With the world as dark as it is at the moment, it is nice to be able to report a sliver of light. Privacy activists will celebrate a hard-won battle today as the NSA is rolling back its surveillance programs.
The New York Times reported that NSA is rolling back its surveillance programs. The program involved Collecting texts and emails by American citizens to individuals abroad that mention foreign surveillance targets. This is a major shift by the NSA who appear to be making an effort to comply with the privacy rules set out by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The practice was troubling to privacy advocates because it allowed the agency to collect the communication of American citizens without a warrant, simply by mentioning a foreign target. Privacy advocates have argued that the practice allowed the NSA to skirt around (or trample upon) the fourth Amendment.
Part of the problem is the way that Internet providers bundled this raw surveillance data. Internet companies often bundled many messages together and transmitted them as one unit. If even a single email has a foreign target’s email address in it somewhere all of them were simultaneously collected.
This meant that the NSA was essentially engaging in unlawful bulk collection on American citizens who are communicating domestically. In fact that the NSA. themselves admitted during 2011 that a “byproduct” of about collection was that the agency also caught tens of thousands of purely domestic emails each year. Following that court case the NSA. made some adjustments to the program that still failed to comply with the Fourth Amendment.
The latest move from the NSA is an effort to comply specifically with stipulations that forbid the NSA from catching messages sent and received inside the US as a side effect of their surveillance of foreign targets.
This is a small victory for privacy activists but the war is far from over. The fact that the NSA is rolling back its surveillance programs is a positive step. Unfortunately for now it only applies to American citizens and the NSA will still have free reign to spy on foreigners. Privacy advocates will have to keep pushing for changes to section 702 in order to prevent intelligence agencies continuing policies that permit far reaching, warrantless collection of communications.
America isn’t the only country attempting to up the surveillance on their citizens. In the end, the only way to protect your privacy in this increasingly surveillance filled world is to take action to protect yourself.
Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, is traveling to Washington, D.C., to meet with Republican lawmakers who will probably lead committees that regulate the tech sector.
Republican representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio, Darrel Issa of California, and Cathy McMorris Rogers of Washington are among those with whom Cook has booked meetings.
The meetings were probably planned several weeks, if not months, beforehand. Top conservatives have criticized Apple since the beginning, and many of them have joined with Twitter CEO Elon Musk in their recent dispute with Apple.
Jordan has publicly expressed his support for Elon Musk, as Bloomberg notes.
When the GOP wins over the House in 2023, Jordan is also set to serve as chair of the House Judiciary Committee. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s chairman is most likely to be McMorris Rodgers.
They both will play a key role in developing the GOP’s technology policy agenda for 2023.
What is particularly on the agenda is unclear. Even when he is not called to testify about big tech, Cook travels to Washington, DC, on several occasions each year.
The goal is to make sure marginalized people are considered in environmental decisions.
According to Reuters, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established a new office to assist underserved communities in coping with the additional responsibilities of pollution and climate change. 200 EPA workers from the Washington headquarters and 10 regional bureaus will work in the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.
“The establishment of a new office dedicated to advancing environmental justice and civil rights at EPA will ensure the lived experiences of underserved communities are central to our decision-making while supporting community-driven solutions,” remarked Kamala Harris, vice president of the US.
As part of a $60 billion investment in environmental justice, one of the main responsibilities of the new office will be to supervise the distribution of $3 billion in grants for environmental justice that were made possible by the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act. Additionally, it will ensure that other EPA initiatives adhere to President Biden’s Justice40 initiative, which aims to ensure that 40% of certain government spending go to underserved communities. Finally, it will assist localities in obtaining funds, upholding human rights legislation, and resolving environmental disputes.
The opening of the new office took place in Warren County, North Carolina, the scene of demonstrations against the disposal of toxic waste there in 1982. While the 22-acre dump was not stopped as a result of the civil disobedience actions and arrests that followed, the current environmental justice movement was born. Participants remembered the protests’ 40th anniversary last week.
The competition between Pewdiepie and T-Series has been going on for quite a while. I say this mostly because if Pewdiepie was in the middle of a smear campaign, I would certainly believe that it was all a ploy by T-Series in order to make him lose popularity. However, it seems like T-Series doesn’t have to do much as Pewdiepie is no stranger to getting himself into trouble.
So, what did Pewdiepie do this time? Well, in his most recent edition of “Pew News,” a semi-satirical series where Pewds offers his own take on news events or YouTube discussions, he dedicates the last portion of the video to shouting out smaller YouTube creators he enjoys watching. One of those creators is E;R (otherwise known as “EsemicolonR”), an essayist who often includes anti-Semitic, sexist, homophobic, and cruel language in his videos.
At least that’s what TheVerge and so many outlets/other YouTubers are saying. I took a look at E;R’s content and saw mostly meme videos about political stuff. The guy even made a tribute to Tay AI. You can see a whole documentary made about this by Internet Historian down below:
However, the subjects tackled in the videos can be a bit more problematic because of the current political climate with Pewdiepie. As such, we can assume that a lot of people don’t find this very funny and even reprehensible. Especially when the US is caught in the middle of tension thanks to laws like FOSTA, which are an indirect cause of Tumblr’s collapse right now.
Ever since Pewdiepie has made the shoutout, the channel has gained over 15,000 Subscribers. Of course, this also means that the ire of the people who are against him has risen even more. As such, we’re in this situation where Pewdiepie has gotten himself into trouble yet again despite knowing that the current situation is tense. I guess some people will never learn.
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