|
William Barr Is Coming After WhatsApp |
 |
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=49924"><span class="small">Trevor Timm, Medium</span></a>
|
|
Friday, 02 August 2019 08:31 |
|
Timm writes: "Banning strong encryption is a terrible idea no matter the administration in charge. But why should anyone trust Donald Trump, of all people, with this incredible new power?"
Cell phone on a keyboard. (photo: Getty)
William Barr Is Coming After WhatsApp
By Trevor Timm, Medium
02 August 19
Attorney General William Barr has made clear his desire to dismantle the security of our encryption services
 ust as Americans face yet another devastating data breach — this time with the Capital One credit card servers — the Trump administration seems bent on weakening our collective cybersecurity even further.
It’s hard to count the number of recent devastating cybersecurity episodes, whether it’s on Capital One, Equifax, or the U.S. government itself. With these attacks on an uptick, it’s been encouraging to see a corresponding rise in chat applications that offer end-to-end encryption — a boon to everyone’s privacy and security.
Messaging apps like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Signal provide consumers strong safeguards, where everyone’s messages are encrypted by default — even the companies that own the message applications can’t access them. These services are collectively providing billions of people with protections to prevent their messages from landing in the next massive data dump (not to mention helping to protect everyone from government mass surveillance). Device encryption, too, is becoming standard on cellphones. Even Apple, for example, can’t unlock an iPhone that is encrypted with a passcode.
But Attorney General William Barr wants to change all that. Last week, he delivered an ominous speech in which he claimed the U.S. government’s patience with tech companies offering strong encryption is wearing thin, and that a law banning strong encryption or requiring companies build in back doors for the government could soon become a reality.
Even though Barr said improving cybersecurity was a “national imperative” — he added that the government would “welcome these improvements to privacy and security, and will work to preserve and strengthen them” — he then spent the entirety of his talk explaining the government’s desire to weaken these same technologies that are protecting billions of people so that it might gain access to conversations when it pleases.
“By enabling dangerous criminals to cloak their communications and activities behind an essentially impenetrable digital shield, the deployment of warrant-proof encryption is already imposing huge costs on society,” Barr claimed. “It seriously degrades the ability of law enforcement to detect and prevent crime before it occurs.”
While Barr acknowledges it’s clear that end-to-end encryption (which he dubbed “irresponsible encryption”) provides some consumer protections, he claims it weakens people’s overall safety and national security at the same time.
Barr acts is if consumer protection is small bore compared to national security. First, encryption is protecting more than just our private information. After Apple implemented strong encryption protections on the iPhone, phone theft — one of the most common crimes in New York City — plummeted because the phones became almost useless to criminals. Of course, phone thefts, when done by robbery, can often become violent.
Protecting this type of information is also a national security issue. After the Clinton campaign was hacked in 2016, Clinton staffers were told to move over to Signal to better protect their communications from foreign governments.
Since then, use of encrypted apps by aides in Congress and campaign staff has only increased. In fact, there’s an easy story any journalist can write if the debate over encryption heats up again in Congress. To any lawmaker who is advocating for a ban on strong encryption, simply ask them: Do you, your staff, or your campaign use Signal or another encrypted messaging app to protect your communications? The answer will most likely be yes.
Of course, this is not to say that criminals will never use encrypted messaging apps. It’s true that surveilling the content of messages may be a little harder for governments, but they are also operating in what many have called “the golden age of surveillance,” where virtually everyone carries around a cellphone 24/7, which can act as a tracking beacon for their exact whereabouts, who they are talking to, and how often.
Security experts across the political spectrum (even some well-known former intelligence officials) have explained that creating a back door opens up all sorts of cybersecurity nightmares, and we are in a much better position providing more protections for our data, not less. If the companies can access our data, and the FBI can as well, it’s inevitable that foreign governments or criminals will too.
It’s also hard to trust anything Barr says on the subject. The U.S. government has a long history of exaggerating and even making up claims about the supposed dangers of encryption. Under the Obama administration, former FBI Director Jim Comey pushed hard for a new law that would ban end-to-end encryption, and the Justice Department even attempted to force Apple to unlock iPhones via a court order. Only later did they admit, once they lost the fight, that they were misleading the public and Apple’s phone weren’t nearly as “unbreakable” as they made it seem.
Banning strong encryption is a terrible idea no matter the administration in charge. But why should anyone trust Donald Trump, of all people, with this incredible new power?
 |
|
No Country for Old Moderates |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=50436"><span class="small">Jessica Valenti, Medium</span></a>
|
|
Thursday, 01 August 2019 14:11 |
|
Valenti writes: "More so than any bizarre theatrics, it was candidates' insistence on appealing to 'the middle' that revealed Trump's lingering shadow over the Democratic primary."
