Leaders
In Wired, Kevin Poulsen explains why there can’t be a “golden key” that would allow the police–and only the police–to decrypt a smartphone, and explains why even when subject to a search warrant, an American isn’t obligated to help police search their property.
If you want a deeper dive into why strong encryption of your personal data and devices is so important, read this post by Chis Coyne, co-creator of KeyBase.
Some titans of tech–including Eric Schmidt of Google and Brad Smith of Microsoft–joined Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) yesterday for an official Senate roundtable in a Silicon Valley gym on the “Impact of Mass Surveillance on the Digital Economy.” As Nancy Scola reports for The Washington Post, the session actually focused more on the risks that government surveillance poses to the Internet.
The Daily Beast’s Abby Haglage zings Silicon Valley companies and foundations for not doing much to fight Ebola.
The New York Times’ Derek Willis explains “How ActBlue Became a Powerful Force in Fund-Raising.”
Laying the groundwork for a potential dark-horse run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is positioning himself as speaking for the generation after the baby boomers, reports CNN’s Peter Hanby. (Or is he just angling to be Hillary’s VP?) Says O’Malley:
“Baby boomers and older were often told that if we specialize in terms of our skills, we will be more secure and prosperous, that the definition of ‘making it’ was living out in the suburbs as far way as possible with the biggest lawn possible,” he said. “Young people have flipped that on its head. Younger people are choosing to live in cities. They realize that connections to each other are making us better. That WiFi is a human right. That proximity is important to entrepreneurship, access to capital and talent and diversity. There is an opportunity there for us as a nation to embrace that new perspective.”
Whoa. 71% of elected officials in America are men, 90% are white and 65% are white men, according to an in-depth analysis of more than 40,000 local, state and national office-holders. This while white men make up just 31% of the population,