privacy

Smartphone_Use

The Administrative State Can Put a Bug in Your Phone

In the age of cellphones and the internet, consumers often face a simple choice: convenience or privacy? Do we let Big Tech have access to our private communications and free email accounts because it's so easy? Once you've said yes — and who among us has not? — it's not a stretch to think that Big Data already has almost all your information, so why get picky at the next juncture? Read More ›
Young woman using smart phone,Social media concept.

Is Contact Tracing a Simple Answer to COVID Lockdowns?

The conventional science fiction fear of a superintelligent AI taking over the planet and ridding it of pesky humans distracts our attention from a much more realistic threat: Artificial intelligence (AI) makes both government and corporate surveillance much easier, cheaper, and more useful—whether it is in average citizens’ interests or not. If we are lucky, this will be the decade when we address the implications of that fact.

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camera-is-watching-a-citizen-copy-space-included-acta-and-end-of-privacy-concept-3d-rendering-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpeg
Camera is watching a citizen. Copy space included. ACTA and end of privacy concept. 3D rendering.

Revisiting Orwell to Understand our Times

Just two or three generations ago, most Americans understood that George Orwell’s classics Animal Farm and 1984 were written to explain how freedom is lost to totalitarianism and the intolerance that accompanies it. “Big Brother,” a term still casually used to describe an all-knowing governing authority, comes right out of 1984. In the society that Orwell describes, everyone was reminded that Read More ›

Nightmare on FATF Street

Assume a friend came to you and said: “Do you know there is this international government organization that is trying to take away your right to protect yourself from criminals; is demanding that your lawyer, accountant, real estate agent, bank teller, jewelry store clerk and car salesman spy on you; and is going to take your personal financial records and Read More ›