One of the Republican Party’s top campaign masterminds, Karl Rove, is reportedly looking to build the epicenter of conservative digital campaign tools right in the heart of Silicon Valley. “We are working within the party to create a big toolbox that can compete in the midterms and be used by all,” private-equity investor Richard Boyce told the Wall Street Journal about the still-forming entity. → Read More

There are two governments vying to be the best at spying on U.S. citizens: the American government and the Chinese government. While I’m not thrilled about either military sifting through my private data, if information sharing allows the U.S. government to block Chinese hackers, I’ll happily choose a democratic government over a viciously authoritarian one. → Read More

Thomson Reuter’s Deputy Editor of Social Media, Matthew Keys, has been indicted for allegedly conspiring with hacktivist group, “Anonymous.” According to the Department of Justice, “Keys provided members of the hacker group Anonymous with log-in credentials for a computer server belonging to KTXL FOX 40’s corporate parent, the Tribune Company.” → Read More

In case you can’t get enough of the folksy musings of “America’s Happy Warrior,” the White House has launched the Being Joe Biden Portal. “If you want to keep people away during an earthquake, buy some shotgun shells,” said Vice President Biden, in response to a question about assault weapons bans during a Google+ hangout last January. If Biden’s first broadcast is any indication, the audio series… → Read More

The Internet’s biggest organizations collectively rose up in outrage over a potential act of government censorship, yet have been conspicuously silent as Congress mulls sweeping new government surveillance authority. In 2012, most major websites staged a massive global blackout in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would have granted authority to shut down websites… → Read More

Someone in DC thought they had snuffed out an official Republican report on radical intellectual property reform by convincing the authoring agency to erase the document from the Internet and fire the staffer charged with writing it. The shadowy politicking backfired. The young fall-boy, Derek Khanna, instantly became a front-page living martyr against the entertainment and telecommunication… → Read More

Attorney General Eric Holder claims critics are wrong to blame prosecutors for misconduct in the handling of Internet activist Aaron Swartz.

Swartz committed suicide after allegedly facing 50+ years in prison for releasing millions of pay-walled academic articles. During a congressional Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Holder claimed that the media overhyped the assumption of an… → Read More

Grassroots digital activists are looking for a new another sweet, sweet hit of political success. After successfully lobbying the White House with 100,000 petitions to overturn a law related to cell phone carrier choice, fiery young activist Sina Khanifar is demanding broader copyright reform. And, this time, he’s bringing friends: FixTheDMCA.org brings together a host of influential digital… → Read More

Twitter’s liberal bias is no shocker to anyone who saw “Binders Full Of Women” at a Halloween party last year. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s slip-of-the-tongue during a presidential debate instantly became a Twitter sensation, fueling discussion of conservative gender bias for weeks after the event. Now, delicious new survey data from Pew reveals just how liberal the Twitter… → Read More

Today was a big day for grassroots consumer activism: The White House officially came out in support of cell phone unlocking. After over 100,000 netizens demanded a response from the Obama Administration related to a new law banning consumers from “unlocking” their cell phones in order to move between carriers, the White House declared its unequivocal support for consumer choice. → Read More

While America’s political and business elite are pressing Congress to ease high-skilled immigration laws, a new study argues that foreign workers aren’t necessarily better or brighter. “The immigrant workers, especially those who first came to the United States as foreign students, are in general of no higher talent than the Americans, as measured by salary, patent filings… → Read More

Private First Class Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to leaking classified government documents to WikiLeaks. Reading from a 35-page statement, Manning said he leaked diplomatic cables to “spark a domestic debate as to the role of the military and foreign policy in general,” but denies aiding the enemy. Perhaps most revealing, Manning said that he first attempted to go to media outlets, such as… → Read More

People who read my emails must think my parents are Mr. Rogers and double-espresso. For a very strategic reason, I write with more emotions, LOLs, and exclamation points than a Twilight chatroom: humans are prone to misinterpret text-only communications. A strategy of unmistakably positive emails could have saved the White House from its most recent crisis of having to prove it didn’t send… → Read More

Dozens of major U.S. companies have come out in support of marriage equality, including Apple, Facebook, eBay, and Intel. In legal briefings submitted to help overturn California’s ballot initiative, Proposition 8, which made same-sex marriage unconstitutional, the companies argue that “recognizing the rights of same-sex couples to marry is more than a constitutional issue. It is a business… → Read More