Monthly Archives: March 2014

Greens want to call Julian Assange and Edward Snowden to parliamentary surveillance inquiry

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Edward Snowden and Julian Assange would not be protected by parliamentary privilege if they give evidence to a Senate committee about what they know about government snooping on Australian citizens, according to advice given to the ABC.

Greens senator Scott Ludlam is trying to have Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, and WikiLeaks founder Assange called before a parliamentary committee to give evidence into what they might know about mass surveillance of Australian citizens.

The move has caused a rift within Labor following the ABC's report that the Opposition was initially open to the idea.

Snowden has been charged with espionage by the Americans for leaking thousands of classified documents which have exposed the spying activities of countries including the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia.

Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Attorney-General George Brandis have labelled him a "traitor" for leaking the sensitive information some of which included revelations Australia spied on Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife.

Snowden has been granted a temporary visa in Russia since leaking the classified documents.

Mr Assange, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks, has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning on sexual assault charges.

It is thought that any successful attempts to have both men give evidence to the Senate's Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee would occur via video link.

If that were to happen, Snowden and Mr Assange would not be protected by privilege as it only applies when witnesses are physically in Australia.

Labor MP Michael Danby said he hoped Snowden and Mr Assange would have revelations about non-Western countries' spying activities to share.

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Greens want to call Julian Assange and Edward Snowden to parliamentary surveillance inquiry

The private sector answer to exploiting public sector data

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The UK government has mounted, and in some cases joined, a variety of initiatives in recent years aimed at open standards, open source software and, perhaps above all, open data.

At government level this means transparency and the ability of organisations and the public at large to access the various datasets they may have a vested interest in.

The UK government joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP) as a founding member in 2011. The OGP was established with a remit to establish "an international platform for domestic reformers", a label which the UK would presumably like to wear, were it not for its own various back-pedalling on open data and Freedom of Information (FOI) targets, due to legacy system issues and other complexities.

The government established the National Information Infrastructure (NII), committed to creating "as complete an inventory of the datasets they hold as possible". Once again, although initiatives of this kind set out with the best intentions, pragmatic rationalisation and execution are often a harder trick to pull off.

The government justifies the need to create a transparent environment for open data because, in its own view, over the past three years it has become clear that public sector information is capable of driving significant social and economic growth in the UK.

The NII published a white paper in October 2013 entitled Setting out a National Information Infrastructure. Its authors note: "Innovative applications and services have been developed using government open data from datasets whose value was not immediately obvious."

The government advocates a "twin-track" approach to the release of government data, focusing in the first instance on the release of "core reference data"; and then related "unspecified other" datasets.

Given the interplay and interconnect points between business and government today, how do big suppliers such as SAP, Oracle and IBM offer tools to help organisations and governments categorise data for the purposes of governance, risk and compliance (or GRC as it is now increasingly known)?

Oracle for its part has been nothing if not formal on this subject and has published a white paper, entitled Transparency in the Public Sector: Its Importance and How Oracle Supports Governments Efforts, to set out its stall.

Oracle says it offers a variety of technology and application products that can support government transparency efforts anywhere. The supplier says governments can use its Endeca enterprise content management tool to give citizens an easy way to search for and retrieve a wide variety of documents.

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The private sector answer to exploiting public sector data

Achieve Internet Taps Experienced Technical Sales Professional as New VP of Sales

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Los Angeles, California (PRWEB) March 24, 2014

Achieve Internet is excited to announce the addition of Jennifer Hols to our growing Open Source software development team as Vice President of Sales. Jennifer will be leading the technical sales and business development efforts from our Los Angeles office. Jennifer will be responsible for ensuring current and new clients reach their desired business goals and objectives. As well as helping Achieve continue its expansion in the Healthcare and Entertainment markets. Her deep background in user experience and content architecture will allow Achieve to offer a higher level of user centric tools to our hospitals and medical device organizations focused on reaching their ACA and Meaningful Use goals.

Jennifer brings with her 10 plus years of technical sales and business development skills with a deep understanding of Open Source web technologies and content management systems (CMS) including infrastructure management and architecture, and a mix of front and back-end engineering expertise.

Jennifer has demonstrated the leadership and technical expertise to run a highly successful sales and business development team. With a laser sharp focus on delivering user-friendly solutions that exceed industry expectations, I am confident that Jennifer will provide a great benefit to both new and existing clients for Achieve, said Ron Huber, Achieve CEO. Achieves future success depends on building solutions that deliver the most value to the Healthcare and Entertainment markets. Jennifers experience in both solution architecture and business development makes her an important addition to our leadership team.

Achieve Internet, Inc. is a leading Southern California software solutions company focused on the Healthcare and Entertainment markets leveraging Open Source technologies to develop advanced User and Patient Portal solutions. By combining 12 plus years of deep experience in third party software integration, responsive design, globalization and performance optimization, Achieve has brought web engagement management to clients including WellPoint, NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, Universal Music Group, Alliance Health, Dexcom, and Drupal.org. You can visit Achieve Internet at http://www.achieveinternet.com and our Health division Achieve Health at http://www.achievehealth.co

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Achieve Internet Taps Experienced Technical Sales Professional as New VP of Sales