shouting loudly

As two recent stories point out, our actual telescreens cost hundreds of dollars and have designer labels.

In a blog post over at The Publius Project, Judith Donath asks “Is Reputation Obsolete.”  It’s a provocative piece and well worth a read.  Honestly, I’ve spent the past week trying to dip into the literature on reputation systems and to call it the shallow end of the pool would be an insult to pools.  [...]

Danah boyd has a great post examining the dangers of losing our online identities at the whims of corporate decisionmakers.
If we get our GMail/FaceBook/Yahoo! account hijacked, what can we do when the company deletes it and all our related data? If we’re connected, that’s one thing, but what about those who are not so fortunate?
There’s [...]

Bad news, as the Senate overwhelmingly voted to legalize President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program and also decided not to amend a bill that would prevent telecom companies from getting immunity for giving the government access to phone records of millions of people.A quote from an article from Wired that talks about this reads:
“The bill, which [...]

The TSA blog, Evolution of Security, is an honest-to-goodness attempt to communicate with the public and (here’s the shocker) listen to feedback.
The bloggers are employees who are free to write in a casual blogging style. One made a joke about heavy drinking in New Orleans on Fat Tuesday. Responses range from sardonic or hostile to [...]

Read the story at CNet.

On Thursday, the US House passed a FISA reform bill without granting immunity to telecommunications companies accused of assisting illegal eavesdropping on US citizens.
As we noted last month, the White House and telecoms pressed for retroactive immunity. This pressure has not worked–at least not yet–despite Bush’s threat of a veto.

In light of publicity surrounding a series of incidents in the Boulder Valley School District, high school administrators in Colorado have been publicly defending their right to read students’ text messages in search of incriminating evidence of breaches of school rules.
According to the Colorado ACLU letter to the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education, [...]

Here is a letter I just sent to Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ), my elected representative, with added links:
Dear Rep. Sires,
I am a voter in your district, and I am writing in regards to H.R. 3773, the RESTORE Act. I urge you not to support this legislation unless it meets two key conditions.
First, the bill must [...]

A number of European governments are considering measures to track cellular and online communication.
Proposals include requirements that cell providers keep records of your physical location during all calls (Netherlands) and prohibit the use of false information in registering for email accounts (Germany). These are being offered in the name of the EU Data Retention Directive, [...]