June 2014

The Democratic Assault on the First Amendment

[Commentary] Senate Democrats have promised a vote this year on a constitutional amendment allowing Congress to regulate "the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to federal elections."

Two canards are put forth to justify this broad authority. First, "money is not speech." And second, "corporations have no free speech rights." Neither contention bears even minimal scrutiny. The contemplated amendment is simply wrong. No politician should be immune from criticism. Congress has too much power already -- it should never have the power to silence citizens. Thankfully, any constitutional amendment must first win two-thirds of the vote in both houses of Congress. Then three-fourths of the state legislatures must approve the proposed amendment. There's no chance that Sen. Udall's amendment will clear either hurdle. Still, it's a reflection of today's Democratic disrespect for free speech that an attempt would even be made. There was a time, not too long ago, when free speech was a bipartisan commitment.

Intruders for the Plugged-In Home, Coming in Through the Internet

[Commentary] I can’t shake the feeling that one day, maybe, just maybe, my entire apartment is going to get hacked. The word in Silicon Valley is that Apple has all the security issues locked down. But as any computer security expert will tell you, nothing -- and I mean nothing -- is impervious. Hackers can crack governments and corporations, let alone smartphones and desktops. What’s to stop them from hacking a connected house?

Quantifying Privacy: A Week of Location Data May Be an “Unreasonable Search”

When does the simple digital tracking of your location and movements -- the GPS bleeps from most of our smartphones -- start to be truly revealing? When do the data points and inferences that can be drawn from it strongly suggest, say, trips to a psychiatrist, a mosque, an abortion clinic, a strip club or an AIDS treatment center?

The answer, according to a new research paper, is about a week, when the data portrait of a person becomes sufficiently detailed to qualify as an “unreasonable search” and a potential violation of an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights. The research paper, a collaboration of computer scientists and lawyers, wades into the debate over the legal and policing implications of modern data collection and analysis technology. It explores what in legal circles is called the “mosaic theory” of the Fourth Amendment, which essentially states that when linked and analyzed by software, a much richer picture emerges from combined information than from discrete data points.

NSA Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images

The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.

The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the NSA documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the NSA finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The agency’s ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its effort have not previously been disclosed. The agency intercepts “millions of images per day” -- including about 55,000 “facial recognition quality images” -- which translate into “tremendous untapped potential,” according to 2011 documents obtained from the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. While once focused on written and oral communications, the N.S.A. now considers facial images, fingerprints and other identifiers just as important to its mission of tracking suspected terrorists and other intelligence targets, the documents show.

Consumers should be able to see the data companies collect about them

[Commentary] In 1970, Congress passed a law allowing people to keep track of their credit reports -- when information is used for decisions about credit, employment, housing and insurance. But the law does not cover the collection of consumer data for marketing purposes. An effort at industry self-regulation in the 1990s was short-lived. A new legislative drive is underway to provide consumers with a way to check and correct what’s collected about them by data brokers. In this opaque corner of the digital revolution, the time has come for genuine transparency.

Diversity champion says Silicon Valley overlooks minority talent

Freada Kapor Klein is co-chair of the Kapor Center for Social Impact, which seeks to diversify participation in the technology economy, focusing on “underrepresented communities.” The other co-chair is her husband, Mitch Kapor, who designed Lotus 1-2-3, the software application that sparked business adoption of personal computers in the 1980s.

After the release of Google’s work force demographics, “All positions should be given on merit alone, the best qualified candidate gets the job” was among the milder comments posted on news sites. Freada Kapor Klein is having none of it. “Silicon Valley's obsession with meritocracy is delusional and aspirational and not a statement of how it really operates,” she said. “Unless someone wants to posit that intelligence is not evenly distributed across genders and race, there has to be some systematic explanation for what these numbers look like.” Google announced that it would partner with the Kapor Center to help diversify its own workforce and work with other Silicon Valley companies to do the same. Google plans a “big tent” event later in the year to bring in valley luminaries to address the issue. Klein agrees that hard work, strong computer skills and a willingness and ability to learn are essential for a successful career in technology. That's why, she said, the Kapor Center is working to improve the pipeline of talent with programs such as its SMASH Academy, which brings mostly poor black and Latino high school students to summer programs at UCLA, USC, Stanford and UC Berkeley to study science, technology, engineering and math. But, Klein maintains, tech companies often overlook minority talent through unconscious or hidden bias.

The Dirty Secret Behind Rep Latta’s Anti-Net Neutrality Bill

[Commentary] Why is Rep Bob Latta (R-OH) claiming to be a champion of the open Internet while proposing legislation that helps ISPs shut it down? A big part of the answer can be found at the Center for Responsive Politics, which aggregates data on campaign contributions, including those made by phone and cable companies and their trade groups to members of Congress.

Rep Latta is an industry favorite, having raked in a whopping $320,000 in campaign contributions from the communications sector since he took office in 2007. In the 2014 election cycle, Rep Latta has already received contributions from nearly every major ISP and supporting trade group in the country -- including a veritable “who’s who” of network neutrality haters. By now it should be clear that Latta’s bill is for the biggest companies that punch his campaign dance ticket, and not for the millions of people who have urged the Federal Communications Commission to protect the open Internet by making these same companies common carriers. But while Rep Latta may be pushing this bill, he’s not alone on Capitol Hill. Nor is his congressional brand of quid pro quo limited to one side of the aisle.

In Chile, mobile carriers can no longer offer free Twitter, Facebook or WhatsApp

The Chilean telecommunications regulator Subtel has banned mobile operators from offering so-called zero-rated social media apps -- services like Twitter and Facebook that, through deals with the carriers, can be used without having to pay for mobile data. Subtel says such practices are illegal under Chilean net neutrality law. Chile was the first country to enshrine net neutrality in law, back in 2010. Europe is currently in the process of doing the same, though some argue that the new rules, which are very clear on the kind of net neutrality abuse that involve fast lanes for paying content providers, are less clear when it comes to zero-rated content. In the US, where there is no net neutrality law, AT&T is keen on offering zero-rated services.

Google Softens Stance in Europe's Privacy War

Google is making a peace offering in Europe's privacy wars.

The company moved to soften its opposition to a nascent European "right to be forgotten" on the Internet, unveiling a Web page where Europeans can request that the company take down links tied to individuals' names. It's the latest in a handful of conciliatory moves Google has made on the privacy front, as it faces down Europe regulators and governments in several other battles, over everything from antitrust probes to taxes. But in taking the first steps to accommodate a privacy ruling that has shocked much of the global technology industry, Google is also taking a big gamble. How Google decides to handle a crush of incoming takedown requests -- and how hard it intends to push back against what it determines is overreaching -- could help set a broader precedent for how a "right to be forgotten" will be interpreted and applied not only in Europe but potentially by other companies and in other parts of the world.

Benton

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