Category «Civil Liberties»

Oversight Subcommittee Seeks Information About Ring’s Agreements with Police, Local Governments

Washington, D.C. (Feb. 19, 2020)—”Today, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, sent a letter to Amazon seeking information about its subsidiary Ring Inc.’s partnerships with city governments and local police departments, along with the company’s policies governing the data it collects. Ring sells internet-connected home surveillance equipment, such …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Cybersecurity, Defense, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

Elephant behavior toward the dead

Washington Post – An elephants story does not end when it dies See also Goldenberg, S.Z., Wittemyer, G. Elephant behavior toward the dead: A review and insights from field observations. Primates 61, 119–128 (2020). “Many nonhuman animals have been documented to take an interest in their dead. A few socially complex and cognitively advanced taxa—primates, …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Environmental Law

Ring and Nest helped normalize American surveillance

Washington Post – a nation of voyeurs – For all the worries about hacking, owners of Internet-connected cameras say they love watching people silently from afar — often their own family members. Amazon’s Ring, Google’s Nest and other Internet-connected cameras — some selling for as little as $59 — have given Americans the tools they …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Commerce, E-Records, Privacy

Google AI no longer uses gender binary tags on images of people

INPUT Magazine: “Google’s image-labeling AI tool will no longer label pictures with gender tags like “man” and “woman,” according to an email seen by Business Insider. In the email, Google cites its ethical rules on AI as the basis for the change. This is a progressive move by Google — and one that will hopefully …

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Knowledge Management, Search Engines

Life Sentenced Population Exceeds Entire Prison Population in 1970

The Sentencing Project: “Nationwide there are more people serving life sentences today (206,000) than the entire prison population in 1970 (196,000), according to a new fact sheet released by The Sentencing Project’s Campaign to End Life Imprisonment. Starting in the 1970s, the United States’s prison population began its steady upward climb to the vastly overcrowded …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Government Documents

Fighting Disinformation Online

RAND Corporation – Kavanagh, Jennifer, Samantha Cherney, Hilary Reininger, and Norah Griffin, Fighting Disinformation Online: Building the Database of Web Tools. Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License, 2020. “Today’s information ecosystem brings access to seemingly infinite amounts of information instantaneously. It also contributes to the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation to millions of …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

The Hardest Thing About Being a Judge? What Courts Say About Sentencing

Law.com: “It is just not a natural or everyday thing to do—to pass judgment on people, to send them to prison or not,” one federal appeals judge once remarked. Here’s a look at how judges across courts have described the challenge of sentencing, as Roger Stone prepares to learn his fate…”

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research

ABA President Martinez defends judiciary, prosecutors at Midyear Meeting

AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 18, 2020 – “American Bar Association President Judy Perry Martinez delivered a strong defense Monday of the judiciary and prosecutors in remarks to the ABA House of Delegates, the association’s policy-making body, on the final day of the ABA Midyear Meeting. “The personal attacks on our judges and prosecutors must cease,” she …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research

ABA House approves measures at Midyear Meeting to expand access to justice, voting rights

ABA news release: “The American Bar Association House of Delegates approved a resolution today that would encourage states and other jurisdictions to consider innovative approaches to expanding access to justice with the goal of improving affordability and quality of civil legal services. By voice vote, the 596-member House, which is the association’s policy-making body, overwhelmingly …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Records, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation

Did the Early Internet Activists Blow It?

Slate – I’ve fought for a free internet for 30 years. Here’s where I think we went wrong, and right. By Mike Godwin – “…I’ve come to believe our society should take reasonable steps to limit intentionally harmful speech, but I also find myself increasingly embracing a broader, more instrumentalist vision of freedom of speech than …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Internet, Legal Research

Activate This ‘Bracelet of Silence,’ and Alexa Can’t Eavesdrop

The New York Times – “…Mr. Zhao and Ms. Zheng are computer science professors at the University of Chicago, and …with the help of an assistant professor, Pedro Lopes, they designed a piece of digital armor: a “bracelet of silence” that will jam the Echo or any other microphones in the vicinity from listening in …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Commerce, E-Records, Privacy

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