Technology

As Sessions Promises Drug War Escalation, Listen To Drug War Prisoners

August 4, 2017 Doran Larson, www.theconversation.com Educate! Drug War, Jeff Sessions, Prisons, Technology, Trump Administration

By Doran Larson for The Conversation - Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently announced a return to a pre-Obama policy of seeking maximum penalties for all drug crimes, including low-level, nonviolent offenses. Criticism from politicians, criminologists, lawyers and others was swift and unambiguous. Based on a discredited belief in a zero-sum relationship between crime and incarceration rates, the thinking behind this policy was called “one-dimensional,” “archaic,” “misguided” and “dumb.” America’s unprecedented attempt to jail its way out of crime long ago passed the point of diminishing returns. Drug trafficking in particular sees a replacement effect: Removing one drug seller simply makes room for another (often accompanied by a violent reshuffling of territories). Excessive incarceration can also damage communities and can actually make an individual more, not less, likely to reoffend. I have been facilitating a writing workshop inside Attica Correctional Facility since 2006. For the past eight years, I have solicited, collected, helped publish and digitally disseminated the first-person writing of incarcerated Americans. Those on the receiving end of the attorney general’s misguided policy will naturally feel his words more deeply than others. The writers among them will be burdened with responsibility to make those feelings known.

190+ Engineers & Tech Experts Tell FCC It’s Dead Wrong

July 28, 2017 Karl Bode, www.techdirt.com Resist! Engineering, FCC, Net Neutrality, Technology

By Karl Bode for Tech Dig - There's now 11 million comments on the FCC's plan to kill net neutrality, a record for the agency and a significantly higher output than the 4 million comments the FCC received when crafting the current rules. And while many of these comments are fraudulent bot-crafted support for the FCC's plan, the limited analysis we've seen so far suggests the vast majority of those organizations, companies and individuals prefer keeping the existing rules intact. And most people generally understand that removing regulatory oversight in the absence of organic market competition doesn't end well for anybody not-named Comcast. One of the more notable recent filings (pdf) from this tidal wave of opposition comes from a collection of engineers, technologists, professors, current and former IETF and ICANN staffers, and numerous network architects and system engineers. Collectively, these experts argue that the FCC is not only making a mistake in killing net neutrality protections, it doesn't appear to understand how the internet actually works: "Based on certain questions the FCC asks in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), we are concerned that the FCC (or at least Chairman Pai and the authors of the NPRM) appears to lack a fundamental understanding of what the Internet's technology promises to provide

World’s Young Face $535 Trillion Bill For Climate

July 24, 2017 Tim Radford, www.climatenewsnetwork.net Educate! Climate Change, Technology

By Tim Radford for Climate News Network - LONDON, 19 July, 2017 – One of the world’s most famous climate scientists has just calculated the financial burden that tomorrow’s young citizens will face to keep the globe at a habitable temperature and contain global warming and climate change – a $535 trillion bill. And much of that will go on expensive technologies engineered to suck 1,000 billion metric tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the air by the year 2100. Of course, if humans started to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6% a year right now, the end of the century challenge would be to take 150 billion tonnes from the atmosphere, and most of this could be achieved simply by better forest and agricultural management, according to a new study in the journal Earth System Dynamics. The study, authored by researchers from the US, France, China, the United Kingdom and Australia, rests on two arguments. Slow start. One is that although the world’s nations vowed in Paris in 2015 to contain global warming by 2100 to “well below” 2°C relative to the average global temperatures for most of the planet’s history since the last Ice Age, concerted international action has been slow to start. One nation – the US – has already announced that it will withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

Building The Networked City From The Ground Up With Citizens

July 7, 2017 Bianca Pick, www.magazine.ouishare.net Create! Democracy, New Economy, Technology