Democratic debate. (photo: CNN)
No Country for Old Moderates
By Jessica Valenti, Medium
01 August 19
There’s no such thing as ‘the middle’ anymore — only those who can tolerate injustice and those who can’t
 wenty candidates, three moderators, two nights of debate, and a partridge in a pear tree. It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by the state of politics, and the second presidential debate, hosted by CNN, didn’t do much to alleviate that stress.
From the network’s embarrassing lead-in, a spectacle better suited for a WWE match than a political debate, to the fact that one of the candidates believes you can positive-think away cancer, it was hard not to see the last two nights as a direct response to Donald Trump’s presidency. So much felt crass and surreal.
More so than any bizarre theatrics, it was candidates’ insistence on appealing to “the middle” that revealed Trump’s lingering shadow over the Democratic primary. Again and again over the course of two nights, the CNN moderators and candidates alike insinuated that fighting for real change — like “Medicare for All” — would alienate moderates who don’t like Trump. This, despite the fact that the vast majority of the country supports these policies.
Politicians and pundits need to get over the idea that the middle will save us. White supremacist terrorism is going largely unchecked, states are trying to make abortion punishable by prison time, and we are running large-scale baby jails and concentration camps on the border. There’s no such thing as moderates anymore — only those who can tolerate these injustices, and those who can’t.
Besides, it’s Trump’s extremism that the American people don’t like. The majority of people polled by Quinnipiac University this week think Trump is a racist; another poll showed that most Americans felt his disparaging tweets about members of the “squad” of four Democratic congresswomen of color were overtly racist.
Why are we letting the Republicans who would support such a person set the terms of the debate?
Mayor Pete Buttigieg noted as much on the first night of the debate, when he chided his fellow Democrats for worrying constantly about how they would be perceived by members of the rival party.
“If we embrace a far-left agenda, they’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists,” Buttigieg said. “If we embrace a conservative agenda, you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists. So let’s just stand up for the right policy, go out there, and defend it.”
Indeed, that’s all Democrats can — and should — do. The truth is that there’s no clear line to beating Trump. There’s no magic formula and no sure thing — a terrifying prospect for all of us, and particularly troubling for those who consider themselves experts in voting trends and politics. But if 2016 showed us anything, it’s that political expertise and polls cannot always be trusted.
Democrats need to let the fact that we can’t predict what’s going to happen in 2020 free us to fight for what the country actually needs, instead of what we think a certain group of voters in a swing state will like.
There was one moment in particular that captured the dangers of this tepid approach to campaigning. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, responding to John Delaney’s insistence that her policies were “impossible promises,” quipped, “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.”
And that’s the rub: Why spend one more minute compromising a vision for a just America?
“The middle” is a fairytale for Democrats who want to believe it can save us from Trump, and a lie conservatives need to stop us from fighting for what’s best for Americans. But we don’t have time for fantasies, and the stakes are too high to let Republicans tell us what to talk about and what to fight for.
At the end of the day, I’d like to think that the Democratic sweep in 2018, where we elected a record number of women of color, is more indicative of where the country is at than anything else. But, like everyone else, I really don’t know.
What I do know is that we need to leave behind the theatrics, the fear, and the idea that moderation will do anything other than hold us back.
|
|
|
Dear CNN: Women Are Not Little Men |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51076"><span class="small">Molly Jong-Fast, The Daily Beast</span></a>
|
|
Thursday, 01 August 2019 14:08 |
|
Jong-Fast writes: "It was 10:06 p.m. Wednesday when Democrats were finally asked about equal pay. The question went to... Andrew Yang."
Democratic debate. (photo: The Daily Beast/Getty)
Dear CNN: Women Are Not Little Men
By Molly Jong-Fast, The Daily Beast
01 August 19
The network seemed uninterested in women’s issues, and the Democrats on stage seemed happy to play along for the most part.
 t was 10:06 p.m. Wednesday when Democrats were finally asked about equal pay.
The question went to… Andrew Yang.
If night two in the CNN Detroit thunderdome made one thing clear, it was that no one had learned much from night one. The style had been slightly smoothed and the questions were not quite as pointed but the reality remained the same, with almost no questions about women's health care, abortion, childcare, family planning, equal rights, sex trafficking, or the plight of women.
And when women’s issues were brought up, the candidates used them mostly as tools to bludgeon each other. The Hyde amendment was used by Kamala Harris to beat up Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden, Kirsten Gillibrand brought up “women working outside the home” and a 1981 oped he’d written to try and land a shot against him.
Where did the feminism go? What happened to us? Did we slip through the cracks? In more than five collective hours of debate we merited merely two questions. We’re 50.8 percent of America.
Democrats (and many independents) are terrified of what happened in 2016 happening again; they are desperate to stop it. They want to do everything differently but they don’t want to appear sexist. That said, there is still this nagging feeling in many Democratic hearts, whether they admit it or not, that Hillary might have lost because she was a woman—that maybe America isn’t ready to break through that glass ceiling with 18 million cracks. They know they can’t say it. They know they shouldn’t even think it. But they’re thinking it.
