From the U.S. Department of State:

On February 15, 2011, Secretary Clinton reconfirmed the U.S. commitment to global Internet freedom in an address at George Washington University in Washington, DC. In last year’s speech, the Secretary identified the defense of a free, open, and interconnected Internet as a U.S. foreign policy priority. The State Department works to advance Internet freedom as an aspect of the universal rights of freedom of expression and the free flow of information.

The Internet and other digital technologies enable an unprecedented level of communication and connection among individuals. They empower people across the world with the tools to share ideas and information as never before. In many ways, the Internet is the largest collaborative effort humankind has ever seen, magnifying the power and potential of individual voices on a global scale.

NYU professor Clay Shirky on the transformational power of social media.

From “Inside Facebook”

Local governments are busy trying out Facebook as a new place to encourage voting. They’re likely encouraged by seeing Facebook’s relevance in big 2008 campaigns, when both major US political parties, and especially President Barack Obama’s campaign, used the service to promote themselves.

Facebook has also grown by more than 200 million monthly active users in the last year or so, 60 million of whom are in the US. Today, more than 112 million people are using the site every month — that’s a third of the US population, and another reason Facebook is a venue that governments can’t ignore.

Read more here

Progressives cannot rest on their 2008 laurels. Conservatives are now using New Media and have, in some ways surpassed us. Scott Brown’s winning Senate race in Massachusetts relied heavily on New Media.

The GOP actively reaches out to bloggers to help spread their message.

A Google ad surge may just have put Brown over the top and into a winning position.

Aside from pitching his truck, Republican Scott Brown also pitched voters with an aggressive online campaign.

When voters googled Martha Coakley, Brown’s opponent, they saw plugs for Brown in the list of sponsored links on the right.

Rob Willington is Brown’s online strategist. He says with Google’s help the campaign was able to precisely target key markets.

ROB WILLINGTON: So if you lived within a 30 to 45 mile radius of one of our offices, you were going to see ads saying volunteer this weekend for Scott Brown, all over the place in the top 200 Web sites in Massachusetts.

Welcome to the world of Google-powered elections. The company calls that tactic a network blast. In Massachusetts, Willington says those blasts cost about $25,000 a day. Far less than TV and worth every penny.

WILLINGTON: People think Google is a search engine, that’s just one part of it. It’s the new TV. It’s not a niche media market anymore, it is mass media.

As more and more voters rely on cell phones and caller I.D., it will become increasingly more difficult over time to reach voters by telephone.

A New Media strategy is no longer a political luxury, but a political necessity.

But if you’re going to do a New Media campaign, make sure you do it the right way. There’s no point to doing a lackadaisical Internet strategy, and then shrugging your shoulders after it fails saying it didn’t work.

Politics magazine lists “Ten Ways You Can Blow It Online in 2010.”

A winning New Media strategy takes time to develop and gain momentum.