deepbills” Project Advances Government Transparency by Jim Harper.

From the post:

But there’s no sense in sitting around waiting for things to improve. Given the incentives, transparency is something that we will have to force on government. We won’t receive it like a gift.

So with software we acquired and modified for the purpose, we’ve been adding data to the bills in Congress, making it possible to learn automatically more of what they do. The bills published by the Government Printing Office have data about who introduced them and the committees to which they were referred. We are adding data that reflects:

- What agencies and bureaus the bills in Congress affect;

- What laws the bills in Congress effect: by popular name, U.S. Code section, Statutes at Large citation, and more;

- What budget authorities bills include, the amount of this proposed spending, its purpose, and the fiscal year(s).

We are capturing proposed new bureaus and programs, proposed new sections of existing law, and other subtleties in legislation. Our “Deepbills” project is documented at cato.org/resources/data.

This data can tell a more complete story of what is happening in Congress. Given the right Web site, app, or information service, you will be able to tell who proposed to spend your taxpayer dollars and in what amounts. You’ll be able to tell how your member of Congress and senators voted on each one. You might even find out about votes you care about before they happen!

Two important points:

First, transparency must be forced upon government (I would add businesses).

Second, transparency is up to us.

Do you know something the rest of us should know?

On your mark!

Get set!

Go!

I first saw this at: Harper: Cato’s “Deepbills” Project Advances Government Transparency.

Posted in Government, Government Data, Transparency | No Comments »

US rendition map: what it means, and how to use it

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013

US rendition map: what it means, and how to use it by James Ball.

From the post:

The Rendition Project, a collaboration between UK academics and the NGO Reprieve, has produced one of the most detailed and illuminating research projects shedding light on the CIA’s extraordinary rendition project to date. Here’s how to use it.

Truly remarkable project to date, but could be even more successful with your assistance.

Not likely that any of the principals will wind up in the dock at the Hague.

On the other hand, exposing their crimes may deter others from similar adventures.

Posted in Government, Government Data | No Comments »

Searching on BillTrack50

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

How to find what you are looking for – constructing a search on BillTrack50 by Karen Suhaka.

From the post:

Building a search on BillTrack50 is fairly straightforward, however it isn’t exactly like doing a Google search. So there’s a few things you need to keep in mind, which I’ll explain in this post. There’s also a few tips and tricks advanced users might find useful. Any bills that are introduced later and meet your search terms will be automatically added to your bill sheet (if you made a bill sheet).

Tracking “thumb on the scale” (TOTS) at the state level? BillTrack50 is a great starting point.

BillTrack50 provides surface facts, to which you can add vote trading, influence peddling and other routine legislative activities.

Posted in Government, Law, Transparency | No Comments »

U.S. Senate Panel Discovers Nowhere Man [Apple As Tax Dodger]

Monday, May 20th, 2013

Forty-seven years after Nowhere Man by the Beatles, a U.S. Senate panel discovers several nowhere men.

A Wall Street Journal Technology Alert:

Apple has set up corporate structures that have allowed it to pay little or no corporate tax–in any country–on much of its overseas income, according to the findings of a U.S. Senate examination.

The unusual result is possible because the iPhone maker’s key foreign subsidiaries argue they are residents of nowhere, according to the investigators’ report, which will be discussed at a hearing Tuesday where Apple CEO Tim Cook will testify. The finding comes from a lengthy investigation into the technology giant’s tax practices by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sens. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) and John McCain (R., Ariz.).

In additional coverage, Apple says:

Apple’s testimony also includes a call to overhaul: “Apple welcomes an objective examination of the US corporate tax system, which has not kept pace with the advent of the digital age and the rapidly changing global economy.”

Tax reform will be useful only if “transparent” tax reform.

Transparent tax reform mean every provision with more than a $100,000 impact on any taxpayer, names all the taxpayers impacted. Whether more or less taxes.

We have the data, we need the will to apply the analysis.

A tax-impact topic map anyone?

Posted in Government, Government Data, Transparency | No Comments »

UNESCO Publications and Data (Open Access)

Sunday, May 19th, 2013

UNESCO to make its publications available free of charge as part of a new Open Access policy

From the post:

The United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has announced that it is making available to the public free of charge its digital publications and data. This comes after UNESCO has adopted an Open Access Policy, becoming the first agency within the United Nations to do so.

The new policy implies that anyone can freely download, translate , adapt, and distribute UNESCO’s publications and data. The policy also states that from July 2013, hundreds of downloadable digital UNESCO publications will be available to users through a new Open Access Repository with a multilingual interface. The policy seeks also to apply retroactively to works that have been published.

There’s a treasure trove of information for mapping, say against the New York Times historical archives.

If presidential libraries weren’t concerned with helping former administration officials avoid accountability, digitizing presidential libraries for complete access, would be another great treasure trove.

Posted in Data, Government, Government Data | No Comments »

Open Data and Wishful Thinking

Saturday, May 18th, 2013

BLM Fracking Rule Violates New Executive Order on Open Data by Sofia Plagakis.

From the post:

Today, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its revised proposed rule for natural gas drilling (commonly referred to as fracking) on federal and tribal lands. The much-anticipated rule violates President Obama’s recently issued executive order that requires new government information to be made available to the public in open, machine-readable formats.

Last week, President Obama signed an executive order requiring that all newly generated public data be pushed out in open, machine-readable formats. Concurrently, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released an Open Data Policy designed to make previously unavailable government data accessible to entrepreneurs, researchers, and the public.

The executive order and accompanying policy must have been in development for months, and agencies, including BLM, should have been fully aware of the new policy. But instead of establishing a modern example of government information collection and sharing, BLM’s proposed rule would allow drilling companies to report the chemicals used in fracking to a third-party, industry-funded website, called FracFocus.org, which does not provide data in machine-readable formats. FracFocus.org only allows users to download PDF files of reports on fracked wells. Because PDF files are not machine-readable, the site makes it very difficult for the public to use and analyze data on wells and chemicals that the government requires companies to collect and make available.

I wonder if Sofia simply overlooked:

When implementing the Open Data Policy, agencies shall incorporate a full analysis of privacy, confidentiality, and security risks into each stage of the information lifecycle to identify information that should not be released. These review processes should be overseen by the senior agency official for privacy. It is vital that agencies not release information if doing so would violate any law or policy, or jeopardize privacy, confidentiality, or national security. [From “We won’t get fooled again…”]

Or if her “…requires new government information to be made available to the public in open, machine-readable formats” is wishful thinking?

The Obama just released the Benghazi emails in PDF format. So we have an example of the Whitehouse violating its own “open data” policy.

We don’t need more “open data.”

What we need are more leakers. A lot more leakers.

Just be sure you leak or pass on leaks in “open, machine-readable formats.”

The foreign adventures, environmental pollution, failures in drug or food safety, etc., avoided by leaks may save your life, the lives of your children or grandchildren.

Leak today!

Posted in Government, Government Data, Open Data | 1 Comment »

Open Government and Benghazi Emails

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

The controversy over the “Benghazi emails” is a good measure of what the Obama Administration means by “open government.”

News of the release of the Benghazi emails broke yesterday, NPR, USA Today, among others.

I saw the news at Benghazi Emails Released, Wall Street Journal. PDF of the emails

If you go to WhiteHouse.gov and search for “Benghazi emails,” can you find the White House release of the emails?

I thought not.

The emails show congressional concern over the “talking points” on Benghazi to be a tempest in a teapot, as many of us already suspected.

Early release of the emails would have avoided some of the endless discussion rooted in congressional ignorance and bigotry.

But, the Obama administration has so little faith in “open government” that it conceals information that would be to its advantage if revealed.

Now imagine how the Obama administration must view information that puts it at a disadvantage.

Does that help to clarify the commitment of the Obama administration to open government?

It does for me.

Posted in Government, Government Data, Open Government | No Comments »

Aaron Swartz – Accountability?

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013

Court orders names to be withheld before release of Aaron Swartz records by John Ribeiro.

