Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Taxes:
Robert Reich: Why should Apple have access to consumers if it refuses to pay its fair share of taxes?
"Countries are competing to provide the biggest tax breaks, the cheapest labour and the easiest regulation to attract the likes of Google, Apple and Amazon, to the disadvantage of their own citizens. But there is another way..."
Technology:
Julian Sanchez: CISPA Is Dead. Now Let’s Do a Cybersecurity Bill Right
"The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) now appears to be dead in the Senate, despite having passed the House by a wide margin earlier this month. Though tech, finance, and telecom firms with a combined $605 million in lobbying muscle [updated*] supported the bill, opposition from privacy groups, internet activists, and ultimately the White House (which threatened to veto the law) seem to have proven fatal for now. For all the heated rhetoric surrounding the CISPA legislation — predictions of an impending Digital Pearl Harbor matched by dire warnings of Big Brother surveillance — the controversy was almost entirely unnecessary..."
Robert Reich: Why should Apple have access to consumers if it refuses to pay its fair share of taxes?
"Countries are competing to provide the biggest tax breaks, the cheapest labour and the easiest regulation to attract the likes of Google, Apple and Amazon, to the disadvantage of their own citizens. But there is another way..."
Technology:
Julian Sanchez: CISPA Is Dead. Now Let’s Do a Cybersecurity Bill Right
"The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) now appears to be dead in the Senate, despite having passed the House by a wide margin earlier this month. Though tech, finance, and telecom firms with a combined $605 million in lobbying muscle [updated*] supported the bill, opposition from privacy groups, internet activists, and ultimately the White House (which threatened to veto the law) seem to have proven fatal for now. For all the heated rhetoric surrounding the CISPA legislation — predictions of an impending Digital Pearl Harbor matched by dire warnings of Big Brother surveillance — the controversy was almost entirely unnecessary..."
Thursday, May 23, 2013
The Unspeakable 'Why' Of Radical Islamic Terror:
The killing of a British soldier in London appears to be motivated by the same US/UK/NATO foreign policy that motivated the Tsarnaevs in Boston.
Ray McGovern: Boston Suspect’s Writing on the Wall
"...Other 'mainstream media' and government officials will keep blaming terrorism on Islam, as the Wall Street Journal does Friday in repeating the claim that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told the FBI earlier that he and his dead brother 'were acting as jihadists motivated by Muslim religious anger at the U.S.' (In other words, pay no heed to what he scribbled on the side of the boat as he thought he was dying.) Rarely has there been any official or quasi-official acknowledgement of the main problem. But there was a major exception in the fall of 2004 in an unclassified study published by the Pentagon-appointed U.S. Defense Science Board. Directly contradicting what President George W. Bush was saying at the time, the board stated: 'Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States.' That’s not spin. That’s the assessment of professionals who were reading the handwriting on the wall."
The killing of a British soldier in London appears to be motivated by the same US/UK/NATO foreign policy that motivated the Tsarnaevs in Boston.
Ray McGovern: Boston Suspect’s Writing on the Wall
"...Other 'mainstream media' and government officials will keep blaming terrorism on Islam, as the Wall Street Journal does Friday in repeating the claim that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told the FBI earlier that he and his dead brother 'were acting as jihadists motivated by Muslim religious anger at the U.S.' (In other words, pay no heed to what he scribbled on the side of the boat as he thought he was dying.) Rarely has there been any official or quasi-official acknowledgement of the main problem. But there was a major exception in the fall of 2004 in an unclassified study published by the Pentagon-appointed U.S. Defense Science Board. Directly contradicting what President George W. Bush was saying at the time, the board stated: 'Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States.' That’s not spin. That’s the assessment of professionals who were reading the handwriting on the wall."
Friday, May 17, 2013
Politics:
Joan McCarter: Liberal groups received same IRS letter that ignited Tea Party outrage
"The maelstrom over the revelation that the IRS targeted anti-tax Tea Party groups applying for tax exempt status for scrutiny is showing no signs of slowing down, with Republicans seeing their chance to milk a scandal for political purposes. But while the politics is heating up, some important context is emerging, like the fact that liberal groups were targeted as well, and in fact the only group to have its application denied was a liberal group..."
