The Beneblog is a weblog by Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman, on issues and ideas that affect the application of technology to unmet social needs.

Posted 01/25/2012:
Guatemalan National Police Archive Goes Online

Guest Beneblog by Ann Harrison

In 2006, the Benetech Human Rights Program was asked to participate in one of the most important human rights data projects in the world. The Guatemalan government human rights ombudsman invited the Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group...


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Guatemalan National Police Archive Goes Online

University of Texas Hosts Digital Repository and Conference Where Benetech Presents Archive Research Data

January 25, 2012, Palo Alto, CA – The University of Texas at Austin has unveiled an online digital repository containing 12 million of the approximately 80 million documents contained in the Guatemalan National Police Historical Archive or the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN). Discovered by chance in 2005, documents from the Guatemala City-based Archive have provided critical information in the prosecution of former members of Guatemalan security forces accused of human rights abuses during the country’s 36 years of armed internal conflict. Expert testimony by Benetech statistician Daniel Guzmán based on analysis of Archive documents provided key evidence in the conviction last year of two former Guatemalan National Police officers accused of disappearing and murdering Guatemalan union leader Edgar Fernando García.

The new repository, which is based in Austin, Texas, was announced during an interdisciplinary conference hosted by the University of Texas as part of its collaboration with the Archive. Entitled the Politics of Memory: Guatemala’s National Police Archive, the conference included a presentation by Dr. Patrick Ball, Chief Scientist and Vice President of the Human Rights Program at Benetech. Videos of the conference are available here with the Benetech presentation at minute 30.

Read more about the Archive project here.

Benetech Participates in Successful Anti-SOPA Blackout

January 19, 2012, Palo Alto, CA — Benetech joined the largest online protest in history yesterday joining more than 75,000 websites which altered their web pages to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Together with Wikipedia, Google, Reddit and other members of the Internet community, Benetech blacked out portions of www.benetech.org to draw attention to the controversial anti-piracy legislation which threatens to censor free speech and damage online innovation.

The proposed bills would place Benetech's Bookshare library in legal jeopardy by allowing Visa and Mastercard to stop processing donations or subscription payments based on uninformed accusations of copyright infringement. Bookshare operates under an exception in U.S. copyright law that makes accessible ebooks available to readers with print disabilities without requesting permission or paying royalties. While Bookshare opposes piracy of copyrighted works, the library is often contacted by authors and publishers who don't understand copyright law and demand that their books be removed.

SOPA and PIPA could also endanger Benetech's human rights projects including our Martus software which allows human rights activists to encrypt sensitive testimony to protect the identity of witnesses. If IP rights holders allege that Martus, or systems like TOR that help secure communications by activists, are being used to encrypt copyrighted works, human rights defenders could lose access to critical tools which are used around the world to combat violence, government surveillance and censorship.

The successful online protest against SOPA and PIPA has helped legislators understand the full impact of this overreaching anti-piracy legislation and reconsider their support for these measures. The Senate will bring the PIPA bill to the floor next week. Legislators need to know how this legislation could undermine critical services for the human rights community and readers with print disabilities who deserve our support.

See more updates in Media Resources.

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