“The modern world’s cherished ideas of liberty, equality and prosperity are more popular than ever before. The problem is that it is difficult for the vast majority of the human population to realise them.” Pankaj Mishra appearing on yesterday’s BBC Newsnight programme.
“Among the many questions posed by Scandinavia’s embrace of mass surveillance is one that has lingered at the margins throughout the Snowden debate: Are advanced democracies any different than their authoritarian counterparts in seeking to gain broad access into the private lives of citizens?” Hugh Eakin shines a light on the underreported activities of Sweden’s FRA in spying on people everywhere.
With thanks to Michael August.
Plenty of questions about the conduct of the United States of America remain unanswered. Still, the 44th President manages to stand out amongst political leaders of our time. