National Security Agency (NSA)

This week, arguing that “transparency is overrated,” Amitai Etzioni presented a familiar critique. In his telling, transparency is ineffective because people cannot or do not act on disclosed information in ways that affect real policy outcomes. What he misses is that disclosure occurs within an ecosystem of interest groups and advocacy organizations that remix, repackage, and redistribute information once it is released. [...] Read More »

Foreign hackers don't just pose a threat to classified material, corporate secrets, and individual pri­vacy. Security experts say the greatest cyberthreat to the United States is the fact that the Chinese and Russian governments—and possibly other players—have succeeded in hacking into the nation's electric grid, giving them the ability, if they wish, to bring the U.S. economy to a screeching halt with the click of a mouse. Read More »

The metadata that the National Security Agency collects on all calls in the U.S. is not just what's on a phone bill, as the program's supporters have claimed. Read More »

In recent years, many state and local governments have put effort into open data projects that would inspire developers to create apps and find ways to use public data to bring value to their communities. Read More »