While the Internet may aid the spread of democracy, democracy doesn't necessarily mean a free and open Internet. In her new book Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, Rebecca MacKinnon, senior fellow at the New America Foundation and co-founder of Global Voices, a citizen media network, investigates the corrosion of civil liberties by the governments and corporations who control the digital world.
The transport minister in Australia denounced a political opponent. He said the opponent wasn't interested in fixing a problem, only in making people "afraid of it" and telling them "who's to blame for it." Critics note Michael Douglas used that line in Aaron Sorkin's movie The American President.
After more than a century of providing services for immigrants and the poor, the organization founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams is shutting down. The Jane Addams Hull House Association has struggled financially in recent years.