Conscious or unconscious Democrats have post-traumatic stress from seeing a woman beaten by a long-shot reality television host who sleeps with porn stars and pays them to shut up about it, and paints himself orange, and they just want a candidate who will win against Trump. Unfortunately, this is causing an unprecedented level of weird misogyny which is playing out in these oddly sexist and horribly anti-feminist debates.
There are six women candidates, a historic number, but you wouldn’t know it because their womanhood is largely being ignored. Health care was talked about at length, but in an almost entirely ungendered way. Of these six candidates, four are mothers but they were never asked (and neither was Yang or the other men) about childcare, about the fight for equal pay, about the impossible choices working mothers are forced to make every day. It was like they weren’t women at all.
I’m all for equal rights but women are not small men. Ignoring women’s womenness will not make voters think they’re men.
There were a lot of complaints from the pundit class and the Twitter knowers about the CNN debate’s Heritage Foundation-sounding questions, but what if the calls were coming from inside the party all along? What if Democrats are censoring themselves in the hopes of beating Trump?
|
|
RSN: There's Nothing Moderate About "Moderates." A Primary Example Is Joe Biden. |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=48990"><span class="small">Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News</span></a>
|
|
Thursday, 01 August 2019 11:46 |
|
Solomon writes: "The comedian George Carlin liked to marvel at oxymorons like 'jumbo shrimp' and 'military intelligence.' Now, as the race for the Democratic presidential nomination intensifies, reporters and pundits at corporate media outlets are escalating their use of a one-word political oxymoron - 'moderate.'"
Joe Biden at the debate on Wednesday. (photo: Erin Schaff/The New York Times)
There's Nothing Moderate About "Moderates." A Primary Example Is Joe Biden.
By Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
01 August 19
he comedian George Carlin liked to marvel at oxymorons like “jumbo shrimp” and “military intelligence.” Now, as the race for the Democratic presidential nomination intensifies, reporters and pundits at corporate media outlets are escalating their use of a one-word political oxymoron – “moderate.”
As a practical matter, in the routine lexicon of U.S. mass media, “moderate” actually means pro-corporate and reliably unwilling to disrupt the dominant power structures. “Moderate” is a term of endearment in elite circles, a label conferred on politicians who won’t rock establishment boats.
“Moderate” sounds so much nicer than, say, “enmeshed with Wall Street” or “supportive of the military-industrial complex.”
In the corporate media environment, we’re accustomed to pretty euphemisms that fog up un-pretty realities – and the haze of familiarity brings the opposite of clarity. As George Orwell wrote, language “becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”
If Joe Biden is a “moderate,” the soothing adjective obscures grim realities. The framing was routine hours after the debate Wednesday night when the front page of The New York Times began its lead story by reporting that Biden “delivered a steadfast defense of his moderate policies in the Democratic primary debate.”
But how are policies really “moderate” when they perpetuate and increase extreme suffering due to vast income inequality? Or when they support U.S. wars causing so much death and incalculable anguish? Or when they refuse to challenge the fossil-fuel industry and only sign onto woefully inadequate measures in response to catastrophic climate change?
Biden’s record of words and deeds is “moderate” only if we ignore the extreme harm that he has done on matters ranging from civil rights and mass incarceration to student debt and the credit card industry to militarism and war.
Although Biden again tangled with Kamala Harris during the latest debate, she is ill-positioned to provide a clear critique of his so-called “moderate” policies. Harris has scarcely done more than he has to challenge the systemic injustice of corporate domination. So she can’t get far in trying to provide a sharp contrast to Biden’s corporate happy talk on the crucial issue of healthcare.
Harris began this week by releasing what she called “My Plan for Medicare for All.” It was promptly eviscerated by single-payer activist Tim Higginbotham, who wrote for Jacobin that her proposal would “further privatize Medicare … keep the waste and inefficiency of our current multi-payer system … cost families more than Medicare for All … continue to deny patients necessary care” and “fall apart before it’s implemented.”
In keeping with timeworn rhetoric from corporate Democrats, Harris repeatedly said during the debate that she wants to guarantee “access” to healthcare – using a standard corporate-friendly buzzword that detours around truly guaranteeing healthcare as a human right.
No matter whether journalists call Harris “moderate” or “progressive” (a term elastic enough to be the name of a huge insurance company), her unwillingness to confront the dominance of huge corporations over the economic and political life of the USA is a giveaway.
Whatever their discreet virtues, 18 of the 20 candidates who debated this week have offered no consistent, thoroughgoing challenge to corporate power. Among the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, only Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are providing a coherent analysis and actual challenge to the realities of corporate power and oligarchy that are crushing democracy in the United States.
Norman Solomon is cofounder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 Democratic National Convention and is currently a coordinator of the relaunched independent Bernie Delegates Network. Solomon is the author of a dozen books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
|
|
bought, gerrymandered Ohio Legislature has just handed a much-hated $150 million/year public bailout to two dinosaur nuke reactors primed to explode. 
