Guest blog by Tyler Morgenstern, a member of the OpenMedia.ca board of directors, a steering committee member for Media Democracy Days Vancouver, and an information and privacy rights advocate. In the so-called “era of big data,” it’s no secret that more of our personal information than ever is ending up in the hands of powerful organizations, including transnational private corporations, national governments, and various public and bureaucratic bodies. And thanks to a recent rash of hacking attacks on some of the world’s biggest tech and media companies—the likes of Facebook[1], Twitter[2], the New York Times[3], and Apple[4]—urgent concerns about the vulnerability of that information to privacy breaches are back in the spotlight. While these corporate attacks are certainly cause for concern, however, the flurry of headlines that they’ve attracted has buried the other side of the story: government privacy breaches.

Check out this message from Charlie Angus, NDP Digital Affairs Critic, reminding us all what's still at stake in the Copyright debate in Canada, and why we need to stay informed and active in developing a copyright law that accurately addresses shifting systems of authorship and media production in our country. Dear Friend of Fair Copyright,

As you're all probably aware, the season of giving is upon us, and this year, all of us at OpenMedia.ca have come together with the help of our supporters to send a pretty incredible gift to Tony Clement- a massive, collaborative Christmas card where you can throw your support behind net neutrality in Canada, and have your voice heard at the highest levels of government. I've already got my two front teeth. All I want for Christmas this year is open internet! To sign the card and support the cause of net neutrality in Canada visit the link below: http://saveournet.ca/card

One of OpenMedia.ca's partner organizations, Rabble.ca is looking to hire a new Features Editor. Rabble.ca is a registered not-for profit organization that covers events and issues in ways that you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else. In addition to original news stories, in-depth features, provocative interviews, commentaries and more, rabble publishes columns from some of the few progressive voices in mainstream media and reprints articles you wouldn't want to miss from other alternative publications.

Writing for The Mark, Kaitlyn Braybrooke, an organizer of, contributor to, and participant in the recent Fresh Media Festival (W2 Gallery, 112 West Hastings, October 24. http://www.freshmedia.me), reflects on the experience and how the day embodied the spirit of a new approach to citizenship and identification that combats the cynicism toward virtual communities that often colours new media discourses.

On November 26th, the CRTC, in response to massive public pressure, gave permission to Al Jazeera English to operate in Canada. As Anita Krajnc and Walied Khogali of Rabble.ca write, what little public opposition to the move there was focused on generally "unsubstantiated negative charges," and largely ignored "The tremendously positive "Al Jazeera effect" on liberalizing media in the Middle East and in North America." For more information on the CRTC ruling and why this move is so crucial to the cause of democratizing global media, please visit:

The Georgia Strait is reporting that Metro Vancouver's public access television station, carried by Calgary-based Shaw Cable, has, without warning or heed for producers, writers, and local talent, re-branded the station as a "Shaw" outlet. Charlie Smith, writing for The Strait points out that, unfortunately, this is just the latest in a long string of failings by Shaw to support the independence and community function of public access channels:

Rupert Murdoch, head of global media conglomerate News Corp., recently announced that he will attempt to remove the stories published by his media outlets from Google's search index, allegedly as a way to encourage people to purchase news content online. As Bobbie Johnson of The Guardian writes,