Category Archives: Announcements

Aaron Swartz Day 2016, Announcements, Chelsea Manning, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight For The Future, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Internet Archive, Library Freedom Project, Tor Project

Invitation to this year’s Aaron Swartz Day Evening Event

ASDAY.Poster.Final
(Click for Hi-Res Poster Image Suitable for printing.)

TICKETS

The Internet Archive is hosting an Aaron Swartz Day Celebration on what would have been Aaron’s 30th birthday weekend*:

November 5, 2016, from 6:30-7:30 (reception)               8pm – 9:30 pm (speakers)

This year, we celebrate our community’s continued goal of making the world a better place, (like Aaron did).

To do this, we’ve assembled a unique collection of speakers to give you some very important messages.

Location: Internet Archive, 300 Funston Ave, San Francisco, CA 94118

Reception: 6:30pm-7:30pm – Come mingle with the speakers and enjoy nectar, wine & tasty nibbles.

Migrate your way upstairs: 7:30-8:00pm – We decided to give folks a little window of time to finish up  their nibbles and wine at the reception, exchange contact info,  and make their way upstairs to grab a seat to watch the speakers, which will begin promptly at 8pm.

Speakers 8:00 pm -10:00pm:

 A Special Statement from Chelsea Manning (in celebration of this year’s Aaron Swartz Day and International Hackathon)

Tiffiniy Cheng (Co-founder and Co-director Fight for the Future)

Cindy Cohn (Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation)

Shari Steele (Executive Director, Tor Project)

Yan Zhu (Security Expert, Friend of Chelsea Manning)

Alison Macrina (Founder and Executive Director, Library Freedom Project)

Conor Schaefer (DevOps Engineer, SecureDrop)

Brewster Kahle (Digital Librarian, Internet Archive) w/Vinay Goel  (Senior Data Engineer, Internet Archive)

The event will take place following this year’s San Francisco-based Aaron Swartz International Hackathon, which is going on Saturday from 10am-6pm, and Sunday from 11am-5pm, at the Internet Archive.

TICKETS

For more information, contact:

Lisa Rein, Co-founder, Aaron Swartz Day
lisa@lisarein.com
http://www.aaronswartzday.org

*Aaron’s date of birth was November 8, 1986

Announcements, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Surveillance

Tonight! See Cindy Cohn in Los Angeles: “A Report Back From the Legal Front Line”

October 28, 2015 – 7:00pm to 9:00pm
First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles
2936 West Eighth Street
Los Angeles, CA 90005

 

EFF

Mass Surveillance: A Report Back From the Legal Front Line

First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles will host a discussion featuring Cindy Cohn, EFF’s Executive Director. A leading voice in the legal struggle to defend digital rights, Cindy has worked on First Amendment and privacy cases since 1993, when she served as the outside lead attorney in a successful First Amendment challenge to U.S. export restrictions on cryptography. She currently represents First Unitarian Church in its lawsuit challenging mass NSA surveillance, an issue she will address earlier that afternoon at oral argument in Jewel v NSA, a preceding case raising similar arguments.

Join us at First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles (2936 West Eighth Street) to learn more about mass surveillance, the struggle to defend your rights, and how you can help build the movement wherever you live.

Please RSVP to help us plan accordingly:
https://supporters.eff.org/civicrm/event/register?id=103

Cindy Cohn, Legal Director and General Counsel for the EFF. Photographed by Erich Valo.
Cindy Cohn, Legal Director and General Counsel for the EFF. Photographed by Erich Valo.

 

Cindy Cohn will be speaking at this year’s Aaron Swartz Day Evening Celebration, November 7th, 7:30 pm, at the Internet Archive, in San Francisco. (Reception 6pm)

Announcements, Q & A with Brian Knappenberger

Just Added: Trevor Timm for Q & A with Brian Knappenberger After Saturday’s Event and Screening

trevor_FPFJust when I think that things couldn’t be any more exciting for Saturday Night’s event!

Trevor Timm, Freedom of the Press Foundation’s co-founder and Executive Director, has just agreed to appear with Brian Knappenberger, Director of “The Internet’s Own Boy” for  Q & A after the screening at the Internet Archive Saturday night. (Host Lisa Rein will moderate.)

