J.R.McHale

####Cyber Law, Tech and Policy

+ [**Spying for the Sake of Spying**](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/anne-applebaum-spying-for-the-sake-of-spying/2013/10/31/170f7556-4250-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html): an Op-Ed in the Washington Post by **Anne Applebaum**, lauded author of “Gulag” and “Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956”:

> “But Bismarck couldn’t tap phones. We can. And that, as far as I can tell, explains why we were doing it. White House spokesman Jay Carney declared this week that the president is anxious to ensure ‘that we are not just collecting information because we can but because we should.’ Yet almost everything publicly known about the NSA to date indicates the opposite: The United States collects information because it can, whether or not it is moral to do so, violates the trust of allies or is a monumental waste of time and money.”

+ [**Senate Committee Votes in Favor of NSA Phone-Records Snooping**](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/phone-snooping-approved/) at **Wired**, and [**Feinstein Releases Fake NSA Reform Bill, Actually Tries To Legalize Illegal NSA Bulk Data Collection**](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131031/12394625090/feinstein-releases-fake-nsa-reform-bill-actually-tries-to-legalize-illegal-nsa-bulk-data-collection.shtml) at **TechDirt**. The original sources: Senator Feinstein’s [**press release**](http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=3aa4ed70-e80b-4c2b-afd6-dc2e5bc75a7b) and her [**draft bill** (pdf)](http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs113th/113fisa_improvements.pdf) which has been approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

+ [**Want To Avoid Defaming Someone Online? Link To Your Sources**](http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2013/10/want-to-avoid-defaming-someone-online-link-to-your-sources-forbes-cross-post.htm): Law Professor **Eric Goldman** at the **Technology & Marketing Law Blog**. See also, his recent post on California’s new “do-not-track” law: [**How California’s New ‘Do-Not-Track’ Law Will Hurt Consumers**](http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2013/10/how_californias.htm).

+ [**Tech Companies Are Better Off Targeting Geezers Instead Of Youngsters**](http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-are-better-off-targeting-silver-surfers-than-the-saturated-younger-poorer-market-gartner-2013-10) at **Business Insider**.

+ [**Finally, a Bill to End Patent Trolling; Bipartisan Bill has Most of What Reformers Want—and a Real Chance of Passing**](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/its-finally-here-a-bill-to-end-patent-trolling/): at **ArsTechnica**.

####General Interest

+ [**The 50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel**](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/innovations-list/309536/) ranked by a panel of scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers and historians of technology – **The Atlantic** (via [**kottke**](http://kottke.org/13/10/50-greatest-innovations-since-the-wheel)).

+ [**Memo to Workers: The Boss Is Watching; Tracking Technology Shakes Up the Workplace**](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303672404579151440488919138): **The Wall Street Journal**.
+ [**Who Made that Coffee Lid?**](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/magazine/who-made-that-coffee-lid.html?_r=0): **New York Times Magazine**.

+ [**How to Succeed as an Author: Give up on Writing; The Rancid Smell of 21st Century Literary Success**](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115016/publishing-back-so-long-successful-authors-give-writing): **Lionel Shriver** in the **New Republic**.

+ Registration Statement on [Form S-1](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513390321/d564001ds1.htm) ([Table of Contents](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513390321/d564001ds1.htm#toc)) and Amendments [No. 1](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513400028/d564001ds1a.htm) (containing third quarter financial information), [No. 2](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513406804/d564001ds1a.htm), [No. 3](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513409822/d564001ds1a.htm) and [No. 4](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513424260/d564001ds1a.htm).¹

+ **What’s Twitter Worth?** — NYU finance professor, **Aswath Damodaran**, takes a shot at [valuing](http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.ca/2013/10/twitter-announces-ipo-valuation.html) and [pricing](http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.ca/2013/09/twitter-announces-ipo-pricing-game.html) Twitter [(and explains the value/price distinction)](http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.ca/2013/10/twitter-ipo-why-good-trade-be-bad.html) at his **Musings on the Market** blog.   Also by Damodaran: [**The Twitter IPO: Thoughts on the IPO End Game**](http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.ca/2013/10/the-twitter-ipo-thoughts-on-ipo-end-game.html).

