Obama on Net Neutrality

Anne Broache of CNET has a good article up about Obama indicating during the Mtv and MySpace forum that he's in favor of Net neutrality. This is nothing earth-shattering, of course, as all of the Democrats are in favor of an equal opportunity Internet, but it sounds like Obama has a good grasp of the concept, citing that companies like Google might not exist if it weren't for Net neutrality.

Broache also noted that, while Net neutrality is not a "make-or-break issue akin to healthcare, immigration or the Iraq War," it still holds some heat. As the question was posed by MoveOn, I would venture to second that assertion since they wouldn't waste their bandwidth on a question of little importance. As someone who works from a remote office and who has used everything from 300 baud to a T3, I say speed does matter and anyone who says otherwise is just selling something.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.

New York Times & Women in Online Politics

Yesterday, New York Times reporter, Katharine (Kit) Seeyle, published an inquiry on their blog, "The Caucus", asking readers to respond to "why more men seemed to be involved in politics online than women... if you agreed with that and... why or why not." The discussion is still going strong in the comments there, and today Seeyle published her artilce, "Women, Politics and the Internet", on the New York Times site. (Note: I was quoted - minus my last name and without much context, but it's in there.)

Morra Aarons of BlogHer and Women and Work, was interviewed by Seeyle and followed up quickly with a post asking for more women to participate in the discussion yesterday afternoon before the deadline of the article today. Following her lead and looking at the post on the New York Times blog, I noticed a lot of women frustrated about the apparent lack of attention paid to women in politics online, and many people addressing the topic of blogs and how the discussion often turns derogatory.

One of the commenters, "woman on the inside," (comment #34 and accidentally republished in #41) wrote about how the men tend to pat each other on the backs and help each other out more and tend to be louder and more brash. She says that there are many women working in online politics, but they're not getting on "Meet the Press." This goes into another issue that Shesource.org, a partner to The White House Project and VoteRunLead.org is trying to address - getting more media attention to women whiich, I think is at the heart of this matter. I'd like to hear what Women in Media and News thinks about this topic.

I noticed this phenomenon in the Mother Jones article series on online politics a few months back and wrote about it here. Morra and Esther Dyson were two out of like 4 women interviewed vs. approx. 20 men for that series. The editor wrote back that she reached out to Arianna Huffington and looked for more. In her defense, it's not like there's a list out there of who all is involved in this field.

"woman on the inside" (I think I know who you are, but I won't out you) also uses the example of Karina Newton from Speaker Pelosi's office, and she mentions Zephyr Teachout (from the Dean campaign) and Amanda Michel among others. I'll name a few more names of women who are involved in the presidential campaigns this time around - Tracy Russo and Amy Rubin are working for John Edwards and Crystal Patterson blogs for Hillary Clinton. Mindy Finn (just to prove we're not all Democrats) is Mitt Romney's Director of eStrategy (and formerly of the RNC).

More names: Laura Quinn, Liza Sabater, Jane Hamsher, Taylor Marsh, Chellie Pingree, Susan Crawford, Becky Donatelli, Mary Katherine Ham, Heather Mansfield, Dahlia Lithwick, Chris Nolan, Maryscott O'Connor, Jeralyn Mertitt, Allison Hayward, Mary Hodder, Kathy Mitchell, Lorelei Kelly, Heather Holdridge, Jeanne Jackson, Michelle Malkin, Kate Kaye, Allison Fine, Amanda Marcotte, Barbara O'Brien. These women play major roles in political blogs and policy nonprofits. And of course we can't forget the BlogHer founders Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort and Jory Des Jardins or even Elizabeth Edwards who blogs frequently and likes to meet with bloggers. What about some of the companies that work on the back-end? There are a few that are women-owned and run like ROI Solutions, run by Gina Vanderloop or Orchid Suites' Tanya Renne. So while this is not even a remotely comprehensive and I don't have everyone's current affiliations, my point here is to show that there are not only many capable women working in online politics, but there are many capable women leaders working in online politics.

In my post about an event I attended a couple of weeks ago, two of the speakers were women (out of 6, that's progress) - Michelle Kraus and Perla Ni. And what about the mommybloggers? Elisa Batista of MotherTalkers, Stefania Pomponi-Butler (who wears many hats like me but also blogs about politics), and Grace Davis all blog actively about political issues. Ann Crady founded Maya's Mom as a social network or parents, but it's not like parents just talk about parenting. And of course Joan Blades can't be missed - she founded MoveOn and MomsRising. I'm not even going into the long long list of women involved in technology policy list including a majority who run the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (Bet you didn't realize that! Much credit for this should go to Shari Steele.) Also women play major roles in ACM, EPIC, Creative Commons and CPSR, all leading technology policy advocacy groups I've worked with. Well-known names in that space include Annalee Newitz (see my blogroll).

Anyway, back to the New York Times. Emily McKhann of BlogHer was also interviewed and quoted in the article, and Erin Kotecki Vest of BlogHer and Queen of Spain got in on the comments, just after mine. (Mine is #48; Erin's is #49.) (Emily and Cooper Munroe are spearheading BlogHers Act.) I then tipped-off the Silicon Valley Moms about the discussion and Beth Blecherman and Glennia Campbell submitted comments #59 and #63 respectively. Rather than reprinting my long quote here, I'll just note that my main points were not about how men and women communicate differently (because I really don't know much about that - I am both a problem-solver and a consensus-builder, unlike what I said about the generalizations I've read) but I do want to point out the variety of ways women are involved in politics, not just via blogs. I think that's a huge point that may not have had enough emphasis in the article. Many women are involved and just because we're not out there spilling our guts in the blogosphere, that doesn't mean we aren't playing a dynamic, important role.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.

Cybersalon Summary From Last Week - Politics 101, Web 2.0, and Democracy vs. Demagoguery

First mentioned at Cybersalon, a "round table" (round room) discussion that took place in Berkeley last weekend, was that Joan Blades of MoveOn and MomsRising couldn't attend due to the Senate's censure of MoveOn for the Petraeus-Betray Us ad. The group (40 or so people, mostly local) discussed whether MoveOn's decision to run costly print advertising like this was worth it. Most said yes, since they made $500,000 in one day as a result. One person noted that Hillary Clinton, on the talk show circuit, said the reason the Republicans were coming out against the ad was to change the subject. Some said there were better ways to make their money and gave suggestions. Not that this crowd was biased at all. (Please note sarcasm.)

The discussion moved to whether or not the Internet is really making a difference in politics, and many talked about how it depends on its use. I agreed with the quote Sylvia Paull, Cybersalon organizer, said about Esther Dyson noting that technology itself is neutral and how it can be used for either. (I'm paraphrasing.) My example: blogs. You can use them as dictatorial mechanisms with strict content and message control, no comments or massive comment censorship, or you can leave them totally open. One woman said she thought that due to all of the frustration about the 2000 and 2004 elections, it was nice to have a place to vent online. I also pointed-out that voter data seems to have spiked in direct relation to greater use of the Internet in campaigns.

Then the discussion moved toward military censorship of soldiers. One person seemed irate that this would happen; another said that's always happened. Either way, they made it sound as if soldiers' email and outside communications access is so limited, they can barely say more to their families than they are alive vs. actually giving their real opinions about the war.

Then the talk came to how people can make a difference on a local level. The site, Kitchen Democracy was mentioned along with the San Leandro Citizens Network. Someone from Progressive Punch introduced himself. Also MapLight was there. Everyone concurred that a great way to GOTV is through neighborhood weekly "Margarita Fridays" where you get your neighbors on the block to come over, drink margaritas and talk about local issues. Sounds good to me.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.

Change.org Presidential Matchmaker Feat

One of my favorite sites in the whole world (and as it turns out, it's locally run)is Change.org. Tonight, I met the founder, Ben Rattray, who is - no surprise - both knowledgeable and passionate about enabling people to take action for important causes and candidates. While poking around Change.org further, I found a cool Presidential Matchmaker widget that matches you up with presidential candidates.

Surprise - my selection on issues matched me up with Hillary Clinton at 81%. The only reason it wasn't closer is because the issues are listed as one-liners so it's difficult to know exactly what they're supporting and in some cases I'd support something Hillary "strongly supports" and vice versa, so in reality we're probably more in the 95th percentile on the issues. I think the feature could actually be more specific, but it does a fairly good job laying out a variety of issues and it's fun to use.

At the bottom of my comparison list was Duncan Hunter at 22% in common with my views. The only place we remotely agreed was that I answered that I was ok with churches assisting people on welfare (although I might change my mind on this if I knew more about the issue) and he's strongly in favor. Why? I don't see why letting churches give food to some people in their communities is bad unless that means it's in lieu of the government giving funds. I don't think it should be an either-or proposition and I don't think the government should reduce welfare support just because churches might pitch in. I know the issue goes deeper than this, but that's not the purpose of this post. No way am I voting for Duncan Hunter in any universe, but Change.org always gets my vote.

You have to join Change.org and select the Politicians tab in order to see the Matchmaker feature. Enjoy.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Change.org

I just checked out change.org, thanks to a tip from e.politics. So far, I'm fairly impressed - they are a social networking site for people interested in nonprofit issues and recently they added a section for political candidates because they want to help level the playing field there. The site's fresh and clean, and the nonprofit listing pages remind me a little of Orkut's groups.

It groups nonprofits by the changes they aim to affect, labeling them most often with action verbs like "stop global warming", "save darfur", "separate church and state", and "protect wildlife". You can search by category, like 'animals' and in there, search by specific change like "stop puppy mills" and there you'll find recommended nonprofits that are related. You can also search by nonprofit or by politician like many other social networking sites. What's really cool is you can provide recommendations for politicians on certain issues, and you can write reviews about nonprofits.

