Christian Science Monitor

Google published eight National Security Letters (NSLs) online that had previously been subject to controversial gag orders.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which issued the secret subpoena-like requests for digital records between 2010 and 2015, gave the company permission in October to make the records public, lifting nondisclosure requirements that had legally prevented Google from even acknowledging publicly that the letters exist. Privacy advocates praised the news as a positive, albeit modest, step toward protecting free speech by reining in government surveillance. "It’s a small amount of progress," said Andrew Crocker, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It’s only eight out of tens of thousands, really hundreds of thousands over the course of the years that FBI has been using these in this way."

[Commentary] As more media outlets fall under the control of a shrinking number of private owners, opportunities for ordinary people around the globe to participate and produce media are under threat.

[Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Clemencia Rodriguez, Temple University]

[Commentary] In a show of "clicktivism," more than 1.4 million people on Facebook used geolocation tagging to "check in" to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation page. The flurry of check-ins spread across Facebook after reports surfaced that the local sheriff's department in North Dakota relied on Facebook to "find out who is at [Standing Rock] in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps." But can checking in at Standing Rock actually help? Will it really confuse police? Can anyone interfere with a crackdown on protesters by clicking a button on Facebook? Without really knowing what kind of surveillance technology the police there are relying on, it's actually impossible to know. And that's a problem that should alarm anyone concerned about First Amendment rights.

[Commentary] To digital natives, the internet is a given. “There was a time when people felt the internet was another world,” noted Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, “but now people realize it’s a tool that we use in this world.” It’s helpful to think of the internet as earlier generations thought of automobiles and airplanes. In the first half of the 20th century, those were exciting if iffy technologies – unregulated, unreliable, and unsafe. Year after year, users demanded, and business and government provided, better quality and safety. Digital technology is on a similar curve. It is heartening that young hackers are uncovering internet vulnerabilities. It would be even better if they were to use their talents not just to make the Xbox and Minecraft more secure but to protect the internet’s original purpose: to connect people and ideas, to make all knowledge freely available.

After the American Civil Liberties Union released a report showing that Chicago-based startup Geofeedia had been contracted by multiple law enforcement agencies to conduct social media surveillance, Twitter announced that it had suspended the company's access to commercial data for developers.

While police contend the service can help them spot problems in real-time during large gatherings, the ACLU says the software can be easily used to track peaceful protesters and other groups. Twitter's decision drew praise from privacy activists and highlighted tensions between police and the American public. There are some circumstances in which law enforcement could appropriately utilize social-media monitoring, but there need to be clear policies with safeguards and audits built in, said San Jose Independent Police Auditor Walter Katz, whose office investigates complaints lodged against the city's officers.

The first study of its kind found 911 calls in black Milwaukee neighborhoods dropped significantly following the beating of Frank Jude, an unarmed black man. And then crime rates rose.

Some observers have argued that police, in the face of public scrutiny, have pulled back from their duties, the so-called “Ferguson Effect.” But the soon-to-be published study offers empirical evidence to the contrary. Police have not stopped doing their job. Nor has gang violence turned city blocks into war zones. Rather, the deaths of young black men at the hands of law enforcement can lead whole communities, distrustful of police, to withdraw from the country’s criminal justice system.

After an unprecedented online assault took down cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs's influential cybersecurity blog, he was able to return to the web because of a new service that protects journalists and activists from online censorship.

At a moment when governments around the world are working harder to confront the Islamic State and its propagandists on the web, Twitter said requests from officials to strip tweets from the service grew by nearly 13 percent in the past six months. The company's transparency report, which highlights trends in the legal requests the social media giant receives, shows that governments are flagging more content than ever before for removal and asking for information on potential criminal and terrorist suspects. In the past six months, Twitter says it received 5,600 requests for information on 13,152 accounts around the world – mostly in the form of subpoenas – including more than 2,500 in the US.

The company also received 5,195 government requests to remove information from 20,571 accounts, with nearly 80 percent of those requests coming from Turkey and Russia. Twitter says it withheld or removed content in response to 16 percent of government requests. In the US, most requests for information from accounts came from the FBI, the US Secret Service, and the New York County District Attorney’s Office. In its previous transparency report, Twitter revealed that government officials asked for 4,617 removals from 11,092 accounts in the second half of 2015.

[Commentary] An international study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found no positive evidence of impact of educational technology on student performance. It did not find any significant improvement in reading, math or science in countries that heavily invested in technology to improve student achievement. In fact, the report found that technology perhaps even widened the achievement gaps. Does this mean we should abandon attempts to integrate technology in schools? We are researchers of technology and learning in K-12 environments, and our research suggests this would be shortsighted.

[Binbin Zheng is an Assistant Professor, Michigan State University. Mark Warschauer is Professor of Education and Informatics, University of California, Irvine.]

[Commentary] The 2016 Democratic Party Platform fails to offer meaningful improvements to national tech policy that would improve cybersecurity. Americans deserve a plan that would strengthen networks, bolster security, and safeguard civil liberties. Progressive and tech advocates must begin to engage cybersecurity policy in earnest. Without policy experts capable of translating progressive ideals into digital policies, laws will continue to be crafted by those who view the internet as a space to surveil, and a domain of war, and not as a space for the overcoming of barriers, growing commerce, and spreading humanity's best ideals.

[Karl Grindal and Jeff Landale work at X-Lab]