Expect Resistance & Library Autonomous Zone

OMB Watch

OMB Watch is a nonprofit government watchdog organization located in Washington, DC. They promote open government, accountability and citizen participation. Issues that they’re interested in include: the Federal Budget (have you seen our deficit lately?!); Information & Access; Nonprofit Advocacy; and Regulatory Policy. Check out OMBWatcher, their biweekly newsletter chock full of news and analysis. Each of their project areas have blogs as well (although I didn’t see any RSS). OMBWatch is one of the best federal government watchdogs around.

CFAC: California First Amendment Coalition

There’s some great information on CFAC’s website including the song, “You’ve Got a Right to Know”, an interview with Seymour Hersh at their most recent assembly, and tons of other information on first amendment rights and open government news.

beSpacific

Here’s the BOTM for October (ok I’m sort of like First Monday who’s proper name should be “First Monday-ish”!). BeSpacific gives updates on issues including copyright, privacy, censorship, the Patriot Act, ID theft, and freedom of information. It’s run by Sabrina Pacifici, one of the creators/editors for LLRX.com, the web zine on legal issues. Sabrina has blogged interesting GAO and CRS reports, legislation and links to information on copyright, e-voting, privacy, etc.

Open The Government

BOTM for september serves up opengovernment.org. This coalition of open govt advocates includes OMBWatch, ALA, Federation of American Scientists etc. Their just-released ‘Report Card’ Finds 60% Rise in Secrecy at a Rising Cost of $6.5 Billion Last Year.

Outraged Moderates

Why are we highlighting outraged moderates this month? This blog focuses on government documents and other primary sources. What Thad Anderson is doing, besides blogging(!), is distributing government documents via peer-to-peer (p2p) networks through his Download For Democracy campaign. He’s distributing over 600 govt documents in this manner.

Drum roll please… Are you ready for the featured blog for July? Here it is:

The Center for Democracy and Technology

The CDT “works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law, technology, and policy, CDT seeks practical solutions to enhance free expression and privacy in global communications technologies.”

The CDT is fighting to keep free speech, privacy, and democratic values alive. After all, isn’t that what we’re celebrating on July 4th?!

ATAC: Abusable Technologies Awareness Center

This looks like quite a useful blog. Their goal is to “provide current and accurate information about technology that oversteps its bounds.” The list of panelists is quite impressive and, if the first two posts are any proof, there is quite a bit of interesting discussion going on here (see for example: The “right” kind of challenge to e-voting security and Open Source won’t save e-voting)