Democracy Now! - 'The Other IRS Scandal': David Cay Johnston on Dark Money Political Groups Seeking Tax Exemption
"...DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, it’s very hard to imagine that there’s a criminal case here. The IRS agents in Cincinnati, the examiners in what’s called the determination unit, were presented with an irresolvable conflict. The law for what are called 501(c)(4) organizations, which dates to 1913, says that they are exclusively to be engaged in social welfare. But an IRS regulation that’s been around since 1959 invokes the word "primarily." And groups like MoveOn, which is a 501(c)(4), although it does not appear to be, in the classic meaning, a social betterment group—they’re not out promoting more wildflowers in the parks and Little League and Girl Scouts and things like that—they are a 501(c)(4). Karl Rove’s organization spent, based on its tax filings, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of its 2011 revenue on social welfare.
So it’s hard to—the IRS agents have this problem of: What do I do with these organizations? They picked 300 of them for close scrutiny. Seventy-five of them said 'tea party' or 'patriot' or Glenn Beck’s 9/11, things like that, and they selected them. They shouldn’t have done it on that basis. But the applications those groups made, because some of them have made public their responses so we know what their applications said, those applications were drafted in a way that basically said, 'I’m really not a social welfare organization.' So of course they came under scrutiny. They just shouldn't have been picked the way they were. Can’t see a criminal case in that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And there was no group that was actually denied its 501(c)(4) status, right, of those groups that were—that were reviewed?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: That’s right. And furthermore, Juan, you don’t have to get a permit from the IRS. You do not need a determination. The law allows—it’s right on the IRS website—that you can simply self-declare that you are a 501(c)(4) organization. So no organization was prevented from participating in political activity because of the actions of this unit. All that happened is, they didn’t have a letter certifying that there was no question that they were a 501(c)(4) organization. And that’s a very important distinction that’s being lost here and I have not seen in any of the news reports..."
Joan McCarter: Liberal groups received same IRS letter that ignited Tea Party outrage
"The maelstrom over the revelation that the IRS targeted anti-tax Tea Party groups applying for tax exempt status for scrutiny is showing no signs of slowing down, with Republicans seeing their chance to milk a scandal for political purposes. But while the politics is heating up, some important context is emerging, like the fact that liberal groups were targeted as well, and in fact the only group to have its application denied was a liberal group..."
Democracy Now! - 'The Other IRS Scandal': David Cay Johnston on Dark Money Political Groups Seeking Tax Exemption
"...DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, it’s very hard to imagine that there’s a criminal case here. The IRS agents in Cincinnati, the examiners in what’s called the determination unit, were presented with an irresolvable conflict. The law for what are called 501(c)(4) organizations, which dates to 1913, says that they are exclusively to be engaged in social welfare. But an IRS regulation that’s been around since 1959 invokes the word "primarily." And groups like MoveOn, which is a 501(c)(4), although it does not appear to be, in the classic meaning, a social betterment group—they’re not out promoting more wildflowers in the parks and Little League and Girl Scouts and things like that—they are a 501(c)(4). Karl Rove’s organization spent, based on its tax filings, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of its 2011 revenue on social welfare.
So it’s hard to—the IRS agents have this problem of: What do I do with these organizations? They picked 300 of them for close scrutiny. Seventy-five of them said 'tea party' or 'patriot' or Glenn Beck’s 9/11, things like that, and they selected them. They shouldn’t have done it on that basis. But the applications those groups made, because some of them have made public their responses so we know what their applications said, those applications were drafted in a way that basically said, 'I’m really not a social welfare organization.' So of course they came under scrutiny. They just shouldn't have been picked the way they were. Can’t see a criminal case in that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And there was no group that was actually denied its 501(c)(4) status, right, of those groups that were—that were reviewed?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: That’s right. And furthermore, Juan, you don’t have to get a permit from the IRS. You do not need a determination. The law allows—it’s right on the IRS website—that you can simply self-declare that you are a 501(c)(4) organization. So no organization was prevented from participating in political activity because of the actions of this unit. All that happened is, they didn’t have a letter certifying that there was no question that they were a 501(c)(4) organization. And that’s a very important distinction that’s being lost here and I have not seen in any of the news reports..."