From the post:

The government dismissed charges against Swartz shortly after his death. But his estate filed to remove a protective order of November 2011, barring disclosure of documents, files or records except in certain situations. The estate cited the need to disclose the records to the U.S. Congress after a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform decided to investigate the prosecution of Swartz, and review one of the statutes under which he was charged.

MIT, JSTOR and the government, however, asked that the names and other personal identification of their staff referred to in the documents should be redacted.

(…)

The judge said the court concludes that “the estate’s interest in disclosing the identity of individuals named in the production, as it relates to enhancing the public’s understanding of the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Swartz, is substantially outweighed by the interest of the government and the victims in shielding their employees from potential retaliation.”

Well, that certainly makes sense.

The government and MIT can smear Aaron Swartz, engage in “intimidation and prosecutorial overreach,” literally drive Aaron to suicide, but after all, it’s MIT and the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Why should they be held accountable?

It’s clear the government isn’t going to hold those responsible accountable, but that doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

First, MIT donors can withhold donations to MIT unless and until such time as MIT outs all of those involved at MIT and they are no longer employed by MIT.

Second, everyone in education, industry and technology, here or abroad, can shun those outed by MIT. No jobs, no appointments, no contracts, not ever. They need a long opportunity to feel some of the pain they inflicted on Aaron Swartz.

Third, the U.S. Attorney’s office personnel should be known from court records, although holding them accountable may be more difficult.

Their conduct in this case will be a plus for the sort of law firms likely to hire them when they leave government service.

You will have to be creative in finding legal social practices to make them sincerely regret their conduct in this case.

If the government won’t act on our behalf, who else do we have to turn to?

Posted in Cybersecurity, Government, Security | No Comments »

“We won’t get fooled again…”

Friday, May 10th, 2013

Landmark Steps to Liberate Open Data

There is no shortage of discussion of President Obama’s executive order that is alleged to result in greater access to government data.

Except then you read:

Agencies shall implement the requirements of the Open Data Policy and shall adhere to the deadlines for specific actions specified therein. When implementing the Open Data Policy, agencies shall incorporate a full analysis of privacy, confidentiality, and security risks into each stage of the information lifecycle to identify information that should not be released. These review processes should be overseen by the senior agency official for privacy. It is vital that agencies not release information if doing so would violate any law or policy, or jeopardize privacy, confidentiality, or national security.

Gee, I wonder who is going to decide what information gets released?

How would we know when “open data” efforts succeed?

Here’s my test: When ordinary citizens can mine open data and their complaints result in the arrest and conviction of public officials or government staff.

Unless and until that sort of information is public data, you are being distracted from important data by platitudes and flattery.

Posted in Government, Government Data, Open Data | 1 Comment »

Free Government Data… [Handicapping Congress?]

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013

Free Government Data: Access Sunlight Foundation APIs on a New Data Services Site by Liz Bartolomeo.

From the post:

The Sunlight Foundation is expanding its free data services with a new website – http://sunlightfoundation.com/api/ – to access our open government APIs. We offer APIs (a.k.a. application programming interfaces) for a number of our projects and tools and support a community of developers who create their own projects using this data.

Nonprofit organizations, political campaigns and media outlets use our collection of APIs, which cover topics such as the Congressional Record, lobbying records and state legislation. More than 7,000 people have registered for an API key, resulting in over 735 million API calls to date. Greenpeace uses congressional information available through Sunlight APIs on its activist tools, and the Wikimedia Foundation used Sunlight APIs to help people connect with their lawmakers in Congress during the SOPA debate last year. Those using Sunlight APIs run across the political spectrum, from the Obama-Biden campaign to the Tea Party Patriots.

From the API page:

Capitol Words API

The Capitol Words API is an API allowing access to the word frequency count data powering the Capitol Words project.

Congress API v3 API

A live JSON API for the people and work of Congress. Information on legislators, districts, committees, bills, votes, as well as real-time notice of hearings, floor activity and upcoming bills.

