Many breathless things have been written and said about WikiLeaks since the organization first released that startling video in 2010 of an Army helicopter over Baghdad firing on civilians. The site went on to drop hundreds of thousands of American diplomatic and defense documents that year. Amid all that raw data, WikiLeaks’ supporters and media theorists on multiple continents suggested we were now entering a new era of transparency — one in which secrecy might be dead. “All of this,” concludes legal scholar Alasdair Roberts in a new paper, “is vastly overwrought.” Roberts, ... Read More
Pirate Party Docks at Berlin’s Parliament
January 31, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
The recent U.S. shutdown of the Hong Kong-based file-hosting service Megaupload has led other file sharing sites to tighten their content sharing practices, for fear of facing criminal charges. Seven of Megaupload’s executives were charged with copyright violations, racketeering, and money laundering, while CEO Kim Dotcom, a German-Finnish citizen, was arrested along with four others and could face up to 55 years in prison. Hackers have retaliated, leading some, like the ubiquitous “Anonymous,” to claim credit for attacking the Justice Department's website. But while pirating ... Read More
Making a Case for Televising the Supreme Court
November 16, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Over the years, media advocacy groups and news outlets have jotted off letters to the Supreme Court pleading for a basic form of access their counterparts in other democracies already have: cameras in the country’s highest courtroom. The response has always been the same, but with varying explanations. Cameras would be too obtrusive. The wires and equipment would get in everyone’s way. Filming the court would turn it into a circus. The whole demeanor of the place would change. Justice David Souter summed up all of this with a jurist’s eloquence: “I can tell you the day you see a ... Read More
How to Reform Lobbying: Transparency
August 1, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
That Washington is corrupted by special interests and lobbyists is perhaps the most common critique of the federal government. Poll after poll reveals a public convinced that lobbyists are an unethical, destructive influence. Accordingly, most lobbying reform proposals take a strong moralizing tone. “Drain the swamp” was Nancy Pelosi’s rallying cry in 2006, backed by a promise to, on day one, “break the link between lobbyists and legislation.” President Obama, too, spent his campaign bashing special interests (as did John McCain). Obama also made a symbolic point of enacting new ... Read More
Alcoa and Corporate Social Responsibility — Rhetoric vs. Reality
June 27, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
On a Web page labeled "vision and values," Alcoa says it intends to be "the best company in the world — in the eyes of our customers, shareholders, communities, and people." And Alcoa has made Fortune magazine's list of Most Admired Companies and the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability Index, but the aluminum company's rhetoric doesn't always match its performance. INTEGRITY vs. BRIBERY ALLEGATIONS The Rhetoric: "Alcoa's foundation is our integrity. We are open, honest and trustworthy in dealing with customers, suppliers, coworkers, shareholders and the communities where we have an ... Read More
Federal Budget Cuts May Cloud Government Transparency Websites
April 1, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Over the last few years, the federal government has spent $8.3 million on the public information clearinghouse data.gov, and another $13.3 million on the website USASpending.gov, which allows citizens to track public investments in everything from the Gulf oil spill cleanup to higher education grants. How do we know how much those open-government platforms have cost? Because of another transparency initiative — the IT Dashboard — which specifically monitors the progress of the government's many information technology efforts. Most of the money that supports these programs, however, ... Read More
