Metafilter's own Sean Tevis made history with his run for Kansas House of Representatives in 2008. Read more here, here, and here. Sean is back and ready to commence 'Option 4', once again changing the way politics is done in Kansas. From his website "Sean Tevis is visiting more than 50 politicians who can make open government a reality. He wears a different shirt with each politician. Eash shirt is unique and displays the names of 100 people like you. These shirts also have messages on them, which are Twitter-sized: 140 characters or less. The politician receives a copy of this shirt, too, for meeting with Sean. You get an account of this visit."
posted by jlowen on May 6, 2009 - 25 comments

Politics, the Press, and the Public. Bill Moyers speaks with Glenn Greenwald and Jay Rosen about the role of the establishment press in America’s dysfunctional political system.
posted by homunculus on Feb 7, 2009 - 18 comments

In 2009, a remarkably gifted politician, confronting a remarkably difficult set of challenges, will have to learn to say "No we can't", Guantánamo will prove a moral minefield, economic recovery will be invisible to the naked eye, governments must prepare for the day they stop financial guarantees, we will judge our commitment to sustainability, scientists should research the causes of religion, we will all be potential online paparazzi, English will have more words than any other language (but it's meaningless), Afghanistan will see a surge of Western (read: American) troops, Iran will continue its nuclear quest while diplomacy lies in shambles, the sea floor is the new frontier, we should rethink aging, (non-)voters will continue to thwart the European project -- but cheap travel will continue to buoy it -- though it has some unfinished business to attend to, and a Nordic defence bond will blossom.

The Economist: The World in 2009. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 27, 2008 - 31 comments

Time Capsule: the internet and E-democracy. “Peoples’ lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like roads, energy supplies and running water. We can no longer take that for granted and we must advocate for the Internet politically, and support its vitality personally.” - Susan Crawford, University of Michigan School of Law. In recognition and memory of the beginning and continuation of the political internet, they have organized a Time Capsule of e-democracy's beginnings - everything from using e-mail to plead your friends to vote to flash animations that set the web alight. It is to be sealed on September 22. Help tell the story of internet politics.
posted by parmanparman on Sep 15, 2008 - 2 comments

Goodbye alt.* Andrew Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups--out of roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist. In a press release, he took credit for [Verizon's] blunderbuss-style newsgroup removal by saying: "We are attacking this problem by working with Internet service providers...I commend the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry." Verizon eliminates the entire alt. subset of usenet. Today, the alt.* hierarchy is by far the most populous on Usenet.
posted by caddis on Jun 12, 2008 - 143 comments

The '...is your new bicycle' meme is your new bicycle. I like bikes.
posted by fixedgear on Feb 21, 2008 - 44 comments

What's the Big Secret? Four surveillance experts try to figure out what the NSA's superclassified wiretapping program really is (hint: it may have something to do with the filters). They don't seem to realize that this kind of reckless public discussion means some Americans are going to die. [Via Threat Level.]
posted by homunculus on Aug 30, 2007 - 47 comments

The Votemaster has returned. Electoral-vote.com has been re-launched for the 2006 elections. The major focus is on the Senate but there is also some quick analysis of the hotter House races. For those who missed the phenomenon during the heady days of 2004, here is the Wikipedia article and previous MeFi discussion.
posted by rocketpup on Sep 8, 2006 - 41 comments

Net neutrality hurts consumers, and Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) gets it completely: "I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?" Huh? Enlightening audio of the entire Jabberwocky-esque speech here, as he "explains" why he voted against a proposal that would have required broadband providers to give their competitors the same speeds and quality of service as they give to themselves or their partners.
posted by youarenothere on Jul 2, 2006 - 74 comments

1000 Angry Monkeys, Blogging About Politics... The partisan political blogosphere has been humming along nicely for the last several years. But where the progressive and conservative ideologies intersect, at technology, they can possibly be best categorized as libertarian, particularly if limited to the development, growth, corporatization, regulation, and taxation of the internet. As such, there's much news worthy of our attention. More inside...
posted by rzklkng on May 4, 2006 - 21 comments

"House to Vote on Political Blogging Rules" How is this to be interpreted? What's yhe motivation behind this? Who would it help more, MoveOn , or Blogs for Bush, or whom else?
posted by celerystick on Nov 2, 2005 - 25 comments

UK politician chooses his blog over his party: Paul Leake, a Liberal Democrat councillor in Durham, was asked by his local party to remove any "controversial" posts from his weblog and to give them the right to vet future posts. Denis Jackson, another Liberal Democrat on Durham City Council, said that the Labour councillors were using the blog to find "lurid headlines". Leake refused, and stepped down from the party. He'll now serve his constituents as an independent. [Via The Political Weblog Project]
posted by tapeguy on Sep 19, 2005 - 3 comments

Internets: Serious Business! These last few months have seen an increase in the attacks on the participatory culture of the web. The mainstream establishments, both political and corporate, have been looking with a cautious eye towards this new developing place. So far we've established that blogs can get you fired, keep you from getting a job, give pedophiles a place to ruminate on snatching your children, threaten journalistic integrity *snicker*, endanger the marketing , product planning, and product life cycles for automobile manufacturers, can infect your computer with virii, and have all sorts of negative consequences. The internets (both of them) can cause your children to be charmed, seduced, and addicted by readily available porn, and can also provide access to extremist radical and fundamentalist groups, prompting Congress to discuss more restrictive legislation (NSFW), but only for the porn. It has even been claimed that the web has given "Al Qaeda wings". P2P is blamed as causing record loses by the music industry, despite their investments in local station marketing payola. The FEC has held public hearings attended by both hemispheres of the blogosphere (amazingly in near-agreement) discussing the regulation of political speech online. The figureheads of a certain political party fear that their affiliated slice of the blogosphere may be too far-left. Newspapers and TV are leading the charge, with the internet standing in for pharmaceutical scares, yo-yo diets, and missing white women. The question is, how will the libertarian-minded digerati respond to this very real attack on the essence of web culture?
posted by rzklkng on Jul 29, 2005 - 34 comments