Influence Explorer API

The Influence Explorer API gives programmers and journalists the ability to easily create subsets of large data for their own research and development purposes. The API currently offers campaign contributions and lobbying records with more data sets coming soon.

Open States API

Information on the legislators and activities of all 50 state legislatures, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

Political Party Time API

Provides access to the underlying, raw data that the Sunlight Foundation creates based on fundraising invitations collected in Party Time. As we enter information on new invitations, the database updates automatically.

Commercial opportunity: The Sunlight Foundation data is a start towards public handicapping of members of Congress for votes on legislation.

Posted in Government, Government Data | No Comments »

Weapons of Mass Destruction Were In Iraq

Wednesday, April 24th, 2013

It is commonly accepted that no weapons of mass destruction were found after the invasion of Iraq by Bush II.

But is that really true?

To credit that claim, you would have to be unable to find a common pressure cooker in Iraq.

The FBI apparently considers bombs made using pressure cookers to be “weapons of mass destruction.”

How remarkable. I have one of the big pressure canners. That must be the H-Bomb of pressure cookers. ;-)

“Weapon of mass destruction” gets even vaguer when you get into the details.

18 USC § 2332a – Use of weapons of mass destruction, which refers you to another section, “any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title;” to find the definition.

And, 18 USC § 921 – Definitions reads in relevant part:

(4) The term “destructive device” means—
(A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas—
(i) bomb,
(ii) grenade,
(iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces,
(iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce,
(v) mine, or
(vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses;

Maybe Bush II should have asked the FBI to hunt for “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq.

They would not have come home empty handed.

If this seems insensitive, remember government debasement of language contributes to the lack of sane discussions about national security.

Discussions that could have lead to better information sharing and possibly the stopping of some crimes.

Yes, crimes, not acts of terrorism. Crimes are solved by old fashioned police work.

Fear of acts of terrorism leads to widespread monitoring of electronic communications, loss of privacy, etc.

As shown in the Boston incident, national security monitoring played no role in stopping the attack or apprehending the suspects.

Traditional law enforcement did.

Why is the most effective tool against crime not a higher priority?

Posted in Government, Language | 2 Comments »

Spring Cleaning Data: 1 of 6… [Federal Reserve]

Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

Spring Cleaning Data: 1 of 6 – Downloading the Data & Opening Excel Files

From the post:

With spring in the air, I thought it would be fun to do a series on (spring) cleaning data. The posts will follow my efforts to to download the data, import into R, cleaned it up, merge the different files, add columns of information created, and then a master file exported. During the process I will be offering at times different ways to do things, this is an attempt to show how there is no one way of doing something, but there are several. When appropriate I will demonstrate as many as I can think of, given the data.

This series of posts will be focusing on the Discount Window of the Federal Reserve. I know I seem to be picking on the Feds, but I am genuinely interested in what they have. The fact that there is data on the discount window is, to be blunt, took legislation from congress to get. The first step in this project was to find the data. The data and additional information can be downloaded here.

I don’t have much faith in government data but if you are going to debate on the “data,” such as it is, you will need to clean it up and combine it with other data.

This is a good start in that direction for data from the Federal Reserve.

If you are interested in data from other government agencies, publishing the steps needed to clean/combine their data would move everyone forward.

A topic map of cleaning directions for government data could be a useful tool.

Not that clean data = government transparency but it might make it easier to spot the shadows.

Posted in Government, Government Data, R | No Comments »

Knight News Challenge – 40 Finalists

Monday, April 8th, 2013

Knight News Challenge – 40 Finalists

There are 78 days (as of today) before the evaluation of the forty (40) finalists in the Knight News Challenge closes.

You will need to average better than two (2) a day in order to see all of them.

Worthwhile because:

  • Your comments may help improve a project.
  • Your comments may assist in evaluation of a project.
  • You may get some great ideas for another project.
  • You may see ways to incorporate topic maps in one or more projects. (or not)

It is important to learn to contribute to projects that are not your own and may not be your top choice.

You may discover ideas, techniques and even people who you would otherwise miss.

