US Government Announces National Day of Civic Hacking

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday January 23, 2013 @07:37AM from the does-not-involve-hondas dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday in a post at the White House website, the U.S. government announced that June 1-2 would be the National Day of Civic Hacking. 'Civic Hacking Day is an opportunity for software developers, technologists, and entrepreneurs to unleash their can-do American spirit by collaboratively harnessing publicly-released data and code to create innovative solutions for problems that affect Americans.' It will be a joint project with Random Hacks of Kindness, Code for America. Activities are being planned in many cities across the country, and you can also sign up to host your own event. It's nice to see the government use the word 'hacking' in a positive way, since most uses of the term these days involve malicious activity."

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The feds promoting 'hacking'? by paiute · 2013-01-23 07:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

Color me surprised. Or maybe code me surprised. I thought the term 'hacker' was forever lost, stained by the media beyond redemption.

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If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Re:Apparently one Aaron Swartz was not enough. by phantomfive · 2013-01-23 07:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

This isn't a true call to hacking, it is a call for free labor.
I don't mind donating my labor for free sometimes if it makes the world a better place.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."