From the US Dept. of Commerce.

Foreign market research, US information technology industry statistics.

My project focuses on the uses of the Internet in Iran. In particular, I will be examining how the Iranian public uses the Internet to express dissent or communicate about subjects that would violate the government's strict moral code. In order to focus the project more, I plan to focus on the incredibly-large Iranian blog community. In this annotated bibliography, I am hoping to discover how Iranians are using the internet, how blogs affect political discourse, and the particular methods used by the government to censor dissident speech.

Reporters Without Borders. Reporters sans frontières - Internet - Iran. 2004. 8 Apr. 2009.

This report by Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontieres, or RSF) is part of a series of studies that examines obstacles to the flow of information over the internet. RSF's main concern with blogs is that they provide a more-objective source of news than the traditional Iranian media and that they allow for the organization of anti-government protests and demonstration. The RSF report also details the history of Internet regulation in the country, naming the bureaus responsible for controlling access and content on the internet. RSF reports cases of both reformists and conservative hard-liners using government in order to control the Internet. It then details the stories of three cyber-dissidents who have suffered harrassment at the hands of Iranian government officials.

The RSF report provides great background on internet regulation. While efforts at regulation were intensified after the report was published, RSF's concerns remain valid and many of the government policies remain the same. The report also situates the Iranian case in a larger context of internet censorship, which helps by providing opportunities for comparison and contrast. Furthermore, the report demonstrates that both factions of the Iranian government are taking steps to control the spread of information free from government control, perhaps presenting an argument to the idea that this new technology will inherently lead to democratization.

Since 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America has been filing lawsuits against individuals who use P2P programs to share copyrighted material over the Internet. These individuals are being sued for copyright infringement, because the RIAA believes they are stealing and distributing material for which they do not own a copyright. Most of these lawsuits are settled for a few thousand dollars, and they are seldom taken to court. Today, an abundance of media is available for free on the internet, and copyright owners are losing the ability to control the flow of their work. A distinction between sharing and theft must be made in order to shape the future of the digital world. By filing these exorbitantly expensive lawsuits, however, the RIAA is using the court's power to intimidate and exploit its potential customers. In addition, the lawsuits have not achieved the goal of reducing the use of P2P programs. The RIAA's file sharing lawsuits are unfair and ineffective, and there are much better solutions to the illegal file sharing problem. (New Paragraph). The RIAA is abusing the legal system with these unfair lawsuits. Because of a clause in copyright law, the RIAA can claim statutory damages from $750-$30,000 for each copyrighted song file an individual has in his or her "shared music" folder. The value of a single song on iTunes is only 99 cents. Because the financial risk is so high, almost no one is able to challenge the RIAA's infringement accusations, and make them prove their cases to the court. People should have the right to due process of law and a trial by jury, so it can be determined whether or not the courts believe making copyrighted files available online is actually infringement. (New Paragraph). Since these lawsuits have started in 2003, the number of people using file sharing networks has more than doubled. The RIAA is not achieving its goal of stopping the use of P2P programs with these lawsuits against random people, and the lawsuits should cease. It is time the RIAA began to move in a different direction. (New Paragraph). There are other ways the RIAA could reduce the incentive to share files online, especially among college students. If the recording companies joined together and licensed their music on a large scale to certain programs, and universities provided these programs for students, the need to download files illegally would be reduced. Some universities are trying to implement this strategy, but in order for it to be successful, the music programs must run on a mac as well as a PC, and the licensed songs must be downloadable to an iPod. Also, programs like iTunes could lower song prices incrementally as a user purchases more and more songs. (New Paragraph). The RIAA's side of the argument must be considered and respected, because many people are choosing to download songs illegally instead of paying for the material. Hard-working artists are being denied fair compensation, and their rights should not be neglected. Action must be taken to solve this problem, but it must be fair and it must have the potential to be successful. The RIAA's lawsuits will not fix anything. People must stand up to these powerful record companies, and work together to pave the way for a digital future composed of both freedom and fair compensation.

NOTE: This article is difficult to find on Lexis-Nexis. Do a powersearch and specify "Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology" as your source.

