As you listen to this podcast, you may suddenly feel self-conscious and start to wonder, why have I taken for granted the simple freedoms and rights I enjoy in this digital age? In this challenging panel discussion from the Aspen Ideas Festival, moderator R. James Woolsey, past director of the Central Intelligence Agency, leads a fascinating discussion on "Human Rights in the Information Age" with discussants Samantha Power and Michael Posner.

Have you ever asked yourself, "What's happening in my neighborhood?" If you think your local newspaper has the answers, think again. Adrian Holovaty, who created one of the earliest Web mashups, believes there is a better way to find the answers. In this presentation from the 2008 O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference, Holovaty describes his new project, EveryBlock.com, which aims to collect hyper-local news and deliver it through a "news feed" for your neighborhood.

Compounding the health care crisis is a huge wave of aging populations. Health care needs tech-based solutions based in communities and homes, focused on empowering patients to manage their own health and change their behavior as necessary. Eric Dishman of Intel describes the new technology and platforms being built to improve this health care. Dishman also discusses longer-term efforts including regulatory approvals and reimbursement reform.

"Electoral Dysfunction 2008" is a sample of some of the political comedy that is taking on the presidential campaigned. The sketch show is performed by Kansas Public Radio's Right Between the Ears comedy troupe. This is an excerpt from the full show which is an hour of high energy take-offs and put-ons, spiced with off-the-wall sound effects and music.

Defense journalists Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger have traveled globally to visit sites where the infrastructure of the nuclear arms race still remains. On this edition of IEEE Spectrum Radio, Hodge and Weinberger, who are husband and wife, talk about nuclear tourism and their motivations for writing the book A Nuclear Family Vacation which chronicles an array of discoveries from a one-eyed baby in Kazakhstan to radioactive deer hunting in Tennessee.

Jon Udell speaks with Granicus co-founder Tom Spengler, who explains how his company's streaming media system enables governments to manage the capture and synchronized presentation of video and text, making the proceedings usefully transparent.

How has the "fundamental right" to vote evolved since the colonial period? In this excerpt from the historical public radio show, BackStory, the hosts review how elections were handled as the country was formed and how voting fraud has always been a major problem. They interview Mark Summers, Professor of History at the University of Kentucky about how things have changed in the last two hundred years.

People along the U.S.-Mexico border are hoping to have their voices heard in the coming election. Marco Grajeda, news director of NPR's KRWG, describes the impact tighter border security and toughened immigration efforts are having on border communities and how the next President will have to deal with the issue of illegal immigration.

Micah Sifry discusses his work with the Sunlight Foundation, an organization using the power of the Internet to strengthen the relationship between citizens and their elected officials and to foster public trust in Congress. He talks about the technical details of the site, including its API and how it makes its data available.

A naturalized citizen talks about the importance of a president showing strength and power and a producer reviews the differences between the current election and the 1968 campaign. Nick van der Kolk reviews what people are discussing when it comes to a president being strong, and Barbara Bernstein talks about how people alienated by the Nixon/McGovern campaign feel about the Obama/McCain campaign.