Digital Commons Network^™

In 2011, usage of the term “civil disobedience” resurged in the American lexicon for at least two reasons: (1) there was widespread civil protest in Egypt; and (2) America observed the fiftieth anniversary of the now-celebrated Freedom Rides. Both reasons demonstrate the continued relevance of the twentieth century American Civil Rights Movement (“the Movement”). American media widely covered Egyptian citizens’ nonviolent acts of civil disobedience as Egyptians peacefully protested governmental corruption in demanding free and fair elections. Further, since 2011 marked the golden anniversary of the Freedom Rides in the United States, Americans were reminded of the nonviolent civil disobedience …

Constitutional, criminal, and administrative laws regulating government transparency, and the theories that support them, rest on the assumption that the disclosure of information has transformative effects: disclosure can inform, enlighten, and energize the public, or it can create great harm or stymie government operations. To resolve disputes over difficult cases, transparency laws and theories typically balance disclosure’s beneficial effects against its harmful ones. WikiLeaks and its vigilante approach to massive document leaks challenge the underlying assumption about disclosure’s effects in two ways. First, WikiLeaks’s ability to receive and distribute leaked information cheaply, quickly, and seemingly unstoppably enables it to bypass …

Computer source code is the lifeblood of the Internet. It is also the brick and mortar of cyberspace. As such, it has been argued that the degree of control that a government can wield over code can be a powerful tool for controlling new technologies. With the advent and proliferation in the Internet of social networking media and platforms for the publication and sharing of user-generated content, the ability of individuals across the world to communicate with each other has reached truly revolutionary dimensions.

The influence of Facebook in the popular revolutions of the Arab Spring has been well documented. …