By Bianca Pick for Oui Share Magazine - One key point is access to housing. The government is not only tracking down big banks that leave apartments empty but also confronting platforms like Airbnb whose business model has a negative impact on affordable housing. Another big theme is energy transition and renewable energy. Barcelona wants to create a municipal energy company to fight the current monopoly. We are also looking into more distributed energy models, like smart grids, models that are more affordable and which allow citizens to be in control of their data. We are also rethinking urban planning with projects like the SuperBlocks (Superilles). Aimed at giving back public spaces to citizens, they were created in a very innovative process with a digital democracy platform for large-scale citizen participation. Opening the debate brought many great ideas, but it also showed us the complicated aspect of participation. There were many conflicting interests and it was learning by doing in an iterative way. Finally, instead of working only with big companies as governments typically do, we are also rethinking the economic model to support new economies like the solidarity, collaborative and digital economy.

Tree Biotech Conference Disrupted Amidst Week Of Protest

June 12, 2017 Staff, www.stopgetrees.org Resist! Protests, Technology

By Staff of The Campaign to Stop GE Trees - Concepción, Chile – Today the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) 2017 Tree Biotechnology Conference was forced to cancel its field trip to the University of Concepción’s Center for Biotechnology amidst protests on campus against genetically engineered (GE) trees. This week of protest in Concepción is the latest in a global, years-long campaign to end the threat of GE trees. On Wednesday, dozens of students and allies held a demonstration outside of UC’s Center for Biotechnology, denouncing the university’s research on GE trees as only benefiting corporate interests, and demanding an end to the monoculture forestry model. This is the second time the conference was targeted for protest. On Monday, demonstrators marched on the opening session of IUFRO, which was hosted by Arauco and regional government spokespeople. Demonstrators argue that GE varieties of pine and eucalyptus would exacerbate the social and ecological crises already caused by the monoculture model, including record wildfires this past January that killed 11 people and displaced thousands.

Prepare Now: Artificial Intelligence To Take Jobs Defeat Human Intelligence

June 6, 2017 Karla Lant, www.futurism.com Create! Labor, New Economy, Technology

By Karla Lant for Futurism - Researcher Katja Grace at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute and a team surveyed 1,634 of the leading artificial intelligence researchers from all over the world about when they believe intelligent machines and the AI that powers them will surpass human intelligence in a variety of contexts. 352 of the experts responded, and the team then calculated median responses. The results of the probe were presented this month. The experts predicted that within the next decade, AI will outperform humans in tasks like driving trucks (by 2027), translating languages (by 2024), and writing high school essays (by 2026). The consensus was that other tasks such as writing a bestseller (2049) or carrying out surgeries (2053) wouldn’t be quite so imminent. Interestingly, the experts (who answered in 2015) predicted that AI would not surpass humans at Go until 2027 — yet that’s already happened. This suggests the sobering thought that in general their predictions may have been far too conservative against AI. Still, even if we go with the estimates the experts provided — and these were attendees of two of the most significant AI events in 2015...

California Court Upholds Berkeley Cellphone Warning

April 28, 2017 Derrick Broze, www.activistpost.com Create! California, Cell Phones, Radiation, Technology

By Derrick Broze for Activist Post - On Friday, a Ninth Circuit panel of judges ruled in favor of a Berkeley, California law which requires retailers to display warnings about the possibility of health risks from cellphones. The 2 to 1 decision rejects a legal challenge from the Cellular Telephone Industries Association (CTIA), a wireless industry trade group who challenged Berkeley’s so-called “Right To Know” ordinance in June 2015. The group claimed the law violates the First Amendment by forcing retailers to spread a message that they say is misleading. Circuit Judge William Fletcher disagreed, writing that because Berkeley’s cellphone warning is “purely factual” and is offering protection of public safety, it does not violate the First Amendment. “Berkeley’s compelled disclosure does no more than to alert consumers to the safety disclosures that the FCC requires, and to direct consumers to federally compelled instructions in their user manuals providing specific information about how to avoid excessive exposure,” Fletcher wrote. “Far from conflicting with federal law and policy, the Berkeley ordinance complements and reinforces it.”

