Even if it were true that cell phone users “voluntarily” disclose their location, it strains credulity to argue that, simply by virtue of putting a cell phone in their pocket, they voluntarily disclose “a wealth of detail about their familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.”
“I don’t believe that law enforcement has an absolute right to gain access to every way in which two people may choose to communicate,” said Marc Zwillinger, “And I don’t think our Founding Fathers would think so, either. The fact that the Constitution offers a process for obtaining a search warrant where there is probable cause is not support for the notion that it should be illegal to make an unbreakable lock. These are two distinct concepts.”
Should intelligence agencies be able to sweep email, read texts, track calls, locate us by GPS? Much of the conversation swirls around the possibility that agencies like the N.S.A. or the F.B.I. will use such information not to serve national security but to carry out personal and political vendettas. King’s experience reminds us that these are far from idle fears, conjured in the fevered minds of civil libertarians. They are based in the hard facts of history.
Katrina vanden Heuvel and Stephen F. Cohen of The Nation offer a peek at their recent interview with Edward Snowden. Spencer Ackerman of The Guardian reviews Citizenfour, Laura Poitras' new documentary on Snowden.
A new system would allow individuals to pick and choose what data to share with websites and mobile apps.
Right to be forgotten; Black Girls CODE; Humanizing the Internet of Things; Googling the economy; Cable's astroturf strategy
The vision of the 2002 movie “Minority Report,” based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, of “pre-crime” squads identifying people likely to commit crimes is getting less fantastic all the time.
If the Supreme Court upholds a police officer's right to search your smartphone without a warrant, the door is opened to the use of arrests on petty offenses to justify fishing expeditions of those computers we carry in our pockets.
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