Category: politics

  • The Middle

    Yesterday I voted for John Kasich and Bernie Sanders. In a way it felt like heresy to participate in both the Republican and Democratic caucuses on the same day, in spite of there being no rule against it. And it felt crazy because the two candidates are so insanely different. But I felt it was…

  • A Fig Leaf

    There is a major separation of powers issue with the current surveillance arrangement: The standard for permitting a query of the database of internal US phone calls is a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” of terrorist activity, Inglis says. Only 20 analysts within the NSA are empowered to approve targeting US-based phone conversations, he says. One of…

  • Decentralizing the Web… Again

    …cloud computing represents centralization of information and computing resources, which can be easily controlled by corporations and governments. [Jaeger, et al. Link] In the wake of Prismgate or the Snowden Affair or whatever we’re going to call this kerfuffle, I’ve been struck by how the current centralized nature of the World Wide Web has facilitated…