Since the establishment of We the People, the US government site dedicated to allowing citizens to petition the government to respond to their concerns, the concept has been engulfed by follies, giggles, and sour grapes. It has not been effective in getting any real changes made in government and at times it has been more of a comical retreat as well as a platform where the opinions of the White House can be spread through “replies” that were already a part of public record. Today, we saw something different, something better. Today, the system might actually have worked as promised. A petition…

It’s not just a question of privacy. It’s not simply a question of civil liberties. The technological capabilities and mandated powers that the United States government currently has will be used on American citizens because perceived requirements for homeland security will always supersede the rights of a free people. History has shown this. It’s happening right now. According to records obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center through the Freedom of Information Act, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection are currently operating ten Predator B drones designated for…

The greatest threat to startups is lack of momentum. For companies that make it over the startup hump, it’s competition. Once a tech company is big, innovation is often the biggest challenge. Once you get to be the size of Facebook, Google, and Apple, the biggest roadblocks to continued prosperity can be Washington DC and other governments. For this reason, many of the largest tech firms in the world spend hefty amounts of money on lobbyists to make sure that the actions of the US government do not deter them from heading down the paths they choose. Facebook is the latest to hit the lobbying trail hard…

We were so close. A non-controversial bill,  the Video Privacy Protection Act, flew through the Senate and was sent to President Obama last week. The bill itself isn’t important; it allows people using services like Netflix to post the movies that they were watching directly from the service onto Facebook and other social media sites just as they can do now with music sites like Spotify. This is currently against the law because of legislation from 1988 when Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s video rental history was leaked. That’s not the important part. What was important was that a section…