This and that for your Tuesday reading. – David MacDonald, Lindsay McLaren, Katherine Scott and Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood each examine the Libs’ fiscal update and find that headlines about progressive priorities mask the lack of much that’s specific or new. – Shamshad Ahktar, Kevin Gallagher and Ulrich Volz discuss the G20’s
Continue readingTag: privacy
Writings of J. Todd Ring: Government and Corporations Care About Your Privacy: That’s Why They Support the Bi-Partisan Global Fascist Coup
Western governments and their criminal friends in big tech pretend to care about citizen’s privacy, while secretly destroying it. But privacy is a misnomer and a red herring. The central issue is whether the people should be spied upon by their government and its big business allies. That is the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Tired of Google’s Control Over Your Life? Try These Instead
I’ve been using Duck Duck Go instead of Google search for years and don’t regret it. There are less ads and the search results include more diverse sources – plus I don’t get trapped in Google’s filter bubble. Over at No More Google they have compiled a list of services
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On personal choices
It remains clear that the victim of Scott Moe’s careless driving isn’t about to give up on finding out what happened – even if the local media continues to operate under Moe’s orders not to so much as ask questions. But if Moe is avoiding questions about the crash itself,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On risky responses
Plenty of people have taken note of the Saskatchewan Party’s “Kate” data collection scheme – and it’s given rise to much due mockery, as well as some important recognition of the underlying system. But if it’s true that the Sask Party’s plan for now is to blast messages out to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – David A. Green, J. Rhys Kesselman, Lindsay Tedds discuss some of the complications involved in designing a basic income system. And David Roberts makes the case for a universal basic services model to ensure people have access to the necessities of life
Continue readingThings Are Good: How We can Track COVID-19 and NOT Invade Your Privacy
To figure out the spread of COIV-19, or other diseases, the technique of contact tracing gets used by researchers to decipher who is likely to have been exposed. When too many people are infected then contact tracing takes too much labour and subsequently becomes less useful, which has led tech
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Health gives way on docs’ billing for virtual services, but plunges ahead with controversial Babylon app
Bowing to pressure from the Alberta Medical Association and critics of the controversial Babylon “virtual care” app that’s created significant disruption to public health care in the United Kingdom, the United Conservative Party Government agreed yesterday to pay doctors already practicing medicine in Alberta the same rate for online and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Owen Jones asks why we’re not treating the existential threat of a climate breakdown with anything close to the urgency applied to the coronavirus response. And Niklas Höhne, Michel den Elzen, Joeri Rogelj, Bert Metz, Taryn Fransen, Takeshi Kuramochi, Anne Olhoff, Joseph Alcamo,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Canada to Update Digital Privacy Laws, Hold Companies Accountable for Breaches
Last year Canadians witnessed too many data breaches of their data and the federal government is reacting. Large Canadian corporations didn’t do enough to protect their databases against attackers and as a result personal data of Canadians is now in the hands of criminals. Canada will now follow the lead
Continue readingThings Are Good: Tips for Remaining Anonymous in the Surveillance Age
Surveillance capitalism benefits companies who have large datasets about what people do and where they are – without the consent of those being monitored. The pervasive modern surveillance which is around us everyday from our phones to private cameras can be connected to large corporations or governments for nefarious purposes.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Heather Scoffield writes that a genuine commitment to fighting climate change could resolve multiple major issues facing Canada – while delay serves only to exacerbate them: At the core of today’s western alienation and of today’s search for prosperity is a much larger
Continue readingThings Are Good: Use TOR to Access the BBC on the “Dark Web”
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has launched on the dark web to help those in authoritarian regimes access international news. To access the the site one only need the Tor browser and don’t need to use a VPN to get around national censorship firewalls. The TOR browser works anonymously by
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Mitchell Anderson writes that personal debt may be the most important hidden issue in Canada’s federal election: The reason Canada cannot act in a more moral manner might lie in ballooning amounts of household debt. Canadians now owe an eye-watering $2.2 trillion or
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The New York Times’ editorial board highlights how many of the people looking to defend a habitable planet from environmental destruction are being met with state-assisted violence in response. And Oxfam examines how Australian mining companies are exploiting west Africa to the tune
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Joanne Light and Cathy Orlando point out that we don’t have any more time to waste in reining in a climate breakdown in progress. And Justin Ling writes that we should be far more concerned about Canada’s massive and increasing deficit in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellanous material for your mid-week reading. – David Dayen interviews Elizabeth Warren about the role of government in ensuring that the needs of people take precedence over the power of corporations. And Press Progress duly challenges the claim that corporate directors are overworked in putting in five to seven hours
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Nick Hanauer discusses the futility of “educationism” which treats schools as the only factor in social outcomes without recognizing the importance of inequality and precarity in restricting opportunities for far too many children. And PressProgress points out that Brian Pallister’s Manitoba PCs –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Justin Fisher laments the fact that we’re still talking about first steps toward combating a climate crisis after decades of understanding the problem. Jake Woodier points out that Brexit has been the UK’s recent distraction from the most important issue facing humanity. And
Continue readingThings Are Good: How to Resist Surveillance Capitalism
Surveillance capitalism is a truly 21st century innovation which is having a major impact on society. Policies around data protection and privacy aren’t strong enough yet and trade deals don’t rightly aim to protect data privacy either. How our data is used and exploited isn’t up to us and it
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