Surveillance
The purpose of the forum, which is open to the public and members of the media, is for Board Members to hear from experts about current and emerging challenges related to the Board’s mission: ensuring that efforts by the Executive Branch to protect the nation from terrorism appropriately safeguard privacy and civil liberties. The forum will inform the Board as it develops its agenda for 2019 and beyond.
Prisons Across the US Are Quietly Building Databases of Incarcerated People's Voice Prints
In New York and other states across the country, authorities are acquiring technology to extract and digitize the voices of incarcerated people into unique biometric signatures, known as voice prints. Prison authorities have quietly enrolled hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people’s voice prints into large-scale biometric databases. Computer algorithms then draw on these databases to identify the voices taking part in a call and to search for other calls in which the voices of interest are detected.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: Shoshana Zuboff’s new book is a chilling exposé of the business model that underpins the digital world
A Q&A with Shoshana Zuboff, author of "The Age of Surveillance Capital".
Democrats' 'Tech Wall' Talk Draws Fire
Fight for the Future is taking issue with Democratic leaders’ proposal to develop a “technological wall” to counter Trump’s demand for a physical barrier along the southern US border. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) proposed that funding on border security would be best spent investing in technology to scan cars for drugs and other contraband at legal points of entry into the country. “The positive, shall we say almost technological wall that can be built is what we should be doing,” she said.
Join the Cato Institute—and an array of top experts, technologists, and policymakers—for a probing examination of these issues and many more as we seek to navigate the wilderness.
Sen Rubio (R-FL), Van Hollen (D-MD) ask White House to investigate ZTE's work in Venezuela
Sens Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) are asking the White House to look into whether the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE violated US sanctions by helping Venezuela track and monitor its citizens. The senators write that they are concerned that, by building a database to help Venezuela track its citizens, ZTE "may have violated US export controls and sanctions laws" as well as an agreement between the Commerce Department and ZTE reached earlier in 2018.
Free Press and Free Press Action Release 2019 Policy Priorities
Our 2019 policy priorities lay out a proactive agenda for the new year and the new Congress, to move us closer to building media and communications systems that empower everyone to connect and communicate freely and safely. We’ve identified four major priorities:
Amazon is now at the center of a debate over public safety versus privacy
A New Hampshire judge’s attempt to compel Amazon to share recordings from an Echo device at the scene of an alleged double murder is putting a fine point on law enforcement’s growing demand for data from Internet of Things devices. Prosecutors are seeking two days of recordings from the smart speaker in a Farmington (NH) home where two women were found dead in Jan 2017.
Contract for the Web
The web was designed to bring people together and make knowledge freely available. Everyone has a role to play to ensure the web serves humanity. By committing to the following principles, governments, companies and citizens around the world can help protect the open web as a public good and a basic right for everyone.
Governments Will
Ensure everyone can connect to the internet so that anyone, no matter who they are or where they live, can participate actively online.
The global threat of China’s digital authoritarianism
Officials in Beijing are providing governments around the world with technology and training that enable them to control their own citizens. As Chinese companies compete with their international counterparts in crucial fields such as artificial intelligence and 5G mobile service, the democratic norms that long governed the global Internet are falling by the wayside. When it comes to Internet freedom, many governments are eager to buy the restrictive model that China is selling.