Freedom in the Balance
By Lorenzo | The Bill of Rights is under attack.
Urgent Demands for Congress to Act as Net Neutrality's "Slow and Insidious" Death Begins
Today is the day that net neutrality's death at the hands of the Republican-controlled FCC officially begins, and Congress is being pressured to act …
Net NeutralityPalantir Knows Everything About You
Trump<p>White<p>House<p>Justin<p>Mikolay<p>EMPLOYEE OF<p>EMPLOYEE OF<p>Kevin<p>Harrington<p>EMPLOYEE OF<p>Thiel<p>Capital<p>FORMER<p>OPERATOR OF<p>Alexander<p>Karp<p>FORMER<p>OPERATOR<p>OF<p>FORMER<p>OPERATOR …
Silicon ValleyBlackface is free speech but anti-Bush tweet is not at California university
When a white student at California State University was caught this month wearing blackface, administrators had a clear message: it was racist, but “protected by free speech”.<p>Days later, when a professor tweeted that the late Barbara Bush was a “racist”, the university’s tone was different: the …
Rights & FreedomsFacebook removes 1.5 billion users from protection of EU privacy law | Ars Technica
In anticipation of the EU's new GDPR rule, Facebook limits its legal umbrella.<p>Facebook has quietly altered its terms of service, making stricter …
PrivacyPolice Unions Are Quietly Trying to Make It Harder to Protest All Over America
After years of protests against police abuses in Minneapolis, Baltimore, Standing Rock, and beyond, law enforcement has found a way to try and clamp …
Rights & FreedomsDiante Yarber: Police kill black father with barrage of bullets in Walmart parking lot
The killing of the 26-year-old, who is believed to have been unarmed, is being called a brutal case of excessive police force<p>California police fired what sounded like more than 30 bullets at a packed car in a shopping store parking lot, killing a black father of three and injuring a young woman in …
Law EnforcementThese states want to make planning a pipeline protest a crime
A slew of proposed bills would impose harsh penalties for planning to trespass near energy infrastructure.<p>As pipeline protests continue to delay and, …
Rights & FreedomsChina has started ranking citizens with a creepy 'social credit' system — here's what you can do wrong and the embarrassing ways you can be punished
1/<p>1. Banning you from flying or getting the train.<p>China has already started punishing people by restricting their travel.<p>Nine million people with low …
Human RightsReport: Homeland Security Wants To Compile A List Of Journalists, Bloggers, And ‘Media Influencers’
According to a new report in Bloomberg Law, the Department of Homeland Security put out an interesting request for contract work recently. Specifically, the department wants to hire someone, or some group, to monitor journalists and media organizations in the United States and around the world. …
Homeland SecurityTrump administration claims anti-net neutrality ‘Harlem Shake’ skit emails exempt from Freedom of Information Act
Ahead of the epic rule unmaking net neutrality regulations, Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai coordinated with conservative site The …
Net NeutralityNYC cops spot black man holding a shower nozzle -- and instantly kill him in a hail of gunfire
Police shot and killed a mentally ill Brooklyn father holding a shower nozzle — and his family said officers never gave him a chance to …
CrimeWearing Black? Feds Say You May Be an Anarchist, Newly Released Documents Show
The Department of Homeland Security told law enforcement how to ID anti-racist protesters—by looking for people who were scouting marching …
Rights & FreedomsMigrants at U.S.-Mexico border say Trump's tough talk will not deter them
MISSION, Texas (Reuters) - On Tuesday, the same day that U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to deploy military to help patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, Edwin Valdez and four other Central American migrants were walking through dense brush at a south Texas wildlife reserve, hoping to …
ImmigrationFacebook to exclude North American users from some privacy enhancements
There’s no way to sugarcoat this message: Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg believes North America users of his platform deserve a lower data protection standard than people everywhere else in the world.<p>In a phone interview with Reuters yesterday Mark Zuckerberg declined to commit to universally …
PrivacySinclair Group Forces All Its Local TV Anchors To Denounce "Fake News" In Support Of Trump Agenda.
From TPM:<p>The Sinclair Broadcast Group owns more television stations than any other broadcaster in the U.S. That ownership means it can dominate and …
JournalismThe idea behind Cambridge Analytica's Facebook data-harvesting app came from a Palantir employee, with support from Eric Schmidt's daughter
Palantir is the surveillance company founded by authoritarian "libertarian" Peter Thiel; their business-development employee Alfredas Chmieliauskas …
Cambridge AnalyticaAre you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you
The harvesting of our personal details goes far beyond what many of us could imagine. So I braced myself and had a look<p>Five things we learned from Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook hearing<p>Want to freak yourself out? I’m going to show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store …
Time IFacebook was tracking your text message and phone call data. Now what?
If you installed a Facebook app to your Android smartphone, odds are good that Facebook has been logging your phone calls and text message data ever …
AppsFacebook scraped call, text message data for years from Android phones [Updated] | Ars Technica
Maybe check your data archive to see if Facebook’s algorithms know who you called.<p><b>[Update, March 25, 2018, 20:24 Eastern Time]: Facebook has</b> …
Google PlayThe menace of a mad king in the White House
Without the advisers he originally appointed, Trump can have more liberty to do crazy things<p>Trump is moving into a new and more dangerous phase.<p>Before, he was constrained by a few “adults” — Rex Tillerson, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly — whom he appointed because he thought they had some …
Donald TrumpChina bans video spoofs and parodies
No more videos that “distort, mock, or defame classical literary and art works”<p>China’s media regulator has cracked down on online video spoofs and parodies, according to state-run media outlet <i>Xinhua</i>.<p>Video sites now must ban any videos that “distort, mock, or defame classical literary and art …
ArtworksCongress quietly snuck a major data privacy act into its spending bill
Tucked into the massive spending bill President Trump signed Friday, there’s a controversial bill that internet privacy advocates say is a “dangerous …
PrivacyFacebook knows literally everything about you
Cambridge Analytica may have used Facebook’s data to influence your political opinions. But why does least-liked tech company Facebook have all this data about its users in the first place?<p>Let’s put aside Instagram, WhatsApp and other Facebook products for a minute. Facebook has built the world’s …
Social MediaCongress just censored the internet and put sex workers, trafficking victims in even more danger
FOSTA is a bad bill that put sex works and trafficking victims in greater danger. Of course Congress just passed it<p>The House and the Senate have both …
PrivacySnowden Document Reveals NSA Program to Track Bitcoin Users
As if torn from the subplot of a Hollywood spy thriller, Edward Snowden papers prove that the NSA has been monitoring Bitcoin users around the world …
SurveillanceACLU: Donald Trump’s White House non-disclosure agreements unconstitutional
The ACLU said that Trump does not have the right to force government employees to sign non-disclosure agreements<p>President Donald Trump may have violated the Constitution when he pressured high-level White House staffers into signing a non-disclosure agreement, according to the ACLU.<p>"Public …
Donald TrumpPolice Obtain Warrants To Find Out Which Google Users Were Present At Crime Scenes
In Raleigh, North Carolina, police are using a controversial tactic for finding suspects, <i>WRAL</i> reported. Four times so far, police have secured search …
ACLU Demands Answers on a Disturbing New TSA Practice
The agency has taken to regularly searching passengers' phones and computers.Civil liberty defenders are raising alarm over the Transportation …
SurveillanceICE Is Aggressively Targeting Activists Who Speak Out Against It
Click here for reuse options! Alejandra Pablos is the latest progressive activist to be targeted.According to a report by Rewire News, a Latina …
Immigration