Posted in Challenges, Government, News | No Comments »

USPTO – New Big Data App [Value-Add Opportunity]

Monday, April 1st, 2013

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Launches New Big Data Application on MarkLogic®

From the post:

Real-Time, Granular, Online Access to Complex Manuals Improves Efficiency and Transparency While Reducing Costs

MarkLogic Corporation, the provider of the MarkLogic® Enterprise NoSQL database, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has launched the Reference Document Management Service (RDMS), which uses MarkLogic for real-time searching of detailed, specific, up-to-date content within patent and trademark manuals. RDMS enables real-time search of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) and the Trademark Manual of Examination Procedures (TMEP). These manuals provide a vital window into the complexities of U.S. patent and trademark laws for inventors, examiners, businesses, and patent and government attorneys.

The thousands of examiners working for USPTO need to be able to quickly locate relevant instructions and procedures to assist in their examinations. The RDMS is enabling faster, easier searches for these internal users.

Having the most current materials online also means that the government can reduce reliance on printed manuals that quickly go out of date. USPTO can also now create and publish revisions to its manuals more quickly, allowing them to be far more responsive to changes in legislation.

Additionally, for the first time ever, the tool has also been made available to the public increasing the MPEP and TMEP accessibility globally, furthering the federal government’s efforts to promote transparency and accountability to U.S. citizens. Patent creators and their trusted advisors can now search and reference the same content as the USPTO examiners, in real time — instead of having to thumb through a printed reference guide.

The date on this report was March 26, 2013.

I don’t know if the USPTO is just playing games but searching their site for “Reference Document Management Service” produces zero “hits.”

Searching for “RDMS” produces four (4) “hits,” none of which were pointers to an interface.

Maybe it was too transparent?

The value-add proposition I was going to suggest was mapping the results of searching into some coherent presentation, like TaxMap.

And/or linking the results of searches into current literature in rapidly developing fields of technology.

Guess both of those opportunities will have to wait for basic searching to be available.

If you have a status update on this announced but missing project please ping me.

Posted in BigData, Government, Government Data, MarkLogic, Patents, Topic Maps | No Comments »

Open Data for Africa Launched by AfDB

Thursday, March 28th, 2013

Open Data for Africa Launched by AfDB

From the post:

The African Development Bank Group has recently launched the ‘Open Data for Africa‘ as part of the bank’s goal to improve data management and dissemination in Africa. The Open Data for Africa is a user friendly tool for extracting data, creating and sharing own customized reports, and visualising data across themes, sectors and countries in tables, charts and maps. The platform currently holds data from 20 African countries : Algeria, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Republic of Congo, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Not a lot of resources but a beginning.

One trip to one country isn’t enough to form an accurate opinion of a continent but I must report my impression of South Africa from several years ago.

I was at a conference with mid-level government and academic types for a week.

In a country where “child head of household” is a real demographic category, I came away deeply impressed with the optimism of everyone I met.

You can just imagine the local news in the United States and/or Europe if a quarter of the population was dying.

Vows of to “…never let this happen again…,” blah, blah, would choke the channels.

Not in South Africa. They readily admit to having a variety of serious issues but are equally serious about developing ways to meet those challenges.

If you want to see optimism in the face of stunning odds, I would strongly recommend a visit.

Posted in Government, Government Data, Open Data | No Comments »

The Tallinn Manual [Laws of War & Topic Maps]

Monday, March 25th, 2013

The Tallinn Manual

From the webpage:

The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare, written at the invitation of the Centre by an independent ‘International Group of Experts’, is the result of a three-year effort to examine how extant international law norms apply to this ‘new’ form of warfare. The Tallinn Manual pays particular attention to the jus ad bellum, the international law governing the resort to force by States as an instrument of their national policy, and the jus in bello, the international law regulating the conduct of armed conflict (also labelled the law of war, the law of armed conflict, or international humanitarian law). Related bodies of international law, such as the law of State responsibility and the law of the sea, are dealt within the context of these topics.

