Tag: Digital Freedom

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology

Raspberry Pi Foundation unveils new Pi that’s six times faster, will support Windows 10

by Andrew Villeneuve

Three years to the month after launch­ing the first Rasp­ber­ry Pi micro­com­put­er, the Rasp­ber­ry Pi Foun­da­tion has unveiled a new Pi that uses a more mod­ern proces­sor and has twice as much mem­o­ry onboard. The Rasp­ber­ry Pi 2, as it’s being called, will sell for $35, just like its pre­de­ces­sors (the first gen­er­a­tion Mod­el A […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, National Defense, Policy Topics, Technology

When are SSL and VPNs not secure? Why, when the NSA wants to spy on you, of course!

by Andrew Villeneuve

With each pass­ing week, it is becom­ing increas­ing­ly clear that for­mer NSA employ­ee Edward Snow­den’s doc­u­ment dump con­sti­tutes the largest and most impor­tant leak in the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. While Snow­den remains in Rus­sia, news­pa­pers in the West con­tin­ue to sift through the doc­u­ments he leaked, using those as the basis […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Technology

U.S. House endangers digital freedom by passing CISPA for the second year in a row

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ignor­ing a veto threat from Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed today to pass Repub­li­can Con­gress­man Mike Rogers’ Cyber Intel­li­gence Shar­ing and Pro­tec­tion Act, bet­ter known as CISPA, for the sec­ond year in a row. The vote on final pas­sage, which hap­pened this morn­ing, was two hun­dred and eighty-eight to one hundred […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Technology

White House threatens veto of Mike Rogers’ reincarnated CISPA in its current form

by Andrew Villeneuve

Leg­is­la­tion mak­ing its way through the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that could fur­ther erode our civ­il lib­er­ties would be vetoed by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma were it to reach his desk in its cur­rent form, the White House said today. In a for­mal state­ment of admin­is­tra­tion pol­i­cy on H.R. 624, more com­mon­ly known as the Cyber Intel­li­gence Sharing […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning, Technology

Leaders of opposition to SOPA and PIPA in Congress congratulate Net strike organizers

by Andrew Villeneuve

As we report­ed ear­li­er today, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid has scrapped plans to hold a vote on the “Pro­tect IP Act”, also known as PIPA, next Tues­day. PIPA is one of the two MPAA and RIAA-backed bills that would per­mit major media con­glom­er­ates to indi­rect­ly cen­sor the Inter­net, using the long arm of the […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Technology

Harry Reid calls off next week’s vote on PIPA

by Andrew Villeneuve

Anoth­er vic­to­ry! From Sen­a­tor Har­ry Rei­d’s office: In light of recent events, I have decid­ed to post­pone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act. There is no rea­son that the legit­i­mate issues raised by many about this bill can­not be resolved. Coun­ter­feit­ing and pira­cy cost the Amer­i­can econ­o­my bil­lions of dol­lars and thou­sands of jobs each […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Technology

Mission accomplished: Internet strike turns SOPA, PIPA into a top story for the first time

by Andrew Villeneuve

We’re back! Twen­­ty-one hours ago, we took down this blog, The Advo­cate, along with Pacif­ic NW Por­tal and our home page to protest two destruc­tive bills that threat­en Inter­net free­dom, sta­bil­i­ty, and secu­ri­ty: the “Stop Online Pira­cy Act” (SOPA) and the “Pro­tect IP Act” (PIPA). In their place, we acti­vat­ed an action cen­ter explain­ing our […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Technology

NPI to participate in Internet strike against SOPA and PIPA on January 18th

by Andrew Villeneuve

Read­ers who are reg­u­lars at Red­dit or who close­ly fol­low tech­nol­o­gy news may have heard that the social news site is lead­ing the way in fer­ment­ing what’s being called an Inter­net strike against two destruc­tive, anti-Inter­net bills being pushed by Hol­ly­wood on Capi­tol Hill (the so-called “Stop Online Pira­cy Act” and the “Pro­tect IP Act”). […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Technology

White House signals that administration opposes SOPA and PIPA as currently written

by Andrew Villeneuve

Respond­ing to a pair of peti­tions call­ing on Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to take a stand against two bills that threat­en Inter­net free­dom (the so-called “Stop Online Pira­cy Act” and “Pro­tect IP”), three admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials have pub­lished a posi­tion paper on the White House web­site which sug­gests that the admin­is­tra­tion does not find SOPA or PIPA acceptable […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology

Join the fight against Internet censorship: An open letter to Senators Murray and Merkley

by Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing is the text of a let­ter sent by NPI to the offices of U.S. Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray of Wash­ing­ton and Jeff Merkley of Ore­gon this morn­ing. Dear Sen­a­tors Mur­ray and Merkley: On behalf of the team at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, I am writ­ing to express our strong oppo­si­tion to two […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology

Senators Wyden, Cantwell ready to stand up to protect the Internet from censorship bills

by Andrew Villeneuve

In a mat­ter of days, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate may be vot­ing on an extreme­ly dan­ger­ous bill backed by the enter­tain­ment indus­try that would allow pow­er­ful media con­glom­er­ates and oth­er big cor­po­ra­tions to cen­sor the Inter­net at will. This bill, S. 968, which we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten about, is offi­cial­ly known as the Pre­vent­ing Real Online Threats […]