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Tim Wu sheds more light on the problems with oligopoly
The US has had an oligopoly problem for the entire adult lives of most baby boomers like me. It started in the 1980s and has been refined by US corporations during the intervening timeframe. The...
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There ought to be a three-strikes rule in corporate lawsuits
In 2010, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Viacom v. YouTube, ruled against Viacom finding that YouTube was protected by the “safe harbor” provisions of Section...
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US Justice Department warrantlessly seizes AP phone records
Earlier this month, the US Justice Department informed the Associated Press (AP) that federal law enforcement had — without notice — seized two months of telephone records of more than 20 AP editors...
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FBI wants VoIP intercept capability
The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) allows US law enforcement agencies to wiretap telephones under judicial approval. Originally passed in 1994, CALEA required most telephone...
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Holder signed warrant for Fox News reporter’s email
While US Attorney General Eric Holder apparently recused himself from the warrantless seizure of Associated Press telephone records, he reportedly signed the warrant application used to obtain the...
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Verizon’s share everything plan isn’t what you think it is
The US National Security Agency (NSA) is siphoning the telephone records of Verizon’s US customers under a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order issued last April. Glenn...
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Apple ebook antitrust trial begins
Last week a New York trial began in which the US government attempts to prove that Apple conspired with publishers to artificially raise ebook prices. The government’s position is that Apple and a...
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Apple conspired to raise ebook prices
US District Court of Southern New York Judge Denise Cote has ruled that Apple led the conspiracy to artificially raise ebook prices, writing: “The question in this case has always been a narrow one:...
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From Clipper chip to secure email shutdowns
Chances are you don’t remember much about then-President Bill Clinton‘s public encryption management directive — also known as the Clipper chip — whereby private encryption keys would be escrowed...
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Propaganda without camouflage from the StarTribune
As a former employee of the University of Minnesota — both my wife/business partner and I retain group health insurance through the University — it unnerves me no end to learn about changes to the...
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Surveillance: It’s not just for national security anymore
For six years — possibly longer — US law enforcement involved in an illicit drug program have used administrative subpoenas to gain routine access to an AT&T database of decades of telephone...
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Acxiom to allow access to limited data
Acxiom is one of the largest — and most secretive — brokers of data about individual consumers in the US. Feeling the heat of potential regulation, the company has decided to allow consumers access to...
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Now the surveillance cat’s really out of the bag
The latest cache of classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveals that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has continued to conduct a secret war on strong cryptography and has enlisted the...
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Verizon v. FCC arguments
Earlier this week, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments in Verizon v. FCC, wherein Verizon challenges the validity of the FCC’s 2010 network neutrality order....
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Sister Rosetta Tharpe — Didn’t It Rain
Rosanne Cash tweeted: “This is possibly the greatest thing on the internet.”I didn’t believe it. Then I saw it. Holy crap….Sister Rosetta Tharpe performs “Didn’t It Rain.” Recorded in Manchester,...
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Mississippi as an inequality microcosm
Arriving in Carrollton, GA in the fall of 1972 for undergraduate school, I saw a billboard on the west edge of town indicating in no uncertain terms that African Americans should be out of the county...
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NSA intercepted Google and Yahoo data center links
Just before Halloween, in the latest disclosure of US surveillance state leaks from Edward Snowden, Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani writing for the Washington Post reveal that the US National...
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New York Times endorses TPP
The New York Times has endorsed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a secretly negotiated trade deal devoid of any public participation. The agreement is so secret that the full text of the deal is...
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Hammond sentenced to 10 years in prison for Stratfor hack
Jeremy Hammond, a member of the Anonymous hacktivists group has received a 10-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to breaking into corporate and government computers. Hammond acknowledged his...
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Austerity politics fails
In 2010, the UK — like most of the industrialized world — faced a severe recession. Its conservative government instituted austerity measures by dramatically cutting government spending and taxes....
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Did Steve Jobs get favored transplant treatment?
If you’ve been reading my thoughts about organ transplants here you know how I feel about it and why I’ve repeatedly declined donor organs, both living and cadaveric. But it’s important to realize...
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NSA domestic telephone surveillance program likely unconstitutional
Early this week, US District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled that the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) domestic telephone surveillance program collecting information on nearly all telephone calls...
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Ted Nelson eulogizes Doug Engelbart
“You don’t need me to tell you that Douglas Engelbart was one of the greatest men of all time. We gather today, in pretense of unanimity and concord, to croon over Doug’s ashes and grab for scraps of...
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NSA domestic telephone surveillance program ruled legal
Less than two weeks ago, US District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled that the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) domestic telephone surveillance program that collects information on nearly all...
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God bless librarians
Librarians have always been on the side of the angels when it comes to recognizing, respecting, and advocating for individual privacy rights. From the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, the US Federal...
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ACLU files FOIA complaint challenging Executive Order 12333
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333 allegedly granting the authority relied upon by the US intelligence agencies to surveil foreigners outside of the borders of the US. The...
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Border electronics searches upheld
US Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York Judge Edward R. Korman has ruled that the US government’s actions in searching (and sometimes seizing) electronic devices at the...
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Obama administration retains secrecy for phone data memo
The three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that the Obama administration can retain the secrecy of a Department of Justice memo regarding the...
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Victors and authors of history
In March 1971 I was a junior in high school, fascinated with the idea that someone would break into a suburban Philadelphia office of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) solely to steal every...
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And you thought the New York Times didn’t have a comics page
Yesterday, the New York Times published an article with a shocking hed: “Congressional leaders suggest earlier Snowden link to Russia.” Oh, my goodness, Edward Snowden, the former US National Security...
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First Amendment protections apply to everyone
Late last week, the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (.pdf; 109.7KB) that protections afforded by the First Amendment to the US Constitution apply to everyone, not just professional...
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Pete Seeger 3 May 1919 – 27 January 2014
This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender Update: Tuesday, 28 January 2014 11:36AM CDST: I was enamored of music at a very young age. One of my earliest memories was having a portable...
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Surveillance disclosure agreement stifles innovation
Under an agreement between the US government and big technology, internet companies will be allowed to disclose how often the government demands access to user information, but not what information is...
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General Motors tries to weasel out of ignition lawsuits
Over the course of the last 13 years, at least 13 people were killed due to a known defect in a wide range of General Motors (GM) cars. During roughly that same period, GM’s business changed...
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Google finally asked about “don’t be evil”
The origin of Google’s corporate motto of “don’t be evil” may be murky, but it appeared in the S-1 registration statement of the company’s initial public offering (IPO) prospectus and is nailed to the...
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