The Tallinn Manual is not an official document, but instead an expression of opinions of a group of independent experts acting solely in their personal capacity. It does not represent the views of the Centre, our Sponsoring Nations, or NATO. It is also not meant to reflect NATO doctrine. Nor does it reflect the position of any organization or State represented by observers.

So you don’t run afoul of the laws of war with any of your topic map activities.

I first saw this in Nat Torkington’s Four short links: 22 March 2013.

I would normally credit his source but they say:

All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

So I can’t tell you the name of the resource or its location. Sorry.

I did include the direct URL to the Tallinn Manual, which isn’t covered by their copyright.

PS: Remember “war crimes” are defined post-hoc by the victors so choose your side carefully.

Posted in Government, Law | No Comments »

One Definition of “Threat”

Monday, March 25th, 2013

If you are using a topic map to track terrorism, here is another definition of “threat” for your map.

The city of Casper, Wyoming, population of about 55,000, was threatened on www.4chan.org with a threat summarized as:

The post threatened to employ kitchen knives, an aluminum baseball bat, and a hammer and wooden stake — in addition to handguns — to prove that a “high score” could be achieved without assault rifles.

According to Government Security News:

As a result of the threat, officials immediately took precautions that included placing 40 schools on lockdown, notifying hospitals and nursing homes, and placing police officers at potential locations of an attack.

Threat: Web posting that contains plans to harm others by absurd means, such as a hammer and wooden stake.

I rest easier knowing the FBI is ready to spring into action to prevent hate crimes against fictional populations (vampires).

Don’t you?

Posted in Government | 1 Comment »

Lobbyists 2012: Out of the Game or Under the Radar?

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

Lobbyists 2012: Out of the Game or Under the Radar?

Executive Summary:

Over the past several years, both spending on lobbying and the number of active lobbyists has declined. A number of factors may be responsible, including the lackluster economy, a gridlocked Congress and changes in lobbying rules.

CRP finds that the biggest players in the influence game — lobbying clients across nearly all sectors — increased spending over the last five years. The top 100 lobbying firms income declined only 6 percent between 2007 and 2012 but the number of registered lobbyists dropped by 25 percent.

The more precipitous drop in the number of lobbyists is likely due to changes in the rules. More than 46 percent of lobbyists who were active in 2011 but not in 2012 continue to work for the same employers, suggesting that many have simply avoided the reporting limits while still contributing to lobbying efforts.

Whatever the cause, it is important to understand whether the same activity continues apace with less disclosure and to strengthen the disclosure regimen to ensure that it is clear, enforceable — and enforced. If there is a general sense that the rules don’t matter, there could be erosion to disclosure and a sense that this is an “honor system” that isn’t being honored any longer. This is important because, if people who are in fact lobbying do not register, citizens will be unable to understand the forces at work in shaping federal policy, and therefore can’t effectively participate in policy debates and counter proposals that are not in their interest. At a minimum, the Center for Responsive Politics will continue to aggregate, publish and scrutinize the data that is being reported, in order to explain trends in disclosure — or its omission.

A caution on relying on public records/disclosure for topic maps of political influence.

You can see the full report here.

My surprise was the discovery that:

[the] “honor system” that isn’t being honored any longer.

Lobbying for private advantage at public expense is contrary to any notion of “honor.”

Why the surprise that lobbyists are dishonorable? (However faithful they may be to their employers. Once bought, they stay bought.)

I first saw this at Full Text Reports.

Posted in Government, Government Data, Transparency | No Comments »

Making the Most of Big Data

Saturday, March 23rd, 2013

Making the Most of Big Data

NSF: Summary Submission Deadline – April 22, 2013.

Aiming to make the most of the explosion of Big Data and the tools needed to analyze it, the Obama Administration announced a "National Big Data Research and Development Initiative" on March 29, 2012. To launch the initiative, six Federal departments and agencies announced more than $200 million in new commitments that, together, promise to greatly improve and develop the tools, techniques, and human capital needed to move from data to knowledge to action. The Administration is also working to "liberate" government data and voluntarily-contributed corporate data to fuel entrepreneurship, create jobs, and improve the lives of Americans in tangible ways.

