MUNGO MacCALLUM. Federal Hotels win in Tasmania
So Tasmania has a new government. Yes, I know the Libs are still in office at 1 Salamanca Place and Will Hodgman is still premier. But the real government, the one run by the pokie industry under the Federal Group and the Farrell family has now been confirmed as the successor of the dynasty of rent seekers who actually manage the Apple Isle. Continue reading
Deception keeps the uninitiated guessing… Poor Sergei he knew where the money was buried and the structure of beneficial ownerships ...
Ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal critically ill after exposure to substance in UK, reports says
A former Russian spy is in critical condition after coming into contact with an "unknown substance", British media and sources say, in a case that immediately drew parallels to the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.
'Echoes' of Putin-ordered assassination in suspect poisoning: Johnson
Queen Elizabeth's Secret Agents
PBS is currently airing a 3-part BBC history documentary called “Queen Elizabeth’s Secret Agents.” The series examines the domestic security and intelligence apparatus that Elizabeth I constructed during her extraordinary 45-year reign as England’s monarch, which lasted from 1558 to 1603.
The series is outstanding and will interest all history buffs. It features top historians discussing one of the most pivotal periods of English history. But the issues involved in the Elizabethan security state are also surprisingly modern in nature. There are at least three themes to the television documentary that have direct relevance to important legal and constitutional issues today.
Report said to fault FBI’s former No. 2 for approving improper media disclosure, misleading inspector general Washington Post
They Are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet
Technology and our increasing demand for security have put us all under surveillance. Is privacy becoming just a memory?
They Are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet
Technology and our increasing demand for security have put us all under surveillance. Is privacy becoming just a memory?
MIT Technology Review: Bias already exists in search engine results, and it’s only going to get worse: “[In] her latest book, Algorithms of Oppression, [Safiya Umoja Noble] details research she started after that fateful Google search, and it explores the hidden structures that shape how we get information through the internet. The book, out this month, argues that search engine algorithms aren’t as neutral as Google would like you to think. Algorithms promote some results above others, and even a seemingly neutral piece of code can reflect society’s biases. What’s more, without any insight into how the algorithms work or what the broader context is, searches can unfairly shape the discussion of a topic like black girls. Noble spoke to MIT Technology Review about the problems inherent with the current system, how Google could do better, and how artificial intelligence might make things worse
NBC: The FBI’s secret warrant to surveil Carter Page should scare all Americans and spur reform: A secret, non-adversarial system of judicial review is an insufficient check to our intelligence agencies and law enforcement.
KPMG Report On New Tax Law (218 pages)
First Prize ($5,000):
David Berke (Yale), Reworking the Revolution: Treasury Rulemaking & Administrative Law
Faculty Sponsor: Anne L. Alstott
David Berke (Yale), Reworking the Revolution: Treasury Rulemaking & Administrative Law
Faculty Sponsor: Anne L. Alstott
Foreign banks are not famous for paying too much tax in Australia. At least ING, as a group, has been paying some tax – unlike Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and RBS.
ING Bank NV (Sydney Branch) by Michael West News
Trump’s communications director resigns after saying she told the President “white lies” to make him feel better.
↩︎ The Guardian
Trump's 2016 digital director—and sometime tweet ghostwriter—will likely become his 2020 campaign manager.
↩︎ The Verge
Distinguished historian of the Civil Rights era (and the magisterial Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama) David Garrow had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal “Democrats and FBI Abuses” last week
The Media Manipulation Initiative (MMI) examines how different groups use the participatory culture of the internet to turn the strengths of a free society into vulnerabilities, ultimately threatening expressive freedoms and civil rights. Efforts to exploit technical, social, economic, and institutional configurations of media can catalyze social change, sow dissent, and challenge the stability of social institutions. Broadly, this initiative takes a sociotechnical approach to understanding the social, political, and economic incentives to game information systems, websites, platforms, and search engines—especially in cases where the attackers intend to destabilize democratic, social, and economic institutions. Through empirical research, we identify the unintended consequences of socio-technical systems and track attempts to locate and address threats, with an eye towards increasing organizational capacity across fields, so that action can be taken as problems emerge. From social movements, to political parties, governments, dissidents, and corporations, many groups engage in active efforts to shape media narratives. Media manipulation tactics include: planting and/or amplifying misinformation and disinformation using humans (troll armies, doxxing, and bounties) or digital tools (bots); targeting journalists or public figures for social engineering (psychological manipulation); gaming trending and ranking algorithms, and coordinating action across multiple user accounts to force topics, keywords, or questions into the public conversation. Because the internet is a tool, a tactic, and a territory – integral to challenging the relations of power– studying studying the new vulnerabilities of networked media is fundamental to the future of democracies…” [h/t Pete Weiss – see also Pete’s weekly column on LLRX]
"Supreme Court to Hear Microsoft Case on Emails, Customer Data Stored Overseas; U.S. law enforcement seeks access to information stored on foreign servers when investigating crimes": Brent Kendall and Nicole Hong of The Wall Street Journal have this report.
↩︎ The Verge
Distinguished historian of the Civil Rights era (and the magisterial Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama) David Garrow had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal “Democrats and FBI Abuses” last week
Data & Research Institute White Paper – Dead Reckoning – Navigating Content Moderation After “Fake News”, Robyn Caplan, Lauren Hanson, and Joan Donovan, February 2018.
SLOW-MOTION MAGIC: Creating Parkinson’s awareness one magic trick at a time.
This is the latest from magician and Parkinson’s suffer Dovid Rabotnick, who I introduced you to a while back. If you haven’t seen him in action, you’re missing out on something special.
"Supreme Court to Hear Microsoft Case on Emails, Customer Data Stored Overseas; U.S. law enforcement seeks access to information stored on foreign servers when investigating crimes": Brent Kendall and Nicole Hong of The Wall Street Journal have this report.
Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News reports that "Tech Takes On Trump as Supreme Court Looks at Data Stored Abroad."
Agence France-Presse reports that "Microsoft data warrant case in top US court has global implications."
Julia Fioretti of Reuters reports that "Europe seeks power to seize overseas data in challenge to tech giants."
Kate Conger of Gizmodo reports that "Microsoft's Big Email Privacy Case Heads to the Supreme Court Tomorrow."
At the "Lawfare" blog, Matthew Kahn has a post titled "Microsoft-Ireland Oral Argument Preview: Will the Supreme Court Stave Off Data Localization?"
And in commentary, The Wall Street Journal has published an editorial titled "Microsoft's Legal Cloud Cover: Must a company comply with a warrant on records stored abroad?"
And online at The New York Times, Craig A. Newman has an essay titled "Can the United States Search Data Overseas?"