Upcoming Events: National Security Letters (9/19); Digital Badges for Global Health Delivery Skills (9/23); NymRights (9/30)

Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation: A Conversation About National Security Letters

Friday, September 19, 12:00pm ET, Wasserstein Hall, Room 3019. Hosted/Co-sponsored by the Cyberlaw Clinic.

Several federal statutes authorize the Federal Bureau of Investigation to issue National Security Letters -- administrative subpoenas that require companies to disclose customer information relevant to national security investigations. In March 2013, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California held that gag order provisions in the NSL statute violated the First Amendment and that judicial review procedures violate separation of powers, declaring the entire statute unconstitutional. The court stayed its order pending the government’s appeal. The unnamed ISPs challenging the statute are represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In the wake of recent leaks on national security activities vis a vis major online service providers, non-disclosure provisions in NSLs have come to the forefront of the national conversation on transparency for service providers and due process for their customers. Kurt Opsahl, a Berkman Center Affiliate and EFF attorney who is arguing the NSL appeal, will explore these issues in an interactive format.

more information on our website>

Digital Badges for Global Health Delivery Skills

Tuesday, September 23, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

Healthcare professionals worldwide often have extensive non-clinical skills in management, public health, policy, or other fields which are not officially recognized through a degree. The Global Health Delivery (GHD) Project aims to introduce digital badges, a credentialing mechanism for healthcare professionals to showcase their skills and experience to potential new employers, grant-giving organizations, and others. GHD is investigating how other industries internally and externally reward professionals and aims to be the platform that health care delivery professionals use to track their professional development activities.

Rebecca Weintraub, MD is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Faculty Director of the Global Health Delivery (GHD) Project at Harvard University. She is an Associate Physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in the Division of Global Health Equity and practices medicine within the Department of Medicine. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

NymRights: Protecting Identity in the Digital Age

Tuesday, September 30, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

Do you have a name? More than one? Does it matter to you who knows it? As digital systems become more integrated into our lives, these questions are becoming very important. We're in the midst of a literal identity crisis where your identity is quickly becoming, rather than something you define, a social construct that is granted to you. This talk will explore the philosophy of names and identity, the digital systems we've created over the past decades, and the challenges that arise when the systems come into conflict with individual safety and freedom. We'll take a look at the current state of name-related policy within both companies and government, and introduce ongoing efforts to make sure your identity is not just a number in a computer.

After being suspended twice by Google Plus during the nymrights fiasco of 2011, aestetix helped created NymRights, focused on empowerment and education of digital identity. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

The Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem

Thursday, October 2, Network of Centers Event in Torino, Italy. This event will be webcast live.

On October 2, 2014 the Global Network of Interdisciplinary Internet & Society Research Centers will host an academic symposium on “The Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem” as part of an ongoing Network of Centers (NoC) events series on the future of Internet governance. The event will mark an important milestone in the NoC’s globally coordinated research effort aimed at examining existing and potential models of decentralized and collaborative governance with the goal of informing the evolution of - and current debate around - the Internet governance ecosystem in light of the NETmundial Roadmap and the work of various forums, panels, and committees.

The public conference is being held to discuss both research in progress and, more broadly, the role of academia in the debate about the next generation Internet governance ecosystem. We will present findings from case studies, discuss the overarching themes, and identify directions for future research.

The symposium will serve as the conclusion of the first phase of a global, collaborative Internet governance research effort within the NoC and is also intended as an initial contribution to the NETmundial Initiative -- a partnership between the World Economic Forum, ICANN, and key governmental, industry, academic, and civil society stakeholders. In addition, the event marks the two-year anniversary of NoC’s operation. At this point, in accordance with the foundational principles, the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) hands over the administrative leadership of the Network to the Nexa Center for Internet & Society.

Please register here: https://noc2014.eventbrite.com Registration (for in-person attendance) Required. more information on our website>

Getting to Know the Berkman Center with Jonathan Zittrain

Learn more about the Berkman Center for Internet & Society -- and its incredible network of researchers, activists, faculty, students, technologists, entrepreneurs, artists, policy makers, lawyers, and more -- in an interactive conversation led by Faculty Chair Jonathan Zittrain. If you’re curious about connecting with our research, our community, or our events, or are just generally interested in digital technologies and their impact on society, find out more here! video/audio on our website>