Each organization has an 'About' section, reviews, supporters, photos, videos, news, volunteering/action and fundraising areas. Discussions take place within the nonprofit pages - some are calls to action; others contain event information. They partner with JustGive - a 501c3 that passes along the contributions to the nonprofits as allocated. So far they've raised over $36,000. It will be interesting to see how they take off with their political area and how the site is primarily utilized in the long term. I plan to play around with it a little more and see if it sticks for me. I had a few problems using it and I have yet to determine whether it was my browser or their code causing the problems, but in general I like the site and the concept.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.

Maplight.org Data Mashup & Clean Elections

I had an opportunity to tour the Maplight.org congressional search a couple of weeks ago. At their launch party in Palo Alto, they showed their new search and discussed how their data analysis relates to clean elections and why it's important to be able to combine this data to see the realities of what's happening in terms of campaign contributions and legislative voting records.

One example from their statewide program shows a bill where bottled water manufacturers gave a legislator money the day before he voted against a bill that would mandate stronger bottled water standards. It could be a coincidence, of course, and there's always a chicken-egg scenario in these cases but the combined data is fascinating regardless.

Maplight.org is a Berkeley-based nonprofit with a mission of "illuminating the connection" between money and politics. The congressional search and the California state search are both now up on their web site.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.

Interesting Nonprofit Concept - donorschoose.org

Crate & Barrel sent me a letter about a month ago saying that they wanted to thank me for being a customer and that they were doing a program where customers can select where a $25 donation will go. Thinking the site would be some portal to non profits, I checked it out and also of course figuring if I can get $25 sent to another worthy cause, great. donorschoose.org actually is a very specific site where they have accounts related to education and requests by educators to fund their specific projects. They don't always tell you where they are, but the options are quite extensive.

I chose the SF Bay Area because I have a sense of local issues here and then I selected arts & music - there were several options for different types of projects - technology based, reading based, by subject, region, etc. but that one interested me since the arts are so generally neglected in schools here. Finding thousands of proposals just for the arts, having a toddler at home who is very musical and going through the preschool selection process where I am seeking a school with a good music program that my daughter will love, I decided to search for 'preschool music' and the first one that came up said something about creating an environment for dance and music at a preschool and helping by purchasing a cd player and instruments for the classroom so I put my $25 gift card toward that.

You can fund the whole project yourself, of course, or add to the personal donations. What I didn't find out is what happens if these programs are only partly funded - do they get any money? do they get some money? do they go through another process? I'll check that out another time, but I wanted to mention it as an interesting way to be really specific about where your money goes rather than just having a blanket $25 donation going to the Red Cross and not knowing where that money will actually end up. I'm in favor of both kinds of systems, of course. Organizations need to manage their own funds in order to operate properly, but I think this is an interesting business model that provides a more local feel to contributing in the education space.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.

E-Voting Dilemma? We Have Two Options Left

It's election time again and electronic voting machines are back on top in the news.  "Hacking Democracy" aired on HBO this week, articles are still surfacing about Maryland's problems with electronic voting machines in their primary, and already a plethora of problem reports from machine pre-tests are rolling in.  If you voted absentee already, you can sigh in relief that you're done.  For everybody else, read on.

In order to make sure this post is taken seriously, here's why I'm qualified to write about this topic:  I've worked in computer and network security for several years, I've written about a wide range of security topics for reputed publications, I have edited three books on computer security, and I'm a member of the U.S. Association for Computing Machinery Public Policy Committee.  I have also worked in the past with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, both of whom have worked closely with the Verified Voting Foundation.

The organizations noted above have worked extremely hard to guarantee a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) in all future elections.  They succeeded in California but not every state has been so lucky.  And, I might add, here in California the machines we're using are not entirely without bugs, errors, or security concerns.  For example, San Mateo County is using eSlate (by Hart InterCivic) handheld devices not unlike PDAs.  In Calloway County, Kentucky, votes have been switched on straight tickets from all Democrats to all Republicans when the results were sent to the review screen.  This is happening across the country with machines made by all four major e-voting machine companies, flipping both ways.

The way I see it, we only have two options left as voters.

Option 1: If you have a machine that provides the option to verify your vote with a paper audit trail, you can do so at the end of the voting process.  This is the voter's responsibility, not the volunteers at the polls.  And it is still possible that the vote recorded is not the same as the vote printed.  Aside from that, most states do not have adequate processes in place for reporting errors.  Do this at your own risk, but if you decide to use an e-voting machine, please participate in Verified Voting's Election Transparency Project.

Option 2: If you have an electronic voting machine that does not request a paper ballot.  These are real ballots, not provisional ballots.  They will be counted on election day and verified.  It's old tech and it won't work for some people with disabilities, but it's safe and it's proven.  For those of you who are not lucky enough to have real paper ballots available but instead are granted provisional paper ballots only, file a complaint.

I don't think anyone needs to be reminded that our democracy is at stake here.  To see up-to-date results on errors being reported around the country, goto VotersUnite.org.  For more information about the importance of VVPATs or to participate in the Election Transparency Project, check out VerifiedVoting.org.  HBO's documentary, "Hacking Democracy", will be aired again Tuesday morning.

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Originally posted at the Silicon Valley Moms Blog.