Immigration and Customs Enforcement spent $2.8 billion to surveil Americans from 2008 to 2021. The report titled “American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century” from the Georgetown Law Center for Privacy and Technology details how ICE used warrantless, mass spying tactics to deport people believed to be in the US illegally. The report found the agency could run images against a facial recognition database that includes a third of Americans and was quickly able to learn where hundreds of millions of people lived, all without any judicial oversight. “In fact, ICE has used...
Internet
Elon Musk is Angering the Right People
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Twitter’s senior management and Elon Musk are in the final stages of agreeing on terms for Musk’s proposed takeover of the social media platform. Musk had announced on April 21 that he had $46.5 billion lined up—half in cash, half financed by his bankers Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and Bank of America—for a purchase of the company. Musk was offering $54.20 per share for the takeover at a time when Twitter’s stock price was In the mid forties. This followed a spending spree that began in early 2022 and resulted in Musk owning more than 9 percent of...
Congress as a Seinfeld Episode, But This Won’t Leave You Laughing
Congress. Seinfeld. Both offer amusing forms of entertainment, one being about nothing and the other starring people that know nothing. The entertainment value of watching Congress is that their intentions and the effects of their actions are frequently 180 degrees from each other. Kind of like that Seinfeld episode where George Costanza decides to do the exact opposite of his instincts. For example, he insulted the owner of the New York Yankees during an interview, yet he got the job. Unfortunately, America is not a Seinfeld episode and such legislative failures can cause devastating...
Et Tu, Heritage?
Heritage Foundation’s Research Technology Fellow Kara Fredrick’s recent paper, “Combating Big Tech Totalitarianism A Road Map,” is an about face from where the think tank stood just two years ago—and a major departure from where the Hertiage Foundation has stood for decades regarding intervention into markets. This ideological turn places the Heritage Foundation with Trump era conservatives whose populist anger at private technology companies has lead them to support using antitrust and other government regulation to crack down on “Big Tech.” Consequently, Fredrick urges the federal...
Masks and Me: How Did We Get Here?
“The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may become persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right, on a legal basis, is while our rulers are honest, ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves in the sole faculty of making money, and...
TGIF: Licensing the Fringe
Big Tech's incredible promise to rid its platforms of "misinformation and disinformation" is not only a chimera that will harm the most gullible, but it is also an unwitting grant of power and credibility to some of the dodgiest elements online. That claim might sound familiar. We opponents of drug prohibition and other anti-vice laws often point out that when the government outlaws a product or service that people want, it does not disappear. It simply moves into the shadows where it will be handled by less-than-honorable people because law-abiding types will be averse to supplying the...
Jimmy Carter, the Great Deregulator
One way President Biden can “Build Back Better” is following the example of one of the greatest deregulators to sit in the Oval Office: Jimmy Carter. Whilst most think of Carter as a standard New Deal-Great Society liberal, deregulation was a major part of Carter’s economic agenda and one of the greatest aspects of his legacy. It’s something that Carter and Reagan had in common, not something that set them apart. Carter—and other leading progressives at the time such as Ralph Nader—understood the Golden Rule: whoever has the gold makes the rules. Regulation frequently, if not always,...
COI #221: Biden Must Make Concessions to Defuse the Ukraine Crisis
On COI #221, Kyle Anzalone discusses the Ukraine crisis. Biden has overextended American commitments and now must make concessions to defuse the crisis. Even if it leads to war, the Blob will demand that Biden hold firm against Putin. While the US continues to take aggressive positions against Russia, behind-the-scenes talks could be working towards a deal to prevent such a war. Kyle talks about the U.K. High Court’s ruling that Assange can appeal his extradition to the U.K. Supreme Court. The decision is key in the Wikileaks founder’s fight for freedom. However, Assange will remain...
News Roundup 1/21/2022
Covid New Mexico is requesting National Guard soldiers and state employees to fill in as substitute teachers. [Link] The US donated over 300,000 Johnson & Johnson covid vaccines to Bangladesh. [Link] The US donated over 600,000 Pfizer covid vaccine doses to Ukraine. [Link] At least 2.8 million covid vaccine doses donated to Africa have expired. [Link] Russia The US charged four Belarusians with air piracy. [Link] The US announces sanctions on four Ukrainians for assisting an alleged Russian influence campaign in Ukraine. [Link] A bipartisan group of Senators introduced a bill that...
1/7/22 Bill Ottman on Alternative Social Networks and the Future of the Internet
Scott is joined by Bill Ottman, the co-founder and CEO of Minds — a blockchain-based social network. After Twitter banned Dr. Robert Malone for spreading alleged medical misinformation, many have been voicing frustration with the major social networks. And although some alternatives have been gaining in popularity, nothing has taken off as the new place as of yet. Ottman and Scott discuss the landscape of alternative social networks, the features these networks are offering and what we can expect as the internet continues to evolve. Discussed on the show: Dr. Robert Malone on the Joe...