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Pricey Education:
Ryan Grim: Sallie Mae Profit Boosts College Endowments And Pension Funds As Students Pay More
"University endowments and teachers’ pension funds are among big investors in Sallie Mae, the private lender that has been generating enormous profits thanks to soaring student debt and the climbing cost of education, a Huffington Post review of financial documents has revealed. The previously unreported investments mean that education professionals are able to profit twice off the same student: first by hiking the cost of tuition, then through dividends and higher valuations on their holdings in Sallie Mae, the largest student lender and loan servicer in the country, which profits by charging relatively high interest rates on its loans and not refinancing high-rate loans after students graduate and get well-paying jobs. Sallie Mae is a former government-sponsored enterprise that was fully privatized in 2004 and now trades publicly as SLM Corp. 'It’s a conflict of interest,' said Barmak Nassirian, a longtime higher education analyst who most recently served as associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars & Admissions Officers. 'There is something inherently problematic about benefitting [SIC] from the financing of the tuition you charge through investments in any lender.' On average, the annual cost of education at public schools has risen 57 percent since 2005 to nearly $18,000, according to College Board figures Sallie Mae cites in its latest quarterly pitch to investors. Students at private schools are paying more than $39,000, or nearly 44 percent more than they did in 2005. The so-called 'cost of attendance gap', or the difference between what a four-year degree will cost incoming freshmen versus the amount of government loan money available to them, has risen over the past 10 years by 59 percent to nearly $152,000 for the typical student who started at a private school in 2011, Sallie Mae tells investors. For public school students, the gap has increased 90 percent to about $69,000..."
Shahien Nasiripour: Obama Student Loan Policy Generates $51 Billion Profit, Causing Democrats To Lash Out
"Two members of the Senate banking committee on Wednesday criticized excess government profits generated off loans made to student borrowers and their families, increasing pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to reform student lending programs. 'Wall Street, student loan servicers, and now the government are reaping profits at the expense of students,' said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). 'When everyone is benefiting from student loan policy except students and graduates, we have a problem.' 'The fact that the government is now expected to profit $51 billion off student loans this year -- more than the annual profit of any Fortune 500 company and about five times the profit of Google -- is just plain wrong,' said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass). 'We should put an end to the practices that generate Fortune 500 profits off of our students.' The Congressional Budget Office forecast on Tuesday that the federal government will turn a record $51 billion profit this year from student loan borrowers, a sum greater than the 2012 earnings of the nation's most profitable companies and roughly equal to the combined net income of the four largest U.S. banks by assets. The nonpartisan agency increased its 2013 fiscal year profit forecast for the Department of Education by 43 percent to $50.6 billion from its February estimate of $35.5 billion. Most of the profit figure reflects projected lifetime earnings off loans made this year, though a small portion of the profits are from loans originated in recent years. The increase in estimated profits is due to the government's revision of interest rate expectations. By comparison, Exxon Mobil Corp., the nation's most profitable company, reported $44.9 billion in net income last year. Apple Inc. recorded a $41.7 billion profit in its 2012 fiscal year, which ended in September. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo reported a combined $51.9 billion in earnings last year..."
Ryan Grim: Sallie Mae Profit Boosts College Endowments And Pension Funds As Students Pay More
"University endowments and teachers’ pension funds are among big investors in Sallie Mae, the private lender that has been generating enormous profits thanks to soaring student debt and the climbing cost of education, a Huffington Post review of financial documents has revealed. The previously unreported investments mean that education professionals are able to profit twice off the same student: first by hiking the cost of tuition, then through dividends and higher valuations on their holdings in Sallie Mae, the largest student lender and loan servicer in the country, which profits by charging relatively high interest rates on its loans and not refinancing high-rate loans after students graduate and get well-paying jobs. Sallie Mae is a former government-sponsored enterprise that was fully privatized in 2004 and now trades publicly as SLM Corp. 'It’s a conflict of interest,' said Barmak Nassirian, a longtime higher education analyst who most recently served as associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars & Admissions Officers. 'There is something inherently problematic about benefitting [SIC] from the financing of the tuition you charge through investments in any lender.' On average, the annual cost of education at public schools has risen 57 percent since 2005 to nearly $18,000, according to College Board figures Sallie Mae cites in its latest quarterly pitch to investors. Students at private schools are paying more than $39,000, or nearly 44 percent more than they did in 2005. The so-called 'cost of attendance gap', or the difference between what a four-year degree will cost incoming freshmen versus the amount of government loan money available to them, has risen over the past 10 years by 59 percent to nearly $152,000 for the typical student who started at a private school in 2011, Sallie Mae tells investors. For public school students, the gap has increased 90 percent to about $69,000..."
Shahien Nasiripour: Obama Student Loan Policy Generates $51 Billion Profit, Causing Democrats To Lash Out
"Two members of the Senate banking committee on Wednesday criticized excess government profits generated off loans made to student borrowers and their families, increasing pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to reform student lending programs. 'Wall Street, student loan servicers, and now the government are reaping profits at the expense of students,' said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). 'When everyone is benefiting from student loan policy except students and graduates, we have a problem.' 'The fact that the government is now expected to profit $51 billion off student loans this year -- more than the annual profit of any Fortune 500 company and about five times the profit of Google -- is just plain wrong,' said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass). 'We should put an end to the practices that generate Fortune 500 profits off of our students.' The Congressional Budget Office forecast on Tuesday that the federal government will turn a record $51 billion profit this year from student loan borrowers, a sum greater than the 2012 earnings of the nation's most profitable companies and roughly equal to the combined net income of the four largest U.S. banks by assets. The nonpartisan agency increased its 2013 fiscal year profit forecast for the Department of Education by 43 percent to $50.6 billion from its February estimate of $35.5 billion. Most of the profit figure reflects projected lifetime earnings off loans made this year, though a small portion of the profits are from loans originated in recent years. The increase in estimated profits is due to the government's revision of interest rate expectations. By comparison, Exxon Mobil Corp., the nation's most profitable company, reported $44.9 billion in net income last year. Apple Inc. recorded a $41.7 billion profit in its 2012 fiscal year, which ended in September. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo reported a combined $51.9 billion in earnings last year..."
Monday, May 13, 2013
The Budget:
Jonathan Chait: The Facts Are In and Paul Ryan Is Wrong
"Changes in the way we think about the world are not 'news' in the classic sense — they occur gradually, without discrete events to signal them. But they matter. Two such developments have come together recently, both reported in the New York Times. The first is the collapse of intellectual support for the notion that immediate austerity can boost economic growth. The second is a growing consensus that health-care-cost inflation is slowing for deep structural reasons, rather than having undergone a mere temporary dip from the recession. These trends have something in common: They blow to smithereens the intellectual foundations of the Obama-era Republican policy agenda. During the last four years, the hoary Republican nostrums of lower taxes, spending, and regulation have cohered into a specific view of the world. Paul Ryan has been the leading figure in defining this view and persuading the entire party, almost without exception, to fall in line behind it. The Ryan worldview is that the United States is heading toward a massive debt crisis, that the crisis is driven primarily by rising health-care costs, and only his plan stands any chance of alleviating it...
...The deeper expression of the Ryan worldview comes from Yuval Levin, a close adviser to Ryan, probably the most influential conservative intellectual of the Obama era (and who was recently recognized as such and granted a $250,000 Bradley Prize). The fullest expression of Levin’s view came in a widely cited essay he wrote for National Affairs, “Beyond the Welfare State,” which came out right about when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, and has served as their blueprint ever since. The most striking thing about the essay is its Marxian grandiloquence. Just as Marx believed of capitalism, Levin insisted the welfare state was utterly doomed, that the ailments he identified would necessarily continue indefinitely unless his chosen remedy was adopted...
"
Work Rules:
Kay Steiger: Advocate: GOP-backed ‘workplace flexibility’ bill is designed to kill overtime pay
"The House of Representatives passed a Republican-sponsored bill on Wednesday evening purporting to offer greater flexibility to working families, but the bill has been vehemently opposed by women’s groups and labor unions who say the only “flexibility” offered by the bill is given to the employers and not the employees. The bill passed by a vote of 223-204 along party lines. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL), wrote in an email to supporters, 'Despite efforts by union bosses and liberal activists to distort the facts, the House of Representatives just passed my bill to give working moms and dads more time flexibility in the workplace.' When Roby defended her bill on the House floor on Wednesday, her speech earned boos from her colleagues. Liz Watson, senior advisor to the Education and Employment Team at the National Women’s Law Center, disagreed with Roby’s assessment of what the bill would do. 'It takes cash out of the pocket of cash-strapped families under the guise of flexibility,' she said 'It’s a bill that comes up right in time for Mother’s day — we say it’s the Mother’s Day equivalent of coal in your stocking.' The Working Families Flexibility Act proposes to modify the Depression-era Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires hourly employees to receive time and a half for hours worked in excess of 40 a week, to allow employers to substitute 'comp time' for overtime pay. 'And certainly to … earn time off [under this bill], you have to work beyond the hours in a work week. We think folks should be able to get time off without having to treat it as something extra. Let alone that there are many workers in low-wage jobs who never get to 40 hours a week because there’s a huge problem with involuntary part-time work today,' Watson continued. The reason so many labor unions and women’s groups oppose the bill has to do with some of the original protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act, Watson explained. 'It was really designed to protect those workers who were most likely to be exploited. It was designed to ensure that those workers with the least bargaining power were made to work a certain number of hours in a week and to create a disincentive to make people work beyond a 40-hour work week,'..."
Jonathan Chait: The Facts Are In and Paul Ryan Is Wrong
"Changes in the way we think about the world are not 'news' in the classic sense — they occur gradually, without discrete events to signal them. But they matter. Two such developments have come together recently, both reported in the New York Times. The first is the collapse of intellectual support for the notion that immediate austerity can boost economic growth. The second is a growing consensus that health-care-cost inflation is slowing for deep structural reasons, rather than having undergone a mere temporary dip from the recession. These trends have something in common: They blow to smithereens the intellectual foundations of the Obama-era Republican policy agenda. During the last four years, the hoary Republican nostrums of lower taxes, spending, and regulation have cohered into a specific view of the world. Paul Ryan has been the leading figure in defining this view and persuading the entire party, almost without exception, to fall in line behind it. The Ryan worldview is that the United States is heading toward a massive debt crisis, that the crisis is driven primarily by rising health-care costs, and only his plan stands any chance of alleviating it...
...The deeper expression of the Ryan worldview comes from Yuval Levin, a close adviser to Ryan, probably the most influential conservative intellectual of the Obama era (and who was recently recognized as such and granted a $250,000 Bradley Prize). The fullest expression of Levin’s view came in a widely cited essay he wrote for National Affairs, “Beyond the Welfare State,” which came out right about when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, and has served as their blueprint ever since. The most striking thing about the essay is its Marxian grandiloquence. Just as Marx believed of capitalism, Levin insisted the welfare state was utterly doomed, that the ailments he identified would necessarily continue indefinitely unless his chosen remedy was adopted...
"
Work Rules:
Kay Steiger: Advocate: GOP-backed ‘workplace flexibility’ bill is designed to kill overtime pay
"The House of Representatives passed a Republican-sponsored bill on Wednesday evening purporting to offer greater flexibility to working families, but the bill has been vehemently opposed by women’s groups and labor unions who say the only “flexibility” offered by the bill is given to the employers and not the employees. The bill passed by a vote of 223-204 along party lines. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL), wrote in an email to supporters, 'Despite efforts by union bosses and liberal activists to distort the facts, the House of Representatives just passed my bill to give working moms and dads more time flexibility in the workplace.' When Roby defended her bill on the House floor on Wednesday, her speech earned boos from her colleagues. Liz Watson, senior advisor to the Education and Employment Team at the National Women’s Law Center, disagreed with Roby’s assessment of what the bill would do. 'It takes cash out of the pocket of cash-strapped families under the guise of flexibility,' she said 'It’s a bill that comes up right in time for Mother’s day — we say it’s the Mother’s Day equivalent of coal in your stocking.' The Working Families Flexibility Act proposes to modify the Depression-era Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires hourly employees to receive time and a half for hours worked in excess of 40 a week, to allow employers to substitute 'comp time' for overtime pay. 'And certainly to … earn time off [under this bill], you have to work beyond the hours in a work week. We think folks should be able to get time off without having to treat it as something extra. Let alone that there are many workers in low-wage jobs who never get to 40 hours a week because there’s a huge problem with involuntary part-time work today,' Watson continued. The reason so many labor unions and women’s groups oppose the bill has to do with some of the original protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act, Watson explained. 'It was really designed to protect those workers who were most likely to be exploited. It was designed to ensure that those workers with the least bargaining power were made to work a certain number of hours in a week and to create a disincentive to make people work beyond a 40-hour work week,'..."
Monday, May 06, 2013
Domestic Surveillance:
The Guardian (UK) - Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?
"The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are. Over the past couple days, cable news tabloid shows such as CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett have been excitingly focused on the possible involvement in the Boston Marathon attack of Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. As part of their relentless stream of leaks uncritically disseminated by our Adversarial Press Corps, anonymous government officials are claiming that they are now focused on telephone calls between Russell and Tsarnaev that took place both before and after the attack to determine if she had prior knowledge of the plot or participated in any way. On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two. He quite clearly insisted that they could..."
Nick Kolakowski: Big data, advertising and the erosion of privacy
"...People are touchy about how their personal data is used—with good reason. Every time a Facebook or Google tries something new with regard to ads or features that involve user data, it inevitably sparks weeks’ worth of protests from their audiences. People threaten to quit using the service or app; they post nasty messages about totalitarian New World Orders on Twitter and online forums; they cheer like Visigoths storming the gates of Rome when the company behind the app decides to pull back on its previous plans. For quite some time, fears of blowback over user privacy have stopped developers from rolling out some features that are truly magical (or scary, depending on one’s point of view). A few years ago, a high-ranking executive at Microsoft suggested to me that Bing—in conjunction with Facebook—could surface things about its users that would seem downright clairvoyant, but that enabling that sort of functionality would make the search engine seem a little too Orwellian in its reach. He seemed almost sad over that fact, given the supposed coolness of those search features. Foursquare might be the next company caught in this particular conundrum. The popular location-and-social app—so good at allowing people to become the 'mayor' of their local coffee shop—is facing loads of competition from apps such as Shopkick, which have learned how to leverage their users’ location data in a way that isn’t creepy and draws in big bucks from sponsors and advertisers. Meanwhile, Foursquare is catching flak about its business model being unsustainable, despite CEO Dennis Crowley’s protests to the contrary. Earlier this week, Valleywag obtained 'an internal Foursquare document' suggesting that the company’s future revenues could come from advertisers using check-in data to target users 'outside of the Foursquare app.' Those advertisers would also pay for Foursquare to surface 'contextually relevant' ads in conjunction with users checking into a particular place. If Valleywag’s document proves accurate, and Foursquare activates those advertising platforms, and they manage to attract revenues without irritating the app’s user base, then the company will have managed to carefully walk the tightrope between users, advertisers, and Wall Street expectations. Not all companies are nearly so lucky: the once-popular app Path was hit hard by privacy concerns, which forced it to pay a hefty fine to the Federal Trade Commission. But there are also signs that people could become more accepting of IT companies’ use of personal data. When Google recently issued its Google Now app for iOS, any public cries over potential privacy violations seemed muted—despite the fact that Google Now drills deep into the users’ Gmail, calendar, and search data. (There was a similar silence when Google Now first appeared on Android devices.) Facebook released Home, an app that 'skins' the Android user interface to place the social network’s content front-and-center—and nobody protested much over that, either, despite the possibility that Facebook is pulling more data than ever from users’ smartphones..."
Illawarra Mercury (AUS) - CCTV cameras switched off in Nowra CBD
"CCTV cameras in the Nowra CBD have been switched off following a ruling made by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. The decision was made after Shoalhaven City Council was found to have breached several clauses of the Privacy and Personal Information Act. After allegations made by a member of the public, only identified as SF, that the council had used its CCTV cameras to obtain personal information from him, the council was ordered to refrain from any conduct or action in contravention of the act. The tribunal also ordered the council to render a written apology to SF for the breaches and advise him of any steps to be taken by council to remove the possibility of similar breaches in the future..."
Food:
PBS NewsHour: Michael Pollan: ‘If you’re letting a corporation cook it, the odds are you’re not getting healthy food’
"...JEFFREY BROWN: If I can have access to so much even good healthy food without having to prepare it myself, never mind all the junk food that's there, why bother cooking?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, it's a question for a lot of people, and a lot of people are conflicted about it. It is something you can outsource very easily and fairly cheaply. But I would quibble with you that you can get healthy food outsourced. In general, you know, the most important question about your diet is who is cooking it. If you're letting a corporation cook it, the odds are you're not getting healthy food. They just don't cook very well. They use lots of salt, fat and sugar. They buy the cheapest possible raw ingredients, and then they have to dress it all up with lots of additives, because the food was cooked so long ago and so far away. So one of the -- and they cook differently than you do, in that they make -- they specialize in those labor-intensive foods made with cheap raw ingredients. The French fry is a classic example. Right? They can make French fries so efficiently that you can have them twice a day, no problem. And a lot of Americans do. Try making French fries at home. It's a lot of work and it's a big mess. And you won't do it more than once a month, which is probably about how often you should eat French fries..."
The Guardian (UK) - Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?
"The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are. Over the past couple days, cable news tabloid shows such as CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett have been excitingly focused on the possible involvement in the Boston Marathon attack of Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. As part of their relentless stream of leaks uncritically disseminated by our Adversarial Press Corps, anonymous government officials are claiming that they are now focused on telephone calls between Russell and Tsarnaev that took place both before and after the attack to determine if she had prior knowledge of the plot or participated in any way. On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two. He quite clearly insisted that they could..."
Nick Kolakowski: Big data, advertising and the erosion of privacy
"...People are touchy about how their personal data is used—with good reason. Every time a Facebook or Google tries something new with regard to ads or features that involve user data, it inevitably sparks weeks’ worth of protests from their audiences. People threaten to quit using the service or app; they post nasty messages about totalitarian New World Orders on Twitter and online forums; they cheer like Visigoths storming the gates of Rome when the company behind the app decides to pull back on its previous plans. For quite some time, fears of blowback over user privacy have stopped developers from rolling out some features that are truly magical (or scary, depending on one’s point of view). A few years ago, a high-ranking executive at Microsoft suggested to me that Bing—in conjunction with Facebook—could surface things about its users that would seem downright clairvoyant, but that enabling that sort of functionality would make the search engine seem a little too Orwellian in its reach. He seemed almost sad over that fact, given the supposed coolness of those search features. Foursquare might be the next company caught in this particular conundrum. The popular location-and-social app—so good at allowing people to become the 'mayor' of their local coffee shop—is facing loads of competition from apps such as Shopkick, which have learned how to leverage their users’ location data in a way that isn’t creepy and draws in big bucks from sponsors and advertisers. Meanwhile, Foursquare is catching flak about its business model being unsustainable, despite CEO Dennis Crowley’s protests to the contrary. Earlier this week, Valleywag obtained 'an internal Foursquare document' suggesting that the company’s future revenues could come from advertisers using check-in data to target users 'outside of the Foursquare app.' Those advertisers would also pay for Foursquare to surface 'contextually relevant' ads in conjunction with users checking into a particular place. If Valleywag’s document proves accurate, and Foursquare activates those advertising platforms, and they manage to attract revenues without irritating the app’s user base, then the company will have managed to carefully walk the tightrope between users, advertisers, and Wall Street expectations. Not all companies are nearly so lucky: the once-popular app Path was hit hard by privacy concerns, which forced it to pay a hefty fine to the Federal Trade Commission. But there are also signs that people could become more accepting of IT companies’ use of personal data. When Google recently issued its Google Now app for iOS, any public cries over potential privacy violations seemed muted—despite the fact that Google Now drills deep into the users’ Gmail, calendar, and search data. (There was a similar silence when Google Now first appeared on Android devices.) Facebook released Home, an app that 'skins' the Android user interface to place the social network’s content front-and-center—and nobody protested much over that, either, despite the possibility that Facebook is pulling more data than ever from users’ smartphones..."
Illawarra Mercury (AUS) - CCTV cameras switched off in Nowra CBD
"CCTV cameras in the Nowra CBD have been switched off following a ruling made by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. The decision was made after Shoalhaven City Council was found to have breached several clauses of the Privacy and Personal Information Act. After allegations made by a member of the public, only identified as SF, that the council had used its CCTV cameras to obtain personal information from him, the council was ordered to refrain from any conduct or action in contravention of the act. The tribunal also ordered the council to render a written apology to SF for the breaches and advise him of any steps to be taken by council to remove the possibility of similar breaches in the future..."
Food:
PBS NewsHour: Michael Pollan: ‘If you’re letting a corporation cook it, the odds are you’re not getting healthy food’
"...JEFFREY BROWN: If I can have access to so much even good healthy food without having to prepare it myself, never mind all the junk food that's there, why bother cooking?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, it's a question for a lot of people, and a lot of people are conflicted about it. It is something you can outsource very easily and fairly cheaply. But I would quibble with you that you can get healthy food outsourced. In general, you know, the most important question about your diet is who is cooking it. If you're letting a corporation cook it, the odds are you're not getting healthy food. They just don't cook very well. They use lots of salt, fat and sugar. They buy the cheapest possible raw ingredients, and then they have to dress it all up with lots of additives, because the food was cooked so long ago and so far away. So one of the -- and they cook differently than you do, in that they make -- they specialize in those labor-intensive foods made with cheap raw ingredients. The French fry is a classic example. Right? They can make French fries so efficiently that you can have them twice a day, no problem. And a lot of Americans do. Try making French fries at home. It's a lot of work and it's a big mess. And you won't do it more than once a month, which is probably about how often you should eat French fries..."