What do Charles Krauthammer, Harry Lime and Sideshow Bob have in common? Discover The Nutwork
posted by y2karl on Mar 10, 2005 - 26 comments

Iran systematically filters political websites: In contrast with what the Iranaian President had said in the UN summit on Information Technology last year, the OpenNet Initiative, in its latest bulletin, concludes that "Iran is indeed engaged in extensive Internet content filtering beyond just pornography, including many political, religious, social, and blogging websites.
"Most of these censored websites are Iran-specific; very little non-pornographic, "global" content is filtered from Iranian users. "
posted by hoder on Aug 19, 2004 - 8 comments

Props to the 1st amendment This election year, the impact of grassroots organizing on the internet is pricking up some ears in Washington. Here's something to add to the chorus.
posted by greensweater on Mar 11, 2004 - 8 comments

I am Blogger, hear me roar! (3.1mb PDF) - A new study shows that "Online Political Citizens are not isolated cyber-geeks, as the media has portrayed them. On the contrary, OPCs are nearly seven times more likely than average citizens to serve as opinion leaders among their friends, relatives and colleagues. OPCs are disproportionately “Influentials,” the Americans who “tell their neighbors what to buy, which politicians to support, and where to vacation...” " They are “canaries in the mineshaft for looming political ideas” and tend to be more young, white, single, college educated, and affluent than average. I just feel so influential. Now where's the friggin paycheck...
posted by troutfishing on Feb 6, 2004 - 16 comments

Dem Blogs This community is filled with bloggers and I wondered if anyone had seen Maureen O'Dowd's take on how the Presidential Candidates are starting to use, for better or worse, "blogging" as a method to get their "message" across. ( Registration required )
posted by RubberHen on Aug 13, 2003 - 9 comments

Saving the Net isn't just really about saving the net: the article is a great point of confluence on the issues of Intellectual Property, Property and Success as American values, as well as the future of the Internet as a true commons. Especially interesting is the observation that Presidential candidate Howard Dean's campaign contribution lead – raised via the Internet – is owed to a huge number of small donations, not to a small number of large special interests. If he's being bought, it's by his voters." [via Slashdot]
posted by weston on Jul 23, 2003 - 9 comments

With the wee hubbub that's going on at the moment in our government, it might be nice to take a step back and look at what this means for us Internet users (and more specifically, bloggers). When I pondered this for a moment, my mind drifted to that briefly bearded granola and silicon presidential hopeful of times long forgotten. Well, Al Gore may have invented the Internet (or, as he put it, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet"), but it is this man who has truly embraced the medium.

The greatest difference between this man and the cowboy currently shootin' from the hip in the Oval Office isn't about taxes. It's not about health care. And, yes, I contend it's not even about women's rights. The greatest difference between the Son of Bush and the Dean isn't about left or right or conservative or liberal. It's all about the flow of information. [More inside]
posted by Hammerikaner on Jun 14, 2003 - 9 comments

Are national governments about to take over the Internet? Has ICANN done such a terrible job that they should be permitted to?
posted by rushmc on Jun 13, 2002 - 3 comments

Stupid URL. Stupid Site. GREAT gfx. and don't look for any content - there isn't any. warning: bandwidth!
posted by heimkonsole on Apr 8, 2002 - 26 comments

The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act is being spearheaded by Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina. He wants to prohibit the sale of any device that can play, copy or electronically transmit one or more categories of media unless special protection technologies are incorporated. Anyone intentionally violating the CBDTPA would be subject to civil and criminal penalties, including prison terms. Welcome to the 21st century.
posted by Hackworth on Mar 22, 2002 - 18 comments

Sometimes there is a strange kind of justice in the universe. A candidate in Oregon, who had promised to require that all schools and libraries be forced to use censorware on their computers, changed his position when he found that his own campaign site was being censored by one of the most popular of the censorware packages.

Ah, schadenfreude. Hoist by his own petard, in't he?
posted by Steven Den Beste on Nov 9, 2000 - 1 comment

Journalism profs are soliciting Internet users' opinions on how "politically interested Web surfers are using the Internet in the 2000 U.S. presidential elections."
posted by thescoop on Oct 24, 2000 - 0 comments

Does the United States Need a Chief Information Officer? From Slate. The government waking up to the Internet's reach or two political hopefuls speaking to twitchy netizens? You make the call.
posted by capt.crackpipe on Sep 6, 2000 - 2 comments

Another day, another piece of unconstitutional net-censorship legislation in Congress. And this time it's authored by your pal and mine, John "Watch Out for Charlies!" McCain. Perhaps we should start a deadpool for all these bills, giving out some cash to whoever guesses the dates on which the courts throw them out?
posted by aaron on Jun 27, 2000 - 4 comments

Philosophy in Cyberspace and Politics.com are wealths of information. Visit them if you want a complete bio of either Hatch or Hegel, Bradley or Baudrillard.
posted by tdecius on Nov 2, 1999 - 0 comments