Your Data or Your Life by Matthew Harwood September 1, 2015 Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015), 400 pages. Your data or your life. Distilled to its essence, this is the argument of surveillance hawks who want U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to retain their intrusive, unlawful, and unconstitutional surveillance ...
The Surveillance State Lives by Sheldon Richman January 21, 2014 President Obama has some nerve. He opened his speech on NSA spying by likening his surveillance regime to Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty. How insulting! They were helping people resist government tyranny, and the British spied on them to put down the coming rebellion. In sizing up Obama’s “reforms” of the indiscriminate gathering of data on ...
The Phony Trade-Off between Privacy and Security by Sheldon Richman November 1, 2013 Most people take it for granted — because they have heard it so many times from politicians and pundits — that they must trade some privacy for security in this dangerous world. The challenge, we’re told, is to find the right “balance.” Let’s examine this. On its face the idea seems reasonable. I can imagine hiring a firm to look ...
It’s Not Edward Snowden Who Betrayed Us by Sheldon Richman September 1, 2013 When you cut through the fog, the NSA controversy is about whether we should trust people with institutional power. Edward Snowden’s courageous exposure of massive secret surveillance separates those who say yes from those who say, “Hell no!” The trusting attitude can be found among progressives and conservatives alike (with notable exceptions), and even some who have identified themselves as ...
