Wireless for the People But Not the Government

Recently, I spent two days at a Washington State agency down near the capital. It came as quite a shock to me that in the building (and outside in the parking lot) there was terrible coverage for both mobile reception and 3G connection. It made me wonder why any major mobile telecommunications company would fail to provide excellent coverage to key governmental locations? Or was that intentional? Were the majority of the employees on a network other than Verizon Wireless and had no such issue? Whatever the reason, it left me feeling quite disconnected from the rest of the world, as I additionally had no internet connection to use my laptop.

Arguably, it is a separate issue that there was no public or private WiFi network in the building, either – I suppose it isn’t unreasonable since the agency handles sensitive information, and perhaps it is a security concern. But even so, it makes me wonder. Some employees had Blackberries (which were scheduled to be taken back due to budget cuts), but I never saw anyone from the agency in the slew of meetings I observed bring a laptop or tablet (though smartphones were definitely present).

I am definitely a member of the constantly-connected generation. Personally, being without internet for a few hours makes me twitchy. But it is also impossible for me to get work done without an internet connection, as approximately 95% of my job is tied to having access to the world wide web. While I was on-site, I found myself writing a number of work emails on my phone through the web access email portal we have, wishing all the while for one of those magical little wireless network creating USB sticks. Tried to run my work computer off my phone's network, but was informed that I was not graced with those administration privileges. So I just had to accept my lack of internet and move on, thankful I could still take notes in Word and set reminders for myself for when I was back on the grid.

My handwriting, after all, can be pretty dire when taking speedy notes.

The Knowledge Economy - Don't Kill the Education Budget

An article on the BBC News website yesterday was titled "Graduates - the new measure of power". The main take was from an education perspective, looking at the shift from raw resources as sources of power within nations to knowledge and intellectual resources. This is not a new topic - scholars have been exploring the shift to the "knowledge economy", but perhaps I've been abnormally exposed to the school of thought since I'm getting a degree in information. Nevertheless, it is a recognized fact that measuring the "power" of a nation must calculate the innovation, information, and knowledge that is being generated within its borders and its citizens. This article emphasized the role that formal educational institutions play in this generation of value, and how all across the globe governments are heavily investing in their future through students and schools.

Maybe the numerous states in the US, such as Washington, should consider this fact before they continue to viciously slash at the state-supported education budget for schools such as the University of Washington.  As the Governor's new budget presents a worst-case scenario of an additional 40% slash, it is important to understand what has come already (from a letter to the State legislative from Interim President Phyllis Wise).


The steepest decline in state funding for the UW came in 2009-2011, when the state and the nation entered the Great Recession.  Over a two-year period, the University of Washington lost over $132 million in state funding, roughly 30% of its state appropriation.  Even with two 14% tuition increases, over $57 million in cuts were still necessary to balance our core education budget. 


Major cuts included: 
• Eliminated 950 jobs 
• Froze enrollment for resident undergraduates 
• Closed/eliminated 12 degree programs; 14 MA programs now self-sustaining 
• Increased advisor load by 180 students per advisor 
• Closed 384 undergraduate lecture sections and 130 small group sections 
• Decreased number of lab sections by 20%, while average lab size increased 38% 
• Closed 4 writing/tutoring centers and 2 computer labs (loss of 1/3 student workstations) 
• Closed 1 library, reduced library hours, and canceled subscriptions to over 1,200 journals 
• Reduced hundreds of hours of student counseling services (advising, financial aid, health)  


As I'm preparing to graduate in June from a program that is not state-supported at all, I'm still concerned as a citizen of Washington about the future of education systems if these huge cuts are continued. Economies recover, but it is likely going to take years and years for educational institutions to recover from the hemorrhaging of funds out of their budgets. It seems awfully short-sighted for any government to pull money from the one resource that is almost guaranteed to reward the economy handsomely in the future.

Anonymity, Privacy and The Debate on National Online IDs

I think the National Internet ID conversation that has been recently taking place is quite an important and interesting piece to be discussed. I've been approaching a research piece on it from a risk-perspective, but part of that is a risk to privacy and anonymity. In an article by Helen Nissenbaum on anonymity, I thought she had a good point - that anonymity is really about being "out of reach" from consequences. Anonymity can be abused and used as a negative thing (think criminal activities) but many times it is critical for certain systems to work (as mentioned, voting and peer-review).

In the draft of the "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" released in June 2010, their vision of the future sounds pretty good. "Individuals and organizations utilize secure, efficient, easy to use and interoperable identity solutions to access online services in a manner that promotes confidence, privacy, choice, and innovation." (pg. 12) Some interpret the strategy to mean that Americans could begin to have unique online identities used to access password-protected websites. That's an interesting and slightly worrying thought. While "confidence, privacy, choice and innovation" sound good, what does that mean in a practical sense?

Would having some sort of online identification be a threat to anonymity and a violation of privacy? Already there is so little privacy on the internet - maybe if the government regulates more, there would be less abuse of breaches in privacy and security. But I am a bit leery of the idea of allowing a government to so in-depth access or observation to the behavior of citizens. Nothing sounds so tyrannical as being observed at every moment or having to curtail one's speech for fear of reprival. And I'm not sure that an Online ID would be the most conducive tool for an open and free democratic society. But on the other hand, I like parts of the idea in theory - but things look so good on paper sometimes when in reality they just are a really bad idea.

Keeping Our Troops Connected

A recent headline on Wired.com made me pause: "Tweet Away, Troops: Pentagon Won’t Ban Social Media".

There has actual been the serious possibility that the Pentagon would ban soldiers from using social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook? It boggles my mind - many of the troops now are being more and more made up of digital natives. You might as well tell them they're banned from talking as tell them they can't use social media, especially to communicate with their friends and family. As Robert Mason et al. describe them, these youngest generation of adults have “grown up in a world surrounded by connectivity and digital tools. They are ‘net natives’ or ‘digital natives.’ These are people who have never known a world without the Internet, instant messaging, online games, and the possibility of persistent digital presence with networks of people.” You're not going to be able to tell we of this digital native generation that we can't have our Facebook or Twitter fix. Sorry, it just isn't going to happen. Social media is a force that is moving forward, not winding down.

** Edit Note: If you read the comments, Jordan makes some very good points that should be integrated into my little ramble here. I really agree with her when it comes down to the fact that sometimes take an entitlement approach to social media. Just because we behave a certain way doesn't mean we should. **

Apparently, the bright idea of banning came from military officials who feared that social media caused too much security hassle, and took up too much bandwidth. So to say again, in 2009 the military was "seriously considering" a complete ban. The reason that this is now back in the news is because come March of this year, the 2009 policy that "enshrined military access to social media" is expiring, which only came after a long battle.

Hopefully, there wont' be any more malarky about banning or limited access. Because frankly, if the military did do something like this, the country would probably have to implement a draft. And then there would be riots in the street... and on Twitter.