Freeform

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs/july-dec13/whistleblowers_08-01.html American government treating its own citizens as enemies.

http://m.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/meaning-is-healthier-than-happiness/278250/ Laughing with joy on a racing roller coaster? Pleeeease. Unless that ride comes with deep significance — ride for charity! ride to show your cousin a good time! ride to make someone else’s suffering less! — you are basically totally miserable, you just don’t know it, OK? Enjoyed the concept but are the questions … Read more

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet' | World news | theguardian.com. I hereby most solemnly submit “XKeyscore” to the cultural lexicon for enshrinement as a verb. To XKeyscore a fellow human being is to place a recording device in their head that feeds footage of every activity and thought … Read more

http://gizmodo.com/rich-people-are-full-of-different-chemicals-than-poor-p-993867044 Wondering which environmental poison fills the bodies of people from all socioeconomic statuses. Badattitudethanol?

http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/07/how-to-turn-everyone-in-your-newsroom-into-a-graphics-editor/ Next step: enable this chart builder to gather and analyze feeds of information and spew out feeds of charts. Example: count how many times the word “automated” appears in a stream of articles from tech news sites; do this for comparable date periods; draw the chart and bada boom. Any developers up for that? … Read more

http://gizmodo.com/a-mesmerizing-movie-seamlessly-woven-from-clips-of-450-994234594 Hollywood requires body movements of very specific parameters.

Warrantless Cellphone Tracking Is Upheld – NYTimes.com. Down in the land of the 5th circuit, location information is “clearly a business record” and therefore exempt from protection under the Fourth Amendment? Are you kidding? The nature of a record (who decides this?) determines whether the law of the land can hold sway over it? What? … Read more

About FreedomBox The urge to construct my own server grows daily. No idea how, but the idea of having my online activity in a lockbox under my control proves more and more tempting. Have you used DoNotTrackMe? Of course, no company providing Internet services wants any consumer anywhere near becoming a provider of any such … Read more

A Blow for the Press, and for Democracy – NYTimes.com. Where is the U.S.A. going? Institutions of all sorts put individual rights at risk as the control of information becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. From the point of view of those in power, leaks have been OK as long as one knows the paths through … Read more

http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/8972743/US-spy-agencies-eavesdrop-on-Kiwi The free flow of information critically protects societies from oppression, paralyzing paranoia and limited creativity. Why are we so quick to give it up with the advent of new technologies?