Trevor writes a weekly column for The Guardian and has also contributed to The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Harvard Law and Policy Review, PBS MediaShift, and Politico.  In 2013, he received the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for journalism.

Aaron Swartz International Hackathon 2014, Announcements

Press Release – Aaron Swartz International Hackathon, November 8-9, 2014

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ASDAY.Poster.Final-smNews Alert – Aaron Swartz Day and International Hackathon 12 Cities Worldwide – November 8th and 9th, 2014

Austin, Berlin, Boston, Buenos Aires, Houston, Kathmandu, Los Angeles, Oxford, Magdeburg, New York, San Francisco  and Sau Paulo (November 3, 2014) – Link to individual city pages.

Aaron Swartz Day and International Hackathon 2014, taking place on what would have been Aaron’s 28th birthday weekend November 8th and 9th, 2014. In San Francisco, The Internet Archive is hosting an entire weekend of activities.

These events are will bring together the varied communities that Aaron touched, to figure out how the important problems of the world connect, and to share the load of working on those problems.

Aaron was a visionary with an endless supply of ideas, and he seemed to be constantly churning them out, prototyping them to the bare minimum, and letting others take them on, to refine and improve them.

These hackathons are like that too, fostering constant refinement, churn, and the exchanging of knowledge and ideas. The projects at these hackathons are very diverse and widespread, but the one thing they all have in common is the desire of those behind them to make the world a better place.

Each hackathon will end with a screening of Brian Knappenberger’s documentary, “The Internet’s Own Boy,” which he released under a Creative Commons license, to enable the world to have easy access to the film and learn more about Aaron’s story.

It’s all part of this year’s theme of  “Setting the record straight.” Now that we have brought people together and shared information with each other, the smoke has cleared a bit, and we can clearly explain to the world exactly what Aaron actually did and did not do.

In addition, on the evening of November 9th, in San Francisco, CA The Internet Archive is hosting a reception, speakers, and a screening of The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz with director Brian Knappenberger live in person. Just added: Trevor Timm (co-founder Freedom of the Press Foundation) and John Perry Barlow (co-founder EFF and Freedom of the Press Foundation).

Speakers include: Dan Purcell from Aaron’s legal team, Garrett Robinson from SecureDrop, Cindy Cohn from EFF, Kevin Poulsen, Brewster Kahle, and more. http://www.aaronswartzday.org/invite/#speakers

On November 8, Pivot is airing Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz.  Check local listings.

For more information, contact:
Lisa Rein, Coordinator, Aaron Swartz Day
lisa@lisarein.com
http://www.aaronswartzday.org

PDF of this Press Release

Aaron Swartz International Hackathon 2014, Announcements

Complete Schedule: Aaron Swartz Day and International Hackathon Weekend – November 8-9 at the Internet Archive in San Francisco

Greetings everyone! The outpouring of interest has been incredible.

One question that keeps coming up though is: What exactly is going on at the Internet Archive in San Francisco during this activity-packed weekend?

Short answer:

1) A Hackathon is going on BOTH Saturday and Sunday, from 11am-6pm, RSVP FOR HACKATHON

2) A Saturday night event, with a movie screening, is going on from 6-10:30pm (and then on until 1:30 am at an afterparty)                     RSVP FOR EVENING EVENT

Here’s a the full schedule for the weekend, so you can plan:

Saturday November 8th – 11am-6pm – Hackathon upstairs in the Internet Archive’s Great Room – food and refreshments provided throughout the day (vegan options!) RSVP FOR HACKATHON          (It will be assumed that most hackathoners are sticking around for the evening’s activities.)

Saturday, 6pm the Reception starts for the evening event!              RSVP for EVENING EVENT

6-7pm Reception – Mingle with the speakers and “The Internet’s Own Boy” Director Brian Knappenberger

7-8pm This year’s incredible line-up of speakers will give you a fast-paced update on a number of excited Aaron-related projects and activities over the past year.

9:45pm – Q and A with Director Brian Knappenberger after the movie – also added Trevor Timm and John Perry Barlow!

