How I went dark in Australia’s surveillance state for 2 years

The Bohemian eyes believe themselves; the Chinese ears believe other people.  
~ German Proverb

A remarkable photo-essay shows a Palestinian’s daily commute through an Israeli checkpoint.

↩︎ The Washington Post

Will Democracy Die When Newspapers Shutter?

Social media platforms make the sharing of information ubiquitous and nonstop, but where will that information come from in the first place when all the reporters have been let go? What will happen when the newspaper model — what the government-commissioned report published by Public Policy Forum called “the model of journalistic ‘boots on the ground’ backed up by a second platoon in the office upholding such hallowed standards as verification and balance” — no longer generates that content at all?

*Report: Governments Increasingly Use Counterterrorism Laws as Means to Curb Human Rights.

Susan C. Morse (Texas), Government-to-Robot Enforcement, 2018 U. Ill. L. Rev. ___:

Automated legal systems occupy a central place in the administration of most regulatory regimes. Examples include TurboTax, wage and hour software, and self-driving cars. These systems produce results which invite examination and adjudication on a centralized, ex post basis. This is revolutionary. It means that the content of law, which technically applies to individual regulated parties, is determined centrally by interactions between the government and firms that make automated legal systems. I call this trend government-to-robot enforcement.

Paul Caron

@SoCalTaxProf

Mar 23

Steve Johnson @FSUCollegeofLaw, Marinello: Curbing Abusive Exercise Of Prosecutorial Discretion In Tax Crimes Casesgoo.gl/zggPxJ

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Russia may annul election results at two polling stations: officials Reuters 

Russian Scientists Explain ‘Novichok’ – High Time For Britain To Come Clean (Updated) Moon of Alabama

Anti-anti-communism Aeon

McMaster Is Out, an Even Bigger North Korea Hawk Is In Atlantic. Bolton is very full of himself. I don’t expect him to last long, but he doesn’t have to last long to do a lot of damage.

It’s Time to Panic Now: John Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser puts us on a path to war. Slate

How Trump finally pulled the trigger to oust McMaster Axios

House Republicans Demand Clinton, McCabe Documents From Justice Bloomberg

How I went dark in Australia’s surveillance state for 2 years.

In 2015, during the transition from paper to Opal [contactless public transit cards], Australia passed sweeping new data retention laws. These laws required all Australian internet service providers and telecommunications carriers to retain customers’ phone and internet metadata for two years — details like the phone number a person calls, the timestamps on text messages or the cell tower a phone pings when it makes a call.
Suddenly, Australians were fighting for the right to stay anonymous in a digital world.
On one side of the fence: safety-conscious civilians. They argued that this metadata was a powerful tool and that the ability to track a person’s movements through phone pings or call times was vital for law enforcement.
On the other side of the fence: digital civil libertarians. They argued that the data retention scheme was invasive and that this metadata could be used to build up an incredibly detailed picture of someone’s life.
And sitting in a barn two paddocks away from that fence: me, switching out burner phones and researching VPNs.
When it emerged that police had the power to search Opal card data, track people’s movements and match this to individual users, it was the last straw. August 2016 rolled around, paperless tickets were phased out and I hatched my plan.

TIA and ebrokers

STEPHEN L. CARTER: Controlling the Web Is the Dream (and the Nightmare): Authoritarian governments regulate what their citizens can see online. The U.S. lets tech companies make similar decisions