Blogging for the 5th of July Foundation on Security, Privacy and Liberty
As Netzpolitik points out, while the committee was busy discussing the few things it could discuss, the German parliament was expanding BND’s legal authorities.
German citizens – along with everyone the government spies on – can rest assured nothing has changed. It’s only gotten worse.
Techdirt: Germany’s Spy Agency Walks Away From Three-Year Investigation With Expanded Spy Powers »
On 24 February 2017 the Rapporteur of the European Parliament (EP) Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), Catherine Stihler MEP, published her draft Opinion on the Copyright Directive. The Opinion sends a strong message against the most extremist parts of the European Commission’s proposal: the “censorship machine” (aka upload filter) proposal in Article 13 and the suggestion to expand the “ancillary copyright ” (aka “link tax”), that failed so miserably in Germany and Spain to every country of the EU.
EDRi: A positive step forward against the “censorship machine” in the Copyright Directive »
Julia Reda, Pirate MEP: New copyright study shows fundamental flaws in EU Commission plans for upload surveillance »
Bad journalism and propaganda have plagued publishing and governments for thousands of years. Donald Trump’s violently-adversarial relationship with facts and Vladimir Putin’s warehouses full of paid internet trolls have simply taken the conversation to an entirely new level in the internet age. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that many of the folks who believe they can somehow legislate this problem away may be doing more harm than good.
THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE proudly announced the first FBI terror arrest of the Trump administration on Tuesday: an elaborate sting operation that snared a 25-year-old Missouri man who had no terrorism contacts besides the two undercover FBI agents who paid him to buy hardware supplies they said was for a bomb — and who at one point pulled a knife on him and threatened his family.
There have been many reports (and at least one documentary film) about the FBI framing people who probably are not that dangerous at all – just to be seen doing something.
Law enforcement should focus on real terrorist, not creating their own ones.
The Intercept » Trump’s first terror arrest: A broke stoner the FBI threatened at knifepoint »
In order to prevent dictatorships from abusing European technology to crack down on political opposition, the EU started regulating the export of surveillance technology a few years ago. But that has far from stopped the exports to problematic countries, a cross-border investigation reveals.
A problem is that non-democratic countries use European standard configurated IT-systems – that have mass surveillance functions as a default feature.
Information.dk: Europe’s exports of spy tech to authoritarian countries revealed »
CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) has just released its report on encryption and it comes to the same conclusions many other reports have: encryption is good for everyone and law enforcement fears are overstated and mostly-unrealized.
The New Zealand High Court today ruled that Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the US, but it won’t be on copyright grounds. After months of deliberation, Justice Murray Gilbert agreed with the US Government’s position that this is a fraud case at its core, an offense that is extraditable. Dotcom says he will fight on.
It’s a political case.
It’s a political judgement.
I told you I can’t be extradited for Copyright and I was right.
What is this? Sharia law?— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) 20 februari 2017
TorrentFreak: Kim Dotcom Extradition to Go Ahead, But Not on Copyright Grounds »
BBC: Kim Dotcom can be extradited, New Zealand High Court rules »
Cryptocurrency will cripple governmental ability to collect taxes, and they won’t see it coming. When it’s already happened, expect major changes to take place in how society is organized on a large scale – but also expect governments to act in desperation to retain control. (…)
The deployment of cryptocurrency is to tax collection what deployment of end-to-end encryption is to mass surveillance.
Rick Falkvinge: How cryptocurrency will cripple today’s governments – and they won’t see it coming »
New AI Can Write and Rewrite Its Own Code to Increase Its Intelligence:
• A company has developed a type of technology that allows a machine to effectively learn from fewer examples and refine its knowledge as further examples are provided.
• This technology could be applied to everything from teaching a smartphone to recognize a user’s preferences to helping autonomous driving systems quickly identify obstacles.
Futurism: New AI Can Write and Rewrite Its Own Code to Increase Its Intelligence »
CETA raises serious questions to the protection of our online rights and freedoms. These concerns have been sadly ignored. We now turn to the EU Member States to stand up for the interest of their citizens by rejecting CETA.