Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Seminar 4 Position Statement: Simona Levi, X.net



X-Net’s Fight against Corruption through Transparency Tools
By Simona Levi

Xnet  (ex-EXGAE) is a group of activists who have worked since 2008 in different fields related to online democracy and the creation of mechanisms for organised citizen participation and to control the seats of power and institutions.  We defend a free and neutral Internet; the free circulation of culture, knowledge and information; citizen journalism and the right to know, to report and to be informed; the legal, technical and communications struggle against corruption and technopolitics, understood as the practice of networking and taking action for empowerment, for justice and for social transformation.
Transparency and open access to information is the best strategy against corruption. We are driving the initiatives that are behind the leaks of one of the major corruption cases that are shaking Spanish politics today. These cases have emerged thanks to the fundamental participation of organised citizens.

The 15MpaRato project is a citizen device used to file the initial lawsuit and that drives the Bankia Case in the National Courts, uncovering the scams of Bankia's listing on the stock exchange, the preferred shares and the 'Black' Credit Cards. Xnet has built a Mailbox for Citizen Leaks Against Corruption, responsible for the discovery Blesa's Emails and the Black Credit Cards scandal and has recently launched a news blog with selected information that citizens have securely and anonymously provided through the Mailbox. A collaborative space for open source journalism in the struggle for transparency and against corruption.

In a context where governments and institutions are accomplices of the abuse imposed, the most important part of Xnet's work is citizen empowerment; so people can be the active actors of change.

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