Whistleblower confirms Warrantless Wiretap Program Surveyed ALL U.S. Communications

Blow them whistles!

Wired has the scoop on the amazing/saddening/unsurprising revelation that the warrantless wiretapping program carried out by the NSA under the Bush administration placed ALL citizens under a surveillance dragnet.

2 things immediately struck me about this:

1) Why not sooner? Now, I realize this guy has already gone through a ton of crap for doing the right thing, and will likely go through more media-crucifiction at the hands of Bill O'Reilly and the likes... but seriously, why couldn't he have said this months or years ago when someone important could have actually been punished for it?

2)Why isn't this all over the front page of the New York Times, Washington Post, and other major news sources?

The Right to Read

Just in case you were interested in pondering some of the darker "what-ifs" related to the digitization of media, here is Richard Stallman's magnificent short story/call to arms "The Right To Read."

Interview - Siva Vaidhyanathan

Here is an awesome interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of The Anarchist In The Library, gripped from Lawrence Lessig's blog. It's a few years old, but the issues he raises (corporate media vs. the creative commons, the post-9/11 erosion of civil liberties, the possibilities for good and evil uses of the internet) are still just as pressing today.

Greetings.

I hope to use this blog to follow some trends and emerging issues regarding technology and libraries, and along the way I'll try to give penetrating critical analysis. I'm coming at most of this stuff from an environmentalist, vaguely anarchist perspective, so keep that in mind as you read my interpretations.

For starters, check out this solid dissection of some of the downfalls (particularly in the way of privacy) related to cloud computing.