Tag: Access to information

For the second time this year Uganda has carried out an internet shutdown during the election period. It’s time to push back.

The Global Connect Initiative to connect 1.5 billion to the internet by 2020 must bake in human rights by design, says Access Now’s Brett Solomon.

Today countries around the world urged the small island state of Nauru to restore access to social media and support free expression. Delivered in a session at the United Nations Human Rights Council, the recommendations — presented by official delegations from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Timor Leste, among others — represent a sharp rebuke after Nauru clamped down on free expression over the past year, including blocking Facebook. In a separate action, Access Now delivered a petition to the government of Nauru signed by more than 5,000 people calling on the government to restore full access to the internet.

Today, several news outlets reported an internet shutdown in Congo-Brazzaville, where thousands of people are protesting after news surfaced that President Sassou Nguesso is contemplating a proposal to extend presidential term limits. While it’s not clear yet what’s happening in Congo-Brazzaville, we’re very concerned about the safety and security of the people protesting. Internet shutdowns do not restore order, help victims, or protect rights.

On Monday, October 19th, stakeholders in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process gathered in New York for an interactive summit that represents one of the last few chances for civil society to discuss the WSIS findings and help shape the future of the initiative. Access Now joined a diverse coalition of groups to submit a unified revision of the “zero draft” — the draft of language that will become the resolution for adoption by the U.N. General Assembly in December.

This week the Open State Foundation, creator of Politwoops, uploaded more than one million deleted politicians’ tweets to the Internet Archive, preserving the information for the public record. The collection archives the deleted tweets of 10,404 politicians worldwide, which were published before Twitter cut off Open State’s access to its Application Programming Interface, or API. Unfortunately, Twitter still refuses to reinstate access to the API, which means that people in 32 countries can’t see what politicians are deleting right now.

On Tuesday 22 September, Access will hold an apéro on the Future of the Internet where our Brussels team and civil society representatives will meet with Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and their staff.

Access applauds the recent decision by U.S. government agencies to modify sanctions to allow the export of vital technologies to Crimea once again.

The ninth annual UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) took place in Turkey in early September, placing a global spotlight on the country’s digital rights record. As we have seen in recent years, the UN-mandated forum has a tendency to give rise to complicated and unexpected consequences in its host country.

In a recent interview, former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the Syrian government was not to blame for a nationwide internet blackout on Nov. 29, 2012, the NSA was.