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Tool Without A Handle: A Mere Gallimaufry

By Chuck Cosson on January 24, 2019 at 9:25 pm

Tool Without A Handle: “A Mere Gallimaufry”

This blog has spent a good deal of real estate discussing networked information technologies as tools, but has not yet dealt thoroughly with the qualifier in its title: tools “without handles.” The addition of “without a handle” is intended to indicate that my primary metaphor of a tool in the control of a user - and thus my general preferred approach to Internet policy and regulation, favoring individual control and accountability for uses of tools – needs to be leavened a bit. Read more about Tool Without A Handle: A Mere Gallimaufry

Court Recommends Denying the Public Access to Its Sealed Surveillance Docket

By Riana Pfefferkorn on December 21, 2018 at 12:27 pm

In September 2016, my colleague Jennifer Granick (now at the ACLU) and I filed a petition in the federal district court for the Northern District of California that sought to unseal years' worth of sealed surveillance matters filed in that court. It is well-established that the public and the press have First Amendment and common-law rights to access court records. Read more about Court Recommends Denying the Public Access to Its Sealed Surveillance Docket

New Spanish Law raises concerns over use of sensitive data by political parties

By Miquel Peguera on November 24, 2018 at 9:18 am

The new Law on Data Protection and Digital Rights (LOPD), recently enacted in Spain, includes a highly controversial provision allowing political parties and organizations to collect and use personal data revealing political views of individuals. The LOPD aims at adapting the national legal framework to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which became fully applicable on May 25, 2018. Read more about New Spanish Law raises concerns over use of sensitive data by political parties

Tool Without A Handle: Tools For Meaning, Part 2

By Chuck Cosson on November 23, 2018 at 2:14 pm

“Tool Without A Handle”: Tools and the Search for Meaning – Part II

"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." ~ Marcus Aurelius

The last post in this series observed optimal policy thinking aims at allowing people sufficient control over technologies they may use them to apply their own capacities and, in that process, find meaning. This post explores that point further; in particular how emphasis on technology, rather than people, falls short of that aim. Read more about Tool Without A Handle: Tools For Meaning, Part 2

Online Anti-Piracy Enforcement and the Normalization of Public-Private Speech Regulation

By Annemarie Bridy on November 15, 2018 at 2:30 pm

In response to a global backlash in the wake of Brexit and the 2016 US presidential election, dominant tech companies are scrambling to stave off increased governmental regulation of their information handling practices. It is an attractive strategy for them to cut deals with regulators whereby they agree to follow privately negotiated rules in lieu of command-and-control regulation. With respect to content moderation, this form of hybrid public-private regulation could undermine First Amendment limits on state action that are designed to protect individual citizens from official censorship. This post explores the role of anti-piracy voluntary agreements in normalizing hybrid public-private speech regulation on the Internet. Read more about Online Anti-Piracy Enforcement and the Normalization of Public-Private Speech Regulation

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