As we enter the second year of the Big Data Initiative, the Administration is encouraging multiple stakeholders including federal agencies, private industry, academia, state and local government, non-profits, and foundations, to develop and participate in Big Data innovation projects across the country. Later this year, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), NSF, and other agencies in the Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD) program plan to convene an event that highlights high-impact collaborations and identifies areas for expanded collaboration between the public and private sectors. The Administration is particularly interested in projects and initiatives that:

  • Advance technologies that support Big Data and data analytics;
  • Educate and expand the Big Data workforce;
  • Develop, demonstrate and evaluate applications of Big Data that improve key outcomes in economic growth, job creation, education, health, energy, sustainability, public safety, advanced manufacturing, science and engineering, and global development;
  • Demonstrate the role that prizes and challenges can play in deriving new insights from Big Data; and
  • Foster regional innovation.

Please submit a two-page summary of projects to BIGDATA@nsf.gov. The summary should identify:

  1. The goal of the project, with metrics for evaluating the success or failure of the project;
  2. The multiple stakeholders that will participate in the project and their respective roles and responsibilities;
  3. Initial financial and in-kind resources that the stakeholders are prepared to commit to this project; and
  4. A principal point of contact for the partnership.

The submission should also indicate whether the NSF can post the project description to a public website. This announcement is posted solely for information and planning purposes; it does not constitute a formal solicitation for grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements.

Doesn’t look like individuals are included, “…federal agencies, private industry, academia, state and local government, non-profits, and foundations….”

Does anyone have a government or non-profit I could borrow to propose a topic map-based Big Data innovation project?

Thanks!

Phrased humorously but that’s a serious request.

I have a deep interest in the promotion of topic maps and funded projects are a good type of promotion.

Other people see a topic map-based project getting funded and they think having a topic map was part of being funded. Creating more topic map-based applications and hence a chance at more topic map-based projects being funded.

I first saw this in a tweet by Tim O’Reilly.

Posted in BigData, Funding, Government | No Comments »

Open Data: The World Bank Data Blog

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013

Open Data: The World Bank Data Blog

In case you are following open data/government issues, you will want to add this blog to your RSS feed.

Not a high traffic blog but with twenty-seven contributing authors, you get a diversity of viewpoints.

Not to mention that the World Bank is a great source for general data.

I persist in thinking that transparency means identifying individuals responsible for decisions, expenditures and the beneficiaries of those decisions and expenditures.

That isn’t a popular position among those who make decisions and approve expenditures for unidentified beneficiaries.

You will either have to speculate on your own or ask someone else why that is an unpopular position.

Posted in Government, Government Data, Open Data, Open Government | No Comments »

The Biggest Failure of Open Data in Government

Monday, March 18th, 2013

Many open data initiatives forget to include the basic facts about the government itself by Philip Ashlock.

From the post:

In the past few years we’ve seen a huge shift in the way governments publish information. More and more governments are proactively releasing information as raw open data rather than simply putting out reports or responding to requests for information. This has enabled all sorts of great tools like the ones that help us find transportation or the ones that let us track the spending and performance of our government. Unfortunately, somewhere in this new wave of open data we forgot some of the most fundamental information about our government, the basic “who”, “what”, “when”, and “where”.

US map

Do you know all the different government bodies and districts that you’re a part of? Do you know who all your elected officials are? Do you know where and when to vote or when the next public meeting is? Now perhaps you’re thinking that this information is easy enough to find, so what does this have to do with open data? It’s true, it might not be too hard to learn about the highest office or who runs your city, but it usually doesn’t take long before you get lost down the rabbit hole. Government is complex, particularly in America where there can be a vast multitude of government districts and offices at the local level.

…

How can we have a functioning democracy when we don’t even know the local government we belong to or who our democratically elected representatives are? It’s not that Americans are simply too ignorant or apathetic to know this information, it’s that the system of government really is complex. With what often seems like chaos on the national stage it can be easy to think of local government as simple, yet that’s rarely the case. There are about 35,000 municipal governments in the US, but when you count all the other local districts there are nearly 90,000 government bodies (US Census 2012) with a total of more than 500,000 elected officials (US Census 1992). The average American might struggle to name their representatives in Washington D.C., but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. They can easily belong to 15 government districts with more than 50 elected officials representing them.

