civil rights
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EPA opens new office dedicated to environmental justice and civil rights
The US EPA has formed a new office designed to help marginalized communities deal with the extra burdens of pollution and climate change.
Facebook appoints a vice president of civil rights
Roy Austin Jr. will also become the company's deputy general counsel.
Facebook fails its own audit over civil rights and hate speech decisions
Facebook has released a long-awaited civil rights audit that’s bound to ramp up pressure to change its policies. The report revealed that executive decisions caused “significant setbacks for civil rights” and that the site could become an “echo chamber” of extremism if it doesn’t take stronger measures.
Facebook's advertiser boycott is getting even bigger
More big names have signed on to protest the company's policies.
Lawsuit claims Trump's social media order violates free speech rights
President Trump faces a lawsuit asserting that his social media order violates the First Amendment.
Kenya halts biometric ID scheme over discrimination fears
Kenya introduced a sweeping national biometric identity program last year, with the view to collecting personal and biometric data -- such as fingerprints and facial photographs -- from its 50 million-strong population. Now, however, the program has been temporarily suspended by the country's high court, which has cited concerns about the way the data may be used.
Hitting the Books: How America's Space Race sought to renew our 'New South'
This week in Engadget's Hitting the Books series: How America's Space Race sought to renew our 'New South.'
Time Magazine is recreating the 'I Have a Dream' speech in VR
For many people, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington and the famous "I Have a Dream" speech exist as little more than photos and soundbites -- only the 200,000-plus people who were there can give you a sense of what it was really like. Time Magazine, however, hopes to recreate that experience as best it can. It's releasing a virtual reality museum experience, The March, that will recreate King and his speech in VR for the first time. The exhibit will use a mix of photogrammetry (taking measurements from photos), motion capture, AI and 3D rendering to give a sense of what it was like to see King speak in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th, 1963.
Court says data swept up by the NSA is protected by the Fourth Amendment
An appeals court may have just shaped how the US treats the NSA's bulk data collection. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that American communications scooped up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's Section 702 and PRISM is protected by Fourth Amendment rights baring unreasonable searches and seizures. Judges found that the "vast majority" of the evidence collected in a terrorism case against Agron Hasbajrami was permissible under the Fourth Amendment, but that the querying that data "could violate" the amendment -- and thus that it was fair to challenge the data use on constitutional grounds. It also believed that the accidental collection of Americans' data raised "novel constitutional questions" that could be answered later.
Homeland Security wants airport face scans for US citizens
Homeland Security is joining the ranks of government agencies pushing for wider use of facial recognition for US travelers. The department has proposed that US citizens, not just visa holders and visitors, should go through a mandatory facial recognition check when they enter or leave the country. This would ostensibly help officials catch terrorists using stolen travel documents to move about. The existing rules specifically exempt citizens and permanent residents from face scans.
Facial recognition tech misidentified 26 California lawmakers as criminals
The ACLU, which wants to ban facial recognition technology in police body cameras, says that its own tests of the technology mistakenly flagged 26 California lawmakers as criminals. More than half of those falsely identified were people of color. The experiment follows a similar test conducted last year, where 28 members of Congress -- the majority also people of color -- were mistakenly identified as criminals.
The FBI plans more social media surveillance
The FBI wants to gather more information from social media. Today, it issued a call for contracts for a new social media monitoring tool. According to a request-for-proposals (RFP), it's looking for an "early alerting tool" that would help it monitor terrorist groups, domestic threats, criminal activity and the like.
Facebook will fight misinformation linked to the 2020 US census
Facebook isn't just limiting its anti-interference efforts to elections. The social network has published a second updated on its civil rights audit, and with it news that the company plans to treat the 2020 US census as if it were a vote. It will have a team dedicated to fighting misinformation surrounding the census, a policy to crack down on fake census-related stories and partnerships with non-partisan groups to foster participation. AI will help enforce the policy, Facebook said.
Twitter hands over Occupy Wall Street protestor's updates under pressure
Twitter has been building a modest reputation for siding with the little guy (or girl) when it comes to communication privacy, and it just demonstrated how far it's willing to go in a showdown with Manhattan's Criminal Court over a demand to hand over tweets from Occupy Wall Street protestor Malcolm Harris. The social network has been pushed into delivering the claimed evidence, but only as it faced a deadline and the threat of a fine -- it even tried one last request for a stay before producing hard copies of the messages. However much the handover affects Harris' chances at winning during trial, it emphasizes that public posts have serious consequences -- companies ultimately can't shield you from the law. [Image credit: Paul Stein, Flickr]
FBI reportedly pressing for backdoor access to Facebook, Google
Investigators at the FBI supposedly aren't happy that social networks like Facebook or Google+ don't have the same kind of facility for wiretaps that phones have had for decades. If claimed industry contacts for CNET are right, senior staff at the bureau have floated a proposed amendment to the 1994-era Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) that would require that communication-based websites with large user bases include a backdoor for federal agents to snoop on suspects. It would still include the same requirement for a court order as for phone calls, even if US carriers currently enjoy immunity for cooperating with any warrantless wiretapping. As might be expected, technology firms and civil liberties advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation object to deepening CALEA's reach any further, and Apple is thought to be preemptively lobbying against another definition of the law that might require a government back channel for audiovisual chat services like FaceTime or Skype. The FBI didn't explicitly confirm the proposal when asked, but it did say it was worried it might be "going dark" and couldn't enforce wiretaps. [Image credit: David Drexler, Flickr]
Apple a part of $75B civil rights, fraud lawsuit
Apple is a defendant in an unusual lawsuit that accuses the company of "outrageous and reckless and extreme acts against the plaintiff, with the massive theft of the plaintiff's copyrighted works, grossing millions if not billions of dollars." The plaintiff, David Louis Whitehead, filed his claim in US District Court in the Western District of Arkansas and is asking for US$75 billion in relief and another $5 billion in damages. Whitehead has a long list of earlier lawsuits and cites many of these cases in this current filing. The suit takes a turn for the weird when you look at the eclectic group of defendants cited by Whitehead. The list contains businesses, celebrities, banks and Hollywood studios. Even the current President and former Presidents of the United States were cited because they supposedly appointed judges to thwart Whitehead's legal actions. Besides Apple, Whitehead also lists Oprah Winfrey, Mike Meyers, Mel Gibson, Viacom, Disney, Bank of America, Comcast, Microsoft and more in this frivolous lawsuit. The reasons for Apple's inclusion in this lawsuit were not mentioned, and Apple has not commented on this lawsuit. [Via MacObserver]
Students recreate the civil rights movement in Second Life
Americans celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day this past week to honor both the man and the civil rights movement that he supported. As part of that celebration, a team of doctoral students from Indiana University of Pennsylvania used Second Life to recreate key moments in the civil rights movement as a teaching tool. Players who went through the simulation encountered critical junctures of the movement, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, King Jr.'s beginnings at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the 1963 March on Washington, and the Mississippi Freedom School Movement. By experiencing it first-hand in a virtual world, players hopefully gained a perspective on the issues surrounding segregation, integration, equality, voting rights and civil disobedience of the era that are in danger of slipping into distant history. As they moved through the simulation, players were able to take quizzes, look at photos and videos, and make personal choices relating to the movement, such as whether to protest or sit in the back of the bus. While it looks as though the simulation is no longer available in the game, you can watch the two-minute overview of the project after the jump.
American student finds GPS tracker stuck to car, FBI shows up to reclaim its 'federal property'
Mechanics spot strange things stuck under cars all the time, but when 20-year-old Yasir Afifi's ride was put up on lifts his shop found something that hadn't been kicked up from the road: a cylindrical tube connected to a device with an antenna. An extremely paranoid person would think they'd found a bomb, but the truth isn't much better. It was an FBI tracking device. Afifi posted pictures and his story on Reddit while a friend contemplated cunning things to do with it, sticking it to someone else's car or selling it on Craigslist. They didn't have long to ponder long before two "sneaky-looking" people were spotted outside his apartment. Afifi got in his car and drove off, only to be pulled over by FBI agents who demanded the device back, threatening "We're going to make this much more difficult for you if you don't cooperate." Now, we've already given our opinions on using GPS technology like this and, while it's unknown whether these agents had a warrant to place this device, the 9th US Court of Appeals recently made one unnecessary for this sort of thing. The ACLU is working with Afifi to fight that ruling, and for now we're hoping that he, who is an American with an Egyptian father, is currently able to hit the town without agents following his every move. However, at this point they may not need a tracker: one agent who retrieved the device took the time to list off his favorite restaurants and even congratulated him on his new job.
NY Attorney General investigating claims of profiling in iPad sales
For Apple to have said "no cash for iPads" is one thing -- but interviewing would-be NYC iPad buyers of Asian descent before they make their purchases? Another thing entirely. Ben Smith at Politico reports that Apple is offering "complete" cooperation in an investigation by the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York State attorney general's office, answering complaints from Queens residents that they were being treated differently than Caucasian customers when trying to purchase iPads at the Soho & 14th St. stores. Back in May, when the shoppers complained to their state Assembly representative, the iPad was still a US-only offering, and Apple had a keen interest in keeping iPads off the gray market. A source told Politico that there was a brief period where a questionnaire was used to try to discover when multiple-iPad purchases might be headed for overseas resale; the questionnaire was quickly discontinued. Richard Bamberger, communications director for NY's attorney general (and gubernatorial candidate) Andrew Cuomo, told Politico in an email that Apple has been "very cooperative" during the investigation. "The matter is still ongoing but we have every expectation that it will be resolved expeditiously and fairly," Bamberger said.
