Wireless community networks or wireless community projects or simply community networks, are non-centralized, self-managed and collaborative networks organized in a grassroots fashion by communities, non-governmental organizations and cooperatives in order to provide a viable alternative to municipal wireless networks for consumers.
New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a liberal think tank in the United States founded in 1999. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security studies, technology, asset building, health, gender, energy, education, and the economy. The organization is based in Washington, D.C., and Oakland, California. Anne-Marie Slaughter is the chief executive officer (CEO) of the think tank.
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is an international network of organizations that was founded in 1990 to provide communication infrastructure, including Internet-based applications, to groups and individuals who work for peace, human rights, protection of the environment, and sustainability. Pioneering the use of ICTs for civil society, especially in developing countries, APC were often the first providers of Internet in their member countries.
Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression. CDT seeks to promote legislation that enables individuals to use the internet for purposes of well-intent, while at the same time reducing its potential for harm. It advocates for transparency, accountability, and limiting the collection of personal information.
Paul Baran was an American-Jewish engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks. He was one of the two independent inventors of packet switching, which is today the dominant basis for data communications in computer networks worldwide, and went on to start several companies and develop other technologies that are an essential part of modern digital communication.
CTIA is a trade association representing the wireless communications industry in the United States. The association was established in 1984 and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit membership organization, and represents wireless carriers and suppliers, and manufacturers and providers of wireless products and services.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is a U.S. nonprofit public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., focused on public policy surrounding industry and technology. As of 2019, the University of Pennsylvania ranks ITIF as the most authoritative science and technology policy think tank in the world. In its role in developing industrial and technological policies, ITIF has attracted controversy for its affiliations with various technology companies.
Internet censorship in the United States is the suppression of information published or viewed on the Internet in the United States. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech and expression against federal, state, and local government censorship.
Julius Genachowski is an American lawyer and businessman. He became the Federal Communications Commission Chairman on June 29, 2009. On March 22, 2013, he announced he would be leaving the FCC in the coming weeks. On January 6, 2014, it was announced that Genachowski had joined The Carlyle Group. He transitioned from Partner and Managing Director to Senior Advisor in early 2024.
The PROTECT IP Act was a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to the sale of infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S. The bill was introduced on May 12, 2011, by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and 11 bipartisan co-sponsors. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementation of the bill would cost the federal government $47 million through 2016, to cover enforcement costs and the hiring and training of 22 new special agents and 26 support staff. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, but Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) placed a hold on it.
Ben Scott is an American policy researcher and advocate.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a proposed United States congressional bill to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Introduced on October 26, 2011, by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), provisions included the requesting of court orders to bar advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with infringing websites, and search engines from linking to the websites, and court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to the websites. The proposed law would have expanded existing criminal laws to include unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content, imposing a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
The Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act is a bill introduced in the United States Congress proposed as an alternative to the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act, by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, and Representative Darrell Issa of California, a Republican. The text of the bill is available for public comment at keepthewebopen.com.
On January 18, 2012, a series of coordinated protests occurred against two proposed laws in the United States Congress—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). These followed smaller protests in late 2011. Protests were based on concerns that the bills, intended to provide more robust responses to copyright infringement arising outside the United States, contained measures that could possibly infringe online freedom of speech, websites, and Internet communities. Protesters also argued that there were insufficient safeguards in place to protect sites based upon user-generated content.
Commotion Wireless is an open-source wireless mesh network for electronic communication. The project was developed by the Open Technology Institute, and development included a $2 million grant from the United States Department of State in 2011 for use as a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), concomitant with the Arab Spring. It was preliminarily deployed in Detroit in late 2012, and launched generally in March 2013. The project has been called an "Internet in a Suitcase".
In internet governance, network sovereignty, also called digital sovereignty or cyber sovereignty, is the effort of a governing entity, such as a state, to create boundaries on a network and then exert a form of control, often in the form of law enforcement over such boundaries.
Dan Meredith, also known as Dan Blah, is an Internet freedom supporter, journalist, technologist, and media activist. He currently is chief technologist at Reset, a privately funded non-profit funding organization. He was a founding Director of the Open Technology Fund, a U.S. Government funded program created in 2012 at Radio Free Asia to support global Internet freedom, privacy-enhancing technologies, and Internet censorship circumvention technologies. Meredith joined Al Jazeera's Transparency Unit in 2011, led by Clayton Swisher, where he increased communication security between investigative field journalists and their sources. He was an early part of the Open Technology Institute in 2009, led by Sascha Meinrath. While at OTI, Meredith was involved with: The "Internet in a Suitcase" project, a U.S. Department of State funded effort to create ad hoc mesh wireless technologies; collaborated with Philadelphia community organizers to secure US$11.8 million from the federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program; and, worked on Network Neutrality court cases Hart v. Comcast and Comcast Corp. v. FCC with Robb Topolski, who discovered Comcast blocking Bittorrent traffic in 2007. Meredith was a co-founder and senior network engineer of the CUWiN Foundation, a non-profit launched in 2000 that aimed to develop "decentralized, community-owned networks that foster democratic cultures and local content". He was an active Indymedia volunteer throughout the mid 2000s at the Champaign-Urbana Independent Media Center (UCIMC) and its low power FM radio station, Radio Free Urbana WRFU-LP. Meredith joined the Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative as an inaugural appointee to its Advisory Board in 2014.
Engine is a non-profit group advocating for public policies that encourage the growth of technology startups in San Francisco, California. Engine is composed of a 501(c)(3) organization called Engine Research Foundation and a 501(c)(4) called Engine Advocacy. Engine Advocacy and Engine Foundation are the two branches of a non-profit organization that conducts economic research and policy analysis research and provides support and advice to technology startups. Engine Advocacy was an instrumental partner in the effort to defeat PIPA and SOPA back in 2012. The organization researches and advocates around the issues of open Internet, intellectual property reform, privacy laws, Internet and spectrum access and immigration reform. Google, SV Angel, 500 Startups, Mozilla, Yelp and the Startup Genome support the organization.
Media Democracy Fund is a nonprofit grant making initiative that works with foundations and individual donors to support digital rights, internet access, online freedom of expression, internet privacy, internet security, and equality. Media Democracy Fund is hosted by the New Venture Fund.