10:30pm – 1:30 am Keep the conversation going at an after party going on at Pizza Orgasmica, 823 Clement St, San Francisco, CA 94118 (415) 386-6000 (between 10th Ave & 9th Ave), just a few blocks away from the Internet Archive.

Then! On Sunday, another Hackathon from 11am-6pm. (Food and refreshments provided.) RSVP FOR HACKATHON

Sunday’s Hackathon could be a great chance to jump in to whatever idea sprang up in your mind at the event or during the film on Saturday night. Reminder that you don’t have to be a programmer to participate in a hackathon. (Here’s a “Hackathon 101” video explaining this.)

Travelers: if you are considering traveling to SF, all you’ll need is your computer and a place to sleep from between 1:30 am Saturday night and 11 am Sunday morning, when the Internet Archive opens up for its hackathon. Food will be provided during the hackathons. There’s also food and wine at the reception, and beer and pizza at the after party (though we may run out after the first 50-75 people).

So *if you can get here and have a place to stay for Saturday night, you are good*. I didn’t want people to not participate for lack of funds, and it’s expensive enough to travel these days. So, Woo hoo! Road trip to San Francisco :-)

Aaron Swartz International Hackathon 2014, Announcements

12 Cities Confirmed For This Year’s Aaron Swartz Hackathon

Aaron Swartz Hackathon GitHub site:
http://aaronswartzhackathon.org/

Most hackathons are November 8-9, 2014 – specific dates and locations up soon!

New! Austin! Added October 28th – Now 12 Cities!

Austin – Contact: Shanta Stevens aethyrflux@gmail.com                       (at atx hackerspace)

Berlin – Contact: Samuel Carlisle samuelcarlisle@gmail.com

Boston – Contact: Ali Hashmi a_hashmi@media.mit.edu or Adrienne Debigare Adrienne.Debigare@globe.com   /Center for Civic Media, MIT Media Lab, Wiesenr Building, E15, Room 345, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA, 02139, Nov 8, 10:00-20:00 Saturday.

Buenos Aires – Contact: Nicolas Reynolds fauno@endefensadelsl.org /Aristóbulo del Valle 1851, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. the hackathon will be held from saturday 8th, 4pm until sunday morning

Houston – Contact: Jeff Richman jeff@januaryadvisors.com

Kathmandu – Contact: Shritesh Bhattarai shritesh@shritesh.com

Los Angeles – Contact: Sterling crispin sterlingcrispin@gmail.com

Magdeburg – Contact: Katha k_holstein@web.de or Alex alex@netz39.de   /Friday – Sunday afternoon, maybe with some breaks in the early morning. Location is our hackerspace Netz39, Leibnizstraße 32, Magdeburg, Germany.

New York City – Contact: Jared Hatch jhatch@thoughtworks.com /Thoughtworks 99 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Oakland, CA – Contact: Phil Wolff pwolff@gmail.com /Sudo Room 4799 Shattuck Ave, Oakland, CA 94609

Oxford – Contact: Matt Ellen Matthew.ellen@gmail.com /OxHack which is inside OVADA, 14a Osney Lane, OX1 1NJ

San Francisco – Contact: Noah Swartz, swartzcr@gmail.com /Internet Archive 300 Funston Ave, San Francisco, CA 94118

 

Announcements

YOU DID IT! MayDay PAC Reaches Its 5 Million Dollar Goal

maydayLessig’s Mayday Hits $5M Kickstarter Goal To Fund Pro-Campaign Finance Reform Politicians

By Josh Constine for TechCrunch

Lessig told TechCrunch this week that while his group pushed for the ambitious $5 million goal in one month because “the urgency is to be able to pick the districts and begin the campaign. (Plus I am a bit of a drama queen).” There wasn’t time to waste.

He framed the campaign finance issue as a problem for the tech industry because corrupt politicians threaten innovation and a fair Internet. “We have no protection for network neutrality because of the enormous influence of cable company’s money in the political system…If NN is your issue, then this is why you should see that politic$ is your issue too” Lessig says.

If the “Super PAC to end all Super PACs” hits its next $12 million goal and succesfully gets candidates elected in its 2014 pilot campaign, it plans to raise orders of magnitude more money to elect an an more pro-campaign finance reform congress in 2016, enact reforms in 2017, and defend them in 2018.