+ [Plotting The Way To IPO, Twitter’s Product Roadmap Has Become Too Data Driven](http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/03/twitters-tipping-point/): **TechCrunch**

1. Watch for updated and additional SEC filings by Twitter on the [SEC’s EDGAR system](http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001418091&owner=exclude&count=40). ↩

[**The Case for NSA Reform**](http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/leahy-sensenbrenner-nsa-reform-98953.html?hp=l5) – by **Senator Patrick Leahy** and **Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner**:
>”[W]e were the primary authors of the USA PATRIOT Act . . . . [W]e strongly agree that the dragnet collection of millions of Americans’ phone records every day — whether they have any connection at all to terrorism — goes far beyond what Congress envisioned or intended to authorize. More important, we agree it must stop. [Today] we will introduce bicameral, bipartisan legislation that will put an end to the National Security Agency’s indiscriminate collection of personal information. Our proposal, the USA FREEDOM Act, provides stronger privacy safeguards with respect to a range of government surveillance programs. While the USA FREEDOM Act ends the dragnet collection of telephone records, it preserves the intelligence community’s ability to gather information in a more focused way, as was the original intent of the PATRIOT Act. Our bill also ensures that this program will not simply be restarted under other legal authorities, and includes new oversight, auditing and public reporting requirements. No longer will the government be able to employ a carte-blanche approach to records collection or enact secret laws by covertly reinterpreting congressional intent. And to further promote privacy interests, our legislation establishes a special advocate to provide a counterweight to the surveillance interests in the FISA Court’s closed-door proceedings.”

**The USA Freedom Act**: [**pdf**](http://www.leahy.senate.gov/download/usa-freedom-act_-introduced-10-29-131)

**See also:**

[**The White House on Spying**](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/opinion/the-white-house-on-spying.html?hp&rref=opinion/international): **New York Times Editorial Board**

[**Spycraft: how do we fix a broken NSA? – Reformers are still struggling to imagine an NSA that doesn’t overstep the constitution**](http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/28/5035986/after-snowden-what-should-nsa-reform-look-like): **Russell Brandon** at **The Verge**.

**Counterpoint**: [**We Need an Invasive NSA**](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115002/invasive-nsa-will-protect-us-cyber-attacks) by Harvard Law Professor **Jack Goldsmith**

[**Amateur Hour in Intelligence Gathering**](http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/10/25/amateur-hour-in-intelligence-gathering/)

“The NSA spied on other people too much, and it bungled the protection of its own secrets. Imprudence matched with incompetence doesn’t lead to anything good. We need a thorough airing out of this mess, with personnel changes where appropriate, so that the NSA can stop doing things it ought not to be doing and instead spend its energy making sure that it does a good job on what we really need it to do . . . . It’s time to call in some grown ups to clean up the mess: we would suggest a series of congressional hearings combined with a blue ribbon, bipartisan commission to review what’s happened, to consult with our key allies, and to make recommendations. We need to do this not because intelligence gathering is bad and NSA surveillance is unnecessary. We need to do it because intelligence gathering and surveillance are so important, but so dangerous, that they must be done right.”

—   **Walter Russell Mead** at [**ViaMedia**](http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/10/25/amateur-hour-in-intelligence-gathering/)

[**15 Years Ago, Congress Kept Mickey Mouse Out of the Public Domain. Will They Do It Again?**](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25/15-years-ago-congress-kept-mickey-mouse-out-of-the-public-domain-will-they-do-it-again/) At the **Washington Post**, **Timothy B. Lee** recounts the history of copyright term extensions.

Georgetown law professor, **Laura Donohue’s** [**Bulk Metadata Collection: Statutory and Constitutional Considerations**](http://justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Just-Security-Donohue-PDF.pdf) (link is to the pdf; caution: it’s long – 86 pages), which is forthcoming in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. A brief overview of the topics covered in her paper appears today at [**Just Security**](http://justsecurity.org/2013/10/23/laura-donohues-comprehensive-case-bulk-metadata-collection/).

+ A **Summary** at **The Verge**: [**SEC Proposes Rules to Allow Anyone to Invest in Startups**](http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/23/4947382/sec-proposes-rules-to-allow-anyone-to-invest-in-startups)

+ **The SEC’s press release and fact sheet**: [**SEC.gov webpage**](http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370540017677)

+ **The Proposed Rules**: [(**pdf**](http://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2013/33-9470.pdf) – 585 pages – so much for simplicity)

+ **More:**
>[Trepidation and Restrictions Leave Crowdfunding Rules Weak](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/trepidation-and-restrictions-leave-crowdfunding-rules-weak/?partner=rss&emc=rss) **(New York Times)**: “Crowdfunding is becoming a reality, but the question is whether it will thrive or become largely a vehicle for fraud.”
>
>[BackTrack Reports’ Randy Shain: JOBS ACT For Small Businesses Could Lead To Big Fraud](http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/29/backtrack-reports-randy-shain-jobs-act-for-small-businesses-could-lead-to-big-fraud/)

