Surveillance

Pressure is growing for the US to develop a plan to quickly build internet lifelines for people living in conflict zones or under repressive regimes. The absence of a broadband strategy has led to a reliance on the ad hoc goodwill of private companies, such as Elon Musk's donation of Starlink satellite to provide internet service in Ukraine. Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr said that the US needs both the ability to quickly deploy internet networks and surge the production of censorship-circumvention online tools in authoritarian countries. Rep.

Millions of dollars later, LinkNYC still hasn’t fixed the city’s stubborn digital divide or the privacy issues raised half a decade ago. LinkNYC, unveiled in 2014, was an ambitious plan to replace the city’s dated pay phones with “information kiosks” providing free public Wi-Fi, phone calls, device charging, and a tablet for access to city services, maps, and directions.

After Elon Musk said his Starlink satellite-internet system was activated in Iran on Sept. 23, two men climbed onto the tiled roof of a residence in the Iranian city of Ahvaz and aimed a Starlink terminal into the sky. A faint signal was detected by the device for several seconds, then it disappeared. The men were seeking to help an Iranian protest movement struggling under a government crackdown on online communication, said Saeed Souzangar, a network engineer and one of the Iranian men.

Open-source intelligence (OSINT) has not-so-quietly revolutionized the global flow of information during times of conflict. By piecing together publicly available content, like satellite images, cellphone videos, and social media posts, open-source analysts cut through the fog of war, exposing and publicizing critical intelligence once monopolized by state authorities. For Palestinians, open-source intelligence is a double-edged sword. On one hand, OSINT offers Palestinians low-cost, relatively accessible tools to collect and disseminate valuable information about the conflict in their regi

Elon Musk’s Starlink has activated its satellite broadband service in Iran after the US allowed private companies to offer uncensored internet access to the country amid protests that have caused more than 40 deaths. Starlink is the first in a new generation of satellite networks operating in low-Earth orbit that are designed to provide high-bandwidth internet connections from space directly to individual users. Starlink users are able to bypass a country’s terrestrial communications networks, freeing them from internet censorship.

New Orleans (LA) is making an ambitious bid to deliver WiFi to the homes of its poorest residents. Using “smart,” electronic streetlights as nodes, it wants to establish a new citywide internet service, one that will compete with existing carriers like Cox and AT&T. The city intends to include a free tier for everyone who needs it, a group amounting to at least 16 percent of the population. But the plan is being met with skepticism from the left.

China approved a sweeping privacy law that will curb data collection by technology companies but is unlikely to limit the state’s widespread use of surveillance.

Recent revelations about Trump-era data grabs by federal authorities have put the US in a tricky spot as it competes with China to lead the digital age. As the Trump Justice Department pursued leaks and critics in Congress, the media and the White House itself, it obtained court orders to scoop up data from Apple, Microsoft and other tech providers. Then courts put the companies under gag orders that blocked them from warning their customers they'd been targeted, or even revealing the existence of the gag orders themselves.

The government has interpreted a high-profile provision of the Patriot Act as empowering FBI national security investigators to collect logs showing who has visited particular web pages, documents show.

While we’ll remain vigilant for whatever a lame-duck President Donald Trump — or let’s face it, the year 2020 — might bring, we will be putting our collective energy toward repairing the damage done over the past four years, while diligently working to expand what’s possible in a Joe Biden administration and new Congress. Our immediate priorities include: