On Thursday, California Rep. Zoe Lofgren introduced a bill to restore wireless users’ ability to “unlock” their phones, tablets or other mobile devices. The “Unlocking Technology Act” is co-sponsored by Reps. Thomas Massie, Anna Eshoo and Jared Polis. In March, Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Mike Lee and Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill to allow users to unlock their phones. Sen. Ron Wyden also introduced his own bill, as did the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
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HUGE NEWS: Democrats in Congress have introduced new legislation that would restore Net Neutrality!
Tell Congress: Keep the Internet WEIRD — and SAVE NET NEUTRALITY
Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and other journalists are being punished for covering the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Local authorities recently issued an arrest warrant for Goodman and arrested at least two independent reporters — and this crackdown on press freedom will continue if we don’t speak up now.
How Facebook plans to take over the world
“Disrupting Facebook would be like trying to disrupt telephone calls, it’s so ubiquitous,” says Paul Adams, former Facebook staffer.
If live video is Facebook’s phase four, then artificial intelligence and virtual reality look like being big parts of phase five. Both of these fit its strategy of monetizing as many of our social interactions as possible.
Lawyers Speak Out About Massive Hack of Prisoners’ Phone Records:
The mass recording of inmate calls is itself a fairly recent practice, sold by private telecommunications companies, like Securus, to jails and prisons as a security measure — a way to thwart violent uprisings, for example, or curb the introduction of contraband into a facility. This bulk surveillance — the recording and long-term storage of millions and millions of routine communications — raises serious concerns about the privacy rights of incarcerated persons and their loved ones, says David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project.
Verizon just launched FreeBee, its plan for ‘sponsored data’:
It’s a growing trend in the wireless space as companies look for ever more ways to hook data-hungry mobile users. But the practice has drawn scrutiny from net neutrality advocates who argue that sponsored data or “zero rating” lets rich, powerful companies pay to win, tilting the playing field against entrepreneurs and start-ups who can’t afford to pay the new fees.
For Internet Users 2015 Was a Year of Many Wins … and One Loss
Muslim Americans score big victory against the NYPD
On Thursday, settlements were reached for two civil rights lawsuits between Muslim Americans and the New York Police Department. The cases were brought against the NYPD by after officers secretly infiltrated mosques and Muslim organizations to gather information. What they NYPD will now have to do.
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