On Thursday, FSFE’s General Assembly has elected Matthias Kirschner as the organisation’s new president. Having worked closely with him for a decade, I’m hugely happy to see him step up to this role. Together with our new vice president Alessandro Rubini and executive director Jonas Öberg, we’ve assembled a team of exactly the right people Read more »
It seems I’m not the only one interested in who the European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Guenther H. Oettinger, is meeting with. This morning, Spiegel Online is running a thorough piece (in German, natch). Politico Europe has the story, too. And Transparency International is launching EU Integrity Watch, making it easy to see Read more »
This is a blog post that I’m writing with a wistful smile. About two years ago, I decided that I would eventually move on from my role as FSFE’s president. We’ve been preparing the leadership transition ever since. Now the time has come to take one of the larger steps in that process. Today is Read more »
We’ve been looking at how EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger is handling transparency on his meetings with lobbyists. Turns out, not very well. In response to our informal questions, the Commission updated the lists of meetings over the weekend. There are two lists of meetings with interest representatives. The one for Oettinger’s cabinet (i.e. his team) Read more »
On Wednesday, I pointed out that Commissioner Oettinger, who handles matters of digital economy and society for the European Commission, has not been keeping up on publishing his meetings with lobbyists. Though the Commission’s generic inquiry team hasn’t gotten back to me yet, I though I’d accelerate the process a little. So I’ve now sent Read more »
In November of last year, the European Commission loudly trumpeted a new-found commitment to transparency. In a press release, it said that from now on, all meetings between Commissioners, their team members (the “cabinet”) and interest representatives would be made public. I was always curious how well this promise would hold up in practice. Not Read more »
Facebook announced today that the company will let users upload their OpenPGP public keys to the site. This way, the company can encrypt the emails that it sends to its users. When one of the world’s most-visited websites adds encryption capabilities, that’s normally a cause for applause. But on second thought, there’s very little here Read more »
Just how transparent does the European Parliament have to be? In its own rules of procedure, the Parliament has set itself the high standard of conducting its affairs in “utmost transparency”. But what does this mean in practice? For five years running, the Green group in the European Parliament has celebrated Document Freedom Day together Read more »
In the 1990s and early 2000s, we believed that we with digital technology and the internet, we were building a utopia. And my, has the comedown been harsh, as we discovered that we had built all the tools for a surveillance state instead. We enthusiastically took to platforms like Facebook and Google and fed them Read more »
By October this year, FSFE will have a new leadership team. When my current (third) term as the organisation’s president comes to an end this autumn, I will hand over the role of president, and move on to new horizons. FSFE is in a great place right now. We’re making a bigger impact than ever Read more »