As a continued act of record keeping, here are the blog posts I did for the Center for Democracy and Technology on their PolicyBeta blog during my internship.  I had a great time there and learned a lot about Internet/Security/Privacy policy and how government really works.  I worked on several projects at CDT, some of which resulted in blog posts.  One of my projects was writing the “CRS Report of the Week” posts.  CRS is the Congressional Research Service, the “Congressional Thinktank” that does policy reports for Congressmembers.  They produce CRS Reports, which explain current legislative issues.  CRS Reports aren’t directly available to the public, which is interesting since CRS is tax-payer funded to the tune of $100 million a year.  CDT runs a project called Open CRS which liberates CRS Reports found in the wild.  I wrote CRS Report of Week blog posts to illustrate how useful CRS Reports were.  They provide great introductions to topics and are often surprisingly timely.  Read one if you want to understand an issue.  I also worked on the Browser Privacy Report and PASS ID.

• Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative [June 30th, 2009]
• The Social Security Number [July 9th, 2009]
• The REAL ID Act of 2005 [July 17th, 2009]
• Access to Broadband Networks [July 23rd, 2009]
• Privacy Law and Online Advertising [July 31st, 2009]
• Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping [August 7th, 2009]

• CDT Releases Update to Browser Privacy Report [August 5th, 2009]
• RFID Skimming Is Easier Than You Think [August 7th, 2009]

The photo is the Farragut West Metro Station, next to which CDT is located and where I got off every day.

As a matter of record keeping and curiosity, here are the blog posts I wrote for the seminar on Information Technology and Public Policy that I took at the Woodrow Wilson School. Many of them, especially the ones on the Facebook Terms of Service and the Kindle 2, are now outdated due to events in the past months, but others are still relevant. 4 and 9 are topics that still stand today–4 is on how Computer Science education (especially at lower levels) could be improved and 9 discusses some of the tragedies that occur with what are normally positive traits of the Internet: the ability to disseminate information quickly, to keep sources anonymous, and to retain information for an indefinite amount of time.

1. Facebook wants to own your life [February 22nd, 2009]
2. The Kindle 2’s Correct Copyright Claims (and the Authors Guild’s Incorrect Ones) [February 28th, 2009]*
3. Blurring Google Earth [March 7th, 2009]
4. Computers in Our World [March 28th, 2009]
5. TVGuardian Will Protect Us All [April 4th, 2009]
6. The Kindle 2: A New Hope (for the disabled) [April 11th, 2009]
7. eBooks and mp3s [April 18th, 2009]
8. Protecting Children from the Indescribable Filth of YouTube [April 25th, 2009]
9. Grief From Griefers [May 2nd, 2009]

*Tim Lee (the tech libertarian) was in my class! He approved of this post.