Emerging technology has the power to make democracy stronger or weaker. Understanding where, when, and how is the hard part. Subscribe to Civic Texts to get insights about how technologies are changing our democracy in your inbox.
When the United States Senate voted 81 to 13 today to override President Donald Trump’s veto and enact a must-pass annual $741 million dollar defense act into law, it didn’t just follow the House’s overwhelming vote to rebuke the lame … Continue reading →
Did YOU know the USA has a Federal Data Strategy? Or that it’s part of National US Plan for Open Government? This President and White House should have told you, instead of failing to engage Americans. I participated in another … Continue reading →
In the same way that poor diets affect our physical health, America’s infodemic is being fueled by poor information diets. About 2,100 newspapers have folded since 2004, driving a ~58% decline in newsroom employment. Digital outlets have not replaced the … Continue reading →
Digital democracy reforms tends to advance or retreat in fits and starts, but when exigent circumstances require more from us and our governments, change can happen unexpectedly. On May 26, I requested an absentee ballot, intending to cast my vote … Continue reading →
The United States needs a “whole of society” effort to increase resilience against disinformation and misinformation, particularly in the context of a global pandemic. Unfortunately, the actions of the Trump White House are weakening the health of our body politic, … Continue reading →
The past decade has shown the world again and again how important anti-corruption watchdogs and nonpartisan advocates for transparency and accountability are for defending civil liberties and public access to information, online and off. The stress test that the Trump … Continue reading →
When it comes to using location data to surveil the incidence and spread of the novel coronavirus, efficacy is what matters. Presidents, legislatures, and regulators around the world are trying to learn how to leverage existing and emerging technologies to … Continue reading →
There’s much to be learned from the experience of the city Gainesville, Florida, where a commissioners voted in 2014 to publish the public’s email correspondence with them and the mayor online. More than five years on, the city government and … Continue reading →
FierceElectronics reports that Draganfly is claiming that their technologies can, when attached to a drone, detect fever, coughs, respiration, heart rate, & blood pressure for a given human at a distance. Put another way, this drone company is saying that … Continue reading →
Informing the public during a pandemic has always been a challenge for public health officials, but the information landscape of 2020 has been polluted by the the Trump administration’s history of lying in ways that make response to the coronavirus … Continue reading →
RT @anders_aslund: @navalny goes all out revealing Putin's extraordinary corruption, the richest man in the world, with enormous documentar… 22 minutes ago
RT @pahlkadot: This is HUGE. Can you imagine how much this needs to change? "Across fed govt, 90% of competitive, open-to-the-public job an… 4 hours ago
RT @digiphile: @SecPompeo Speaking of truth, who won the 2020 presidential election?
Were our mail-in ballots secure?
What nation interfer… 5 hours ago