VW’s Environmental Settlement Includes 400 EV Fast Charging Stations

March 29, 2017 James Ayre, www.cleantechnica.com Create! Cars, Electricity, Technology, Transportation

By James Ayre for Clean Technica - As part of its court settlements with with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Volkswagen will build around 400 electric vehicle fast-charging stations in the US, according to reports. The $2 billion settlement will see the majority of stations — to be comprised of 150 kW and 320 kW DC fast-chargers, around 5 chargers to a station — installed in metro areas with high expected demand for electric vehicles. Note that these are genuinely “fast charging” rates, much faster than current non-Tesla fast chargers. The first US high-power, superfast-charging station with 150 kW of power is currently being constructed for the EVgo charging network (visualizations of that station from EVgo below).

Law Enforcement’s Possible Use Of Surveillance Tech At Standing Rock

January 10, 2017 Stephanie Lacambra, www.eff.org Educate! Standing Rock, Surveillance, Technology

By Stephanie Lacambra for EFF - One of the biggest protests of 2016 is still underway at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, where Water Protectors and their allies are fighting Energy Transfer Partners’ plans to drill beneath contested Treaty land to finish the Dakota Access Pipeline. While the world has been watching law enforcement’s growing use of force to disrupt the protests, EFF has been tracking the effects of its surveillance technologies on water protectors’ communications and movement. Following several reports of potentially unlawful surveillance, EFF sent technologists and lawyers to North Dakota to investigate.

The Coming Tech Backlash

January 7, 2017 Ross Mayfield, www.linkedin.com Educate! Donald Trump, Technology

By Ross Mayfield for Linked In - The tech industry played an influential role in the outcome of the US Presidential election. Not just in providing the medium for fake news and propaganda. The root cause is job destruction by automation, which drove a base of dissatisfied Rust Belt voters to support Trump. Job destruction is accelerating — and if tech doesn’t get ahead of this problem there will be a significant populist backlash against the industry and its ability to progress. This post was inspired by a senior in high school, Bianca Al-Shamari, who is writing an article on job automation and the impact on future generations. Fifty percent of the jobs will be gone in about twenty years.

Police’s Secret Cellphone-Surveillance Tool Can Also Block Calls

December 24, 2016 Tim Johnson, www.mcclatchydc.com Educate! Cell Phones, Police, Surveillance, Technology

By Tim Johnson for McClatchy DC - It’s no secret that state and local law enforcement agencies have grown more militarized in the past decade, with armored personnel carriers, drones and robots. But one item in their arsenal has been kept largely out of public view, to the dismay of civil liberties advocates who say its use is virtually unregulated – and largely untracked. The device is a suitcase-size surveillance tool commonly called a StingRay that mimics a cellphone tower, allowing authorities to track individual cellphones in real time.

Silicon Valley And Police Create COINTELPRO For Tech Age

October 15, 2016 Staff, www.telesurtv.net Organize! COINTELPRO, Police, Silicon Valley, Technology

By Staff of Tele Sur - The most widely-used social media platforms have collaborated with law enforcement to track Black Lives Matter activists, providing police agencies with data that is unavailable to the broader public, the American Civil Liberties Union revealed Tuesday. Indeed, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all gave “special access” to Geofeedia, a Chicago-based social media monitoring company whose marketing materials have referred to labor unions and activists as “overt threats.”

Exclusive: Yahoo Secretly Scanned Customer Emails For U.S. Intelligence

October 6, 2016 Joseph Menn, www.reuters.com Educate! Surveillance, Technology

By Joseph Menn for Reuters - Yahoo Inc last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The company complied with a classified U.S. government demand, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said three former employees and a fourth person apprised of the events.

Future Of Protest Involves Light, Holograms And Augmented Reality

October 5, 2016 Kashmir Hill, www.fusion.net Create! Protests, Technology

By Kashmir Hill for Fusion - For some activists, handmade protest signs and graffiti are passé. Instead, they’re employing new technologies like light graffiti, holograms and lasers. Confronted with cutting-edge methods that flummox the existing legal system, authorities are struggling to figure out ways to suppress them—or whether they should. Take The Illuminator, an art collective born out of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

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