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Academic Writing
Hard Questions: Why Does Facebook Enable End-to-End Encryption?
End-to-end encryption is a powerful tool for security and safety. It lets patients talk to their doctors in complete confidence. It helps journalists communicate with sources without governments listening in. It gives citizens in repressive regimes a lifeline to human rights advocates. And by end-to-end encrypting sensitive information, a cyber attack aimed at revealing private conversations would be far less likely to succeed.
Gina Haspel’s Nomination to Head the CIA: Why the Controversy & What is at Stake?
The Senate has recently confirmed Mike Pompeo to be Secretary of State, after Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) dropped his objections and several Democrats indicated that they would support the nominee. The confirmation process for Pompeo’s replacement as head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is not likely to go so smoothly.
Why the world needs to regulate autonomous weapons, and soon
The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) at the UN has just concluded a second round of meetings on lethal autonomous weapons systems in Geneva, under the auspices of what is known as a Group of Governmental Experts. Both the urgency and significance of the discussions in that forum have been heightened by the rising concerns over artificial intelligence (AI) arms races and the increasing use of digital technologies to subvert democratic processes.
Comment on Canadian 'Right to Be Forgotten' Proposal
This Comment was filed response to the Canadian Office of the Privacy Commissioner's Draft Online Reputation Position Paper. As summarized here, the Comment discusses the shortcomings of PIPEDA and data protection statutes generally as sources of law regulating online information and expression.
Trump doesn’t like China’s economic nationalism. So why is his administration stirring it up?
On April 16, the Commerce Department denied export privileges to the Chinese phone and telecoms giant ZTE for seven years. This ban means that ZTE will no longer be able to buy technology from American suppliers, including chips and other critical components central to its products.
Facebook’s social responsibility should include privacy protection
In his congressional testimony, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemed to understand the importance of protecting both the security and privacy of Facebook’s 2.2 billion users.
New Hampshire Court: First Amendment Protects Criticism of “Patent Troll”
A New Hampshire state court has dismissed a defamation suit filed by a patent owner unhappy that it had been called a “patent troll.” The court ruled [PDF] that the phrase “patent troll” and other rhetorical characterizations are not the type of factual statements that can be the basis of a defamation claim.
Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook testimony is a start. But only bipartisan cooperation will fix this crisis.
As Mark Zuckerberg prepares to testify before the U.S. Congress this week, the whole world seems to be against Facebook. Is this a watershed moment for the future of the company and the broader consumer internet as we know it? Will the tremendous public outcry against Facebook and the rest of the industry result in truly meaningful change that actually advances consumer interests and protects the long-term integrity of American democracy?
Mark Zuckerberg runs a nation-state, and he’s the king
“In a lot of ways Facebook is more like a government than a traditional company,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said.