[**Study Says Self-Driving Cars Would Eliminate Majority Of Traffic Deaths, Congestion**](http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/10/23/study-self-driving-cars-would-eliminate-majority-of-traffic-deaths-congestion/): **CBS News.**

**But:** [**Driverless Cars Are Further Away Than You Think**](http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520431/driverless-cars-are-further-away-than-you-think/): **MIT Technology Review.**

[**Smart Robots, Driverless Cars Work – but They Bring Ethical Issues Too**](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/20/artificial-intelligence-impact-lives): **The Guardian.**

**Previously:** Two good reads on the future of driverless (and driver assisting) cars, including the significant advantages Google might possess given its access to the voluminous amount of data critical for the safe and proper functioning of driverless cars:

+ Data in the Driver’s Seat by Frédéric Filloux at MondayNote: “Applied to millions of vehicles, traffic and infrastructure management will turn into a gigantic data and communication problem. Again, Google might be the only entity able to write the required software and to deploy the data centers to run it. Its millions of servers will be of great use to handle weather information, road conditions (as cars might be able to monitor their actual friction on the road and transmit the data to following vehicles, or detect humidity and temperature change), parking data and fuel availability (gas or electricity). And we can even think of merging all this with day-to-day life elements such as individual calendars, commuting patterns and geolocating people through their cell phones.”

+ Why Silicon Valley is Winning the Robocar Race by Virginia Postrel at BloombergView: “One reason for Silicon Valley’s ascendency is the extraordinary quality of today’s cars. Pretty much everybody makes reliable cars that drive well. So the main competitive differences don’t come from mechanical engineering but from software.”

####Cyber Law, Tech and Policy

+ [**Google Unveils Tools to Access Web From Repressive Countries and Defend Websites**](http://business.time.com/2013/10/21/google-digital-rebels/): (1) [**uProxy**](http://uproxy.org/), a browser extension that uses p2p technology to enable people to provide others with a trusted internet connection, (2) [**Project Shield**](http://projectshield.withgoogle.com/), to help human-rights activists, NGOs, and news organizations defend their websites from distributed denial of service (DDos) attacks, (3) and [**Digital Attack Map**](http://www.digitalattackmap.com/#anim=1&color=0&country=ALL&time=15999&view=map), a live data visualization, displaying DDoS attacks in real time. In addition to those [**Google-related**](http://www.google.com/ideas/) tools, the **Freedom of the Press Foundation** [**recently launched**](https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/10/freedom-press-foundation-launches-securedrop) a confidential, open-source submission platform for whistleblowers: [**SecureDrop**](https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/securedrop#faq).

+ [**DOJ Argues No One Has Standing To Challenge Metadata Collection Even As It Says Government Can Legally Collect Everyone’s**](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131016/06414624894/doj-argues-no-one-has-standing-to-challenge-metadata-collection-even-as-it-says-govt-can-legally-collect-everyones.shtml) – **TechDirt**.

+ **But:** [**Door May Open for Challenge to Secret Wiretaps**](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/us/politics/us-legal-shift-may-open-door-for-challenge-to-secret-wiretaps.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all) – **New York Times**.

####General Interest

+ [**Taking Flight From Asia**](http://www.newgeography.com/content/004003-taking-flight-asia) – **Joel Kotkin** at [**New Geography**](http://www.newgeography.com/) on the latest wave of emigration from Asia to parts of the U.S. and Canada.

+ [**Breaking Through Cancer’s Shield**](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/health/breaking-through-cancers-shield.html) – **New York Times**. Are we seeing the dawn of a new era in cancer fighting based upon immunotherapies?

+ [**Now We are Five**](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/10/28/131028fa_fact_sedaris) – At the **New Yorker,** **David Sedaris** on the death of his youngest sister.