We overlook the fact that it’s genuinely difficult to find information about all our levels of government. We unconsciously assume that this information is published on some government website well enough that we don’t need to include it as part of any kind of open data program

Yes, the number of subdivisions of government and the number of elected officials are drawn from two different census reports, the first from the 2012 census and the second from the 1992 census, a gap of twenty (20) years.

The Census bureau has the 1992 list, saying:

1992 (latest available) 1992 Census of Governments vol. I no. 2 [PDF, 2.45MB] * Report has been discontinued

Makes me curious why such a report would be discontinued?

A report that did not address the various agencies, offices, etc. that are also part of various levels of government.

Makes me think you need an “insider” and/or a specialist just to navigate the halls of government.

Philip’s post illustrates that “open data” dumps from government are distractions from more effective questions of open government.

Questions such as:

  • Which officials have authority over what questions?
  • How to effectively contact those officials?
  • What actions are under consideration now?
  • Rules and deadlines for comments on actions?
  • Hearing and decision calendars?
  • Comments and submissions by others?
  • etc.

It never really is “…the local board of education (substitute your favorite board) decided….” but “…member A, B, D, and F decided that….”

Transparency means not allowing people and their agendas to hide behind the veil of government.

Posted in Government, Government Data, Open Data, Open Government | No Comments »

The Most Expensive Fighter Jet Ever Built, by the Numbers

Thursday, March 14th, 2013

The Most Expensive Fighter Jet Ever Built, by the Numbers by Theodoric Meyer.

From the post:

Thanks to the sequester, the Defense Department is now required to cut more than $40 billion this fiscal year out of its $549 billion budget. But one program that’s unlikely to take a significant hit is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, despite the fact that it’s almost four times more expensive than any other Pentagon weapons program that’s in the works.

We’ve compiled some of the most headache-inducing figures, from the program’s hefty cost overruns to the billions it’s generating in revenue for Lockheed Martin.

[See the post for the numbers, which are impressive.]

While the F-35 is billions over budget and years behind schedule, the program seems to be doing better recently. A Government Accountability Office report released this week found that Lockheed has made progress in improving supply and manufacturing processes and addressing technical problems.

“We’ve made enormous progress over the last few years,” Steve O’Bryan, Lockheed’s vice president of F-35 business development, told the Washington Post.

The military’s current head of the program, Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, agreed that things have improved but said Lockheed and another major contractor, Pratt & Whitney, still have a ways to go.

“I want them to take on some of the risk of this program,” Bogdan said last month in Australia, which plans to buy 100 of the planes. “I want them to invest in cost reductions. I want them to do the things that will build a better relationship. I’m not getting all that love yet.”

A story that illustrates the utility of a topic map approach to news coverage.

The story has already spanned more than a decade and language like: “[t]he military’s current head of the program…,” makes me wonder about the prior military heads of the program.

Or for that matter, it isn’t really Lockheed or Pratt & Whitney, that are building (allegedly) the F-35 but identifiable teams of people within those organizations.

And those companies are paying bonuses, stock dividends, etc. during the term of the project.

No one person or for that matter any one group of people could not chase down all the actors in a story like this one.

However, merging different investigations into distinct aspects of the story could assemble a mosaic clearer than any of its individual pieces.

Perhaps tying poor management, cost overruns, etc., to named individuals will have a greater impact than generalized stories about such practices have when the name is the DoD, Lockheed, etc.

PS: If you aren’t clinically depressed, read the GAO report.

Would you buy a plane where it isn’t known if the helmet mounted display, a critical control system, will work?

It’s like buying a car where a working engine is to-be-determined, maybe.

An F-35 topic map should start with the names, addresses and current status of everyone who signed any paperwork authorizing this project.

Posted in Defense, Government, News, Reporting | 2 Comments »

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