This is a journal article by a man named Daniel Reynolds who attends the University of Minnesota Law School. The article appeared in the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science, and Technology. The article gives background information about RIAA lawsuits, and proposes solutions to the file-sharing problem. The author says that the RIAA believes the lawsuits are necessary to make people respect copyrights and deter them from sharing files. The problem with this reasoning, however, is the actual result of the lawsuits. Since 2003, the number of people using file-sharing networks has more than doubled, and there have been 26,000 suits since then. The author continues by discussing the amount the file-sharers are asked to pay for a settlement. The RIAA can claim “statutory damages,” and demand $750 per song. Nearly all of the file-sharers settle, however, because legal fees are so high. A single mother named Jammie Thomas was sued for sharing files, and because the RIAA believed she did it willfully, they asked for $9,000 per song, totaling $222,000. The author believes that the RIAA is alienating the demographic they sell to with these expensive lawsuits.
The author proposes a few solutions to the file-sharing problem. First of all, he says that the government could change copyright law to make copyrights last for shorter periods of time, making less songs illegal to share. Secondly, he suggests that part of the P2P programs’ fees could be paid to the RIAA, along with part of the money paid for computers or blank CDs. These levies would be enforced if the RIAA guaranteed they would stop filing lawsuits. Lastly, the author suggests large-scale music licensing.
This article was helpful in many ways to my research. It shows that the file-sharing suits are ineffective, the settlements are unfair, and that a solution is needed. The lawsuits are simply not working to prevent file-sharing, and there are statistics to prove this. If the number of file-sharers hasn’t gone down, it seems clear that the RIAA isn’t trying to solve a problem, it is just trying to take money from students and other individuals. Secondly, charging $750 per song is absolutely ridiculous. These songs can be downloaded on iTunes for 99 cents, and it seems like these exorbitantly expensive settlement amounts are completely arbitrary. The RIAA is only angering the people it wants to sell music to, and needs a new approach.
I don’t think the government should place levies on things like computers and CDs to be paid to the RIAA, because not all people use these things for illegal purposes, and I don’t think copyright law needs to be changed. I think the best solution is large-scale licensing, like the author suggests. Here at Penn, the university has tried to prevent file sharing by giving students free access to Ruckus, a program that gives students access to many copyrighted songs. The problem with this solution is that Ruckus is not compatible with Macs, and the songs cannot be downloaded to mp3 players like iPods (without paying an additional $20 a semester). If universities offered programs like Ruckus that were compatible with all computer types, and paid the extra fees so students could play music on their iPods, there would be no incentive to download music illegally. I think this would be the best solution even though it would be expensive for the university. After all, we are paying the university tens of thousands of dollars per semester...

editing this space

The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for 212 countries and territories over the period 1996–2006, for six dimensions of governance: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption.

Workshop: "Computing in the Cloud"

Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University
“Civics in the Cloud”
Joshua Tauberer – GovTracks.us

January 15, 2008  

This panel at the workshop was very interesting.  The discussion was about using the cloud to strengthen the relationship between citizens and the government.  How?  Joshua Tauberer started a website called GovTrack.us to improve communication between the government and the citizens of this country. Govtrack.us is a tool used to track what is happening in congress.  The website pools resources from a number of different website including Google Maps, local government website, campaign donation websites, etc. You can get customized rss feeds and emails that are relevant to your personal political interests.  Furthermore, it collects information automatically from government website (like Thomas.loc.gov) and represents it in a several new ways.  For instance, there are websites that store public data on campaign donations and there are other websites that track earmark spending in legislative bills, but GovTracks.us puts combines the power of these existing sites in order to track the relationship between earmark spending and donations to study weather politicians are voting based on certain financial interests.

According to Tauberer, the U.S. Government only presents bills and laws in one perspective, but GovTracks.us uses the power of cloud computing to help you to see and understand them from a variety of different perspectives.  Once concern of Tauberer’s is that government has no goals for how to incorporate technology into the legislative process in order to keep citizens more informed.  Fortunately, there is lots of relevant data on government legislative actions, but there is no structure or a system to put relevant government databases together in a meaningful way to help the citizens understand what is going on in congress.

GovTracks.us is an example of how cloud computing can be used to bridge the citizens and congressmen.  This panel helps to illuminate a powerful and influential social utility that can arise from cloud computing.  If GovTracks.us can actually fulfill its purpose, such technology would prove to be a powerful tool for improving the democratic political system in this country.

With the advent of each generation of internet related innovation, there is always a fury of discussion over how much of ourselves we are exposing, both to known and unknown factors. From online shopping, to social networking sites, to private and government institutions offering a full range of services online, the often stated fear of having your entire identity available online is a not without validity. Issues of personal privacy and information security require oversight and mediation by a regulatory and judicial body, which, ironically, perpetuates the need for greater access to personal information. On the other hand, the proliferation of the internet has drastically changed the velocity of flow of ideas, goods/services, and people across borders. More than ever, the ease with which people are accessing various travel and financial services are allowing companies to dynamically forecast sales and adjust pricing, leading to a consumer driven economy that is not bounded by the traditional state borders. Concerns that the internet is eroding the traditional authority of the nation state has led countries to enact legislation and even directly interfere in citizen access to information online. I would like to explore the extent to which the nation states actual or perceived authority has been eroded by the internet. I will examine the ways in which nations are attempting to filter and limit access to various speech online and the types of speech that are being restricted. It would be especially interesting to see whether these filters are consistent with controls on other types of media within the country, which would be an indication of whether government control is contracting or expanding. Also of interest are the various national and international organizations and regulatory bodies that are arising in response to the need for regulation. In the end, I suspect that the need for order within societies will still outweigh individual rights, leading to the expansion of the nation states authority but tested in international forums.

This is a collection of mental health resources for Mad, Bad and Sad. It consists of databases, websites and books to aid in researching the question: "How would you improve mental health services for children with a specific mental disorder in Philadelphia?" Also included are basic information evaluation resources.

LANIC page on cuba.

About Open Congress

OpenCongress brings together official government information with news and blog coverage to give you the real story behind what's happening in Congress.

For most people, finding out what's really happening in Congress is a daunting and time-consuming task. The legislative process is frequently arcane and closed-off from the public, resulting in frustration with Congress and apathy about politics.

Small groups of political insiders and lobbyists know what's really going on in Congress, but this important information rarely makes its way into the light. The official website of the library of Congress, Thomas, publishes the full text of bills, but we can do much more to inform ourselves and make our government accessible. Now, with OpenCongress, everyone can be an insider.

OpenCongress is a free, open-source, non-profit, and non-partisan web resource with a mission to help make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement. OpenCongress is a joint project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation.

Philadelphia Department of Human Services school based program, a collaboration with the school system.

The OSS provides comprehensive special education, behavioral health, school health, and prevention/intervention programs which are aligned with the educational and organizational goals as outlined in the District's Strategic Plan.

Database of online social services available for Philadelphia residents.

Homepage of the City of Philadelphia.

Welcome to Congresspedia, the "citizen's encyclopedia on Congress" that anyone can edit. Congresspedia is a collaborative project of the Center for Media and Democracy (http://www.prwatch.org) and the Sunlight Foundation (http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/) and is designed to shine more light on the workings of the U.S. Congress. Congresspedia is part of SourceWatch, a collaboratively-written, wiki-based website documenting the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda.

This book examines the life and political career of the 33^rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman.  Born in Missouri, he went off to serve as a captain of artillery in World War I.  Upon his return, he began his career in politics and quickly rose to great local and state popularity due to his "reputation of honest and efficiency as well as for party regularity."  His political shrewdness caught the attention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, searching for a new vice presidential candidate to replace Henry Wallace in the 1944 election.  After Roosevelt died in April of 1945, Truman assumed the presidency and was initially preoccupied with foreign policy: the Allied conference in Potsdam  and the conclusion of the war in Europe.  But perhaps the issue that took precedence at the time, and remained a major point of political debate the year after (1946, when The Best Years of Our Lives was made), was the decision in August to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.  Though Truman maintained till his death that he made the decision solely on the basis of ending the war, preventing an invasion of Japan and saving American lives, the book explores alternative beliefs that Truman had alterior motives, such as preventing participation of the Russiancs in the Japanese defeat, as they had pledged to do at the Yalta conference.

The decision to drop the bomb was initially greeted with great acceptance by most Americans, who were relieved to see the surrender of Japan, the end of the war, and the return of the troops.  Soonafter, however, people began to question the morality of leveling an entire city and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians with a single bomb.  People began to question if dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a good decision, if perhaps the US should have warned Japan of the awesome power their new weapon was capable of, if it should have been dropped on a military base rather than a city.  This debate was very much alive and well during 1946, the year of The Best Years of Our Lives, and this social commentary is very much interjected into the film.  For example, upon Army Sergeant Al Stephenson's (Fredric March) return home, his son promptly asks him if when in Hiroshima he saw the damaging of effects of radioactivity on survivors of the bomb.  The film is not a sterotypical, patriotic postwar film for many reasons, and its ability to recognize domestic debate over foreign policy is one reason for that; its discussion of complex issues lends it a layer of intellectualism.  At that point in American History, and still to this day, the American conscience has not been able to completley accept the decision to use the atomic bomb.

 

Gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal agencies

Provides country briefings, which include articles, background profiles, forecasts and statistics and information about economy, politics and history.

These publications include facts about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, and foreign relations of independent states, some dependencies, and areas of special sovereignty. 

"This November 2005 report looks at changes in airline travel since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Features data on number of domestic airline passengers, available seats, prices, and number of airline employees. Includes brief discussion of decreasing airfares in reaction to the growth of low-cost carriers. From the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), U.S. Department of Transportation." (via LII)

Links to official statistics of foreign countries from the University of Aukland. Statistics by country, region, and topic.

This work seeks to predict the impact of government regulation, in terms of new policy and programs, upon the music field for the future. It raises some ethical questions concerning the direction of technology and tries to account for how technological advancements will influence the national and global economy. The central issue around which the whole work is concerned is the commerce of music.

Major source of statistical information relating to education in the U.S.