[**The Government Thinks It’s Legal to Access Your Emails. This Theory Explains Why**](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115207/lavabit-case-sieve-theory-government-data-filtration) – **Jane Chong** at **The New Republic**:

> “[T]he “sieve theory”: the idea is that the filtration techniques the government applies to extract certain pieces of data should have implications for the legality of the initial acquisition of a much larger dataset to which the government would not otherwise be entitled. The sieve theory is kind of the converse of a much-better-understood theory of the Fourth Amendment. The “mosaic theory,” as Fourth Amendment scholar Orin Kerr has dubbed it . . . That theory posits that many otherwise-insignificant and disparate data points can be combined to yield a highly revealing—and unconstitutionally invasive—composite. Like the mosaic theory, the sieve theory is built on the idea that constitutional protections do not attach to information per se but rather hinge on how that information gets processed and used. Just as privacy proponents use the mosaic theory to argue that bits of information not individually entitled to constitutional protections might be entitled to protections when aggregated, the government is effectively using the sieve theory . . . . . to argue that a large data set comprising information to which it might normally not be entitled should be produced anyway where the government both establishes its necessity and institutes satisfactory filters to prevent its misuse. Put more simply, the mosaic theory has been used to argue the unconstitutionality of certain types of government data collection. Conversely, the sieve theory is being used to argue the lawfulness of carefully conducted government data filtration.”

**More on the mosaic theory**: Professor **Orin Kerr**’s (GW Law School) law review article, “[The Mosaic Theory of the Fourth Amendment](http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf),” 111 Mich. L. Rev. 311 (2012).

####Cyber Law, Tech and Policy

+ [How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand?](http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/10/a-necessary-evil-what-it-takes-for-democracy-to-survive-surveillance/): Richard Stallman at Wired. Also recently by Stallman: [Why Free Software Is More Important Now Than Ever Before](http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/09/why-free-software-is-more-important-now-than-ever-before/).

+ [Want to Evade NSA Spying? Don’t Connect to the Internet](http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/10/149481/): Bruce Schneier at Wired. Key takeaway: it’s hard to avoid the NSA (or, perhaps more accurately, it’s very, very inconvenient).

+ [Special Report: The Obama Administration and the Press – Leak Investigations and Surveillance in post-9/11 America](https://cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama-and-the-press-us-leaks-surveillance-post-911.php): CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists).

Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto.

[**Vampire Weekend**](http://www.vampireweekend.com/): *”Modern Vampires of the City”*
[**Veronica Falls**](http://veronicafalls.tumblr.com/): *”Waiting for Something to Happen”*
[**Parquet Courts**](http://parquetcourts.wordpress.com/): *”Light up Gold”*
[**Dawn of Midi**](http://www.dawnofmidi.com/): *”Dysnomia”*
[**Preservation Hall Jazz Band**](http://www.preservationhalljazzband.com/): *”That’s It!”*
[**Bombino**](http://www.bombinomusic.com/): *”Nomad”*
[**Emily Reo**](http://emilyreo.com/): *”Olive Juice”*
[**Forest Swords**](http://forestswords.tumblr.com/): *”Engravings”*
[**Daft Punk**](http://www.daftalive.com/alive.php?lang=en): *”Random Access Memories”*

[**Time to Tame the NSA Behemoth Trampling our Rights**](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/13/nsa-behemoth-trampling-rights) by **Yochai Benkler** at **The Guardian**.

[**The Secret FISA Court Must Go**](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/24/the-secret-fisa-court-must-go.html) by law professors **Christopher Sprigman** and **Jennifer Granick** at **The Daily Beast**.

[**The U.S. Government has Betrayed the Internet – We Need to Take it Back**](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/05/government-betrayed-internet-nsa-spying) by **Bruce Schneier** at **The Guardian**.

“[A] structural approach, which focuses on preserving an overall balance between state control and citizen autonomy, seems to me more appropriate for evaluating mass surveillance programs such as the NSA’s … . [T]he appropriate question is whether the creation of a system of surveillance perilously alters that balance too far in the direction of government control, whether or not we have problems with the current use of that system. We might imagine a system of compulsory cameras installed in homes, activated only by warrant, being used with scrupulous respect for the law over many years. The problem is that such an architecture of surveillance, once established, would be difficult to dismantle, and prove too potent a tool of control if it ever fell into the hands of people who—whether through panic, malice, or a misguided confidence in their own ability to secretly judge the public good—would seek to use it against us.”

—   Julian Sanchez: A Reply to Epstein & Pilon on NSA’s Metadata Program

“Paucity of Art in the Age of Big Data: A Dispatch from San Francisco:” At The Millions, Lydia Kiesling on the search for “the great San Francisco tech novel.”

**Related:**

Thomas Pynchon’s **Bleeding Edge**: reviewed at [LA Review of Books](http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/pynchons-deep-web), [New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all&) and [The Paris Review](http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/09/05/pynchonicity/).

Dave Eggers’s **The Circle**. Critiqued by Felix Salmon at Reuters – “[How Dave Eggers Got Silicon Valley Wrong.](http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/09/30/how-dave-eggers-gets-silicon-valley-wrong/)”