Whois & Analysis for commoncause.org

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments regulating the Internet should treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication.

The term was coined by Columbia University media law professor Tim Wu in 2003, as an extension of the longstanding concept of a common carrier, which was used to describe the role of telephone systems.

In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice intended to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries.

The resulting district is known as a gerrymander; however, that word can also refer to the process.

The term gerrymandering has negative connotations.

Two principal tactics are used in gerrymandering: "cracking" (i.e. diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts) and "packing" (concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts).

Open government is the governing doctrine which holds that citizens have the right to access the documents and proceedings of the government to allow for effective public oversight.

In its broadest construction it opposes reason of state and other considerations, which have tended to legitimize extensive state secrecy.

The origins of open government arguments can be dated to the time of the European Enlightenment: to debates about the proper construction of a then nascent democratic society.

Democracy (' literally "rule of the commoners"), in modern usage, is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament.

Democracy is sometimes referred to as "rule of the majority".

Democracy was originally conceived in Classical Greece, where political representatives were chosen by a jury from amongst the male citizens: rich and poor.

The English word dates to the 16th century, from the older Middle French and Middle Latin equivalents.

In political science, nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with a political party.

Some organizations claiming to be nonpartisan are truly such; others are nominally nonpartisan (for reasons of law or public perception) but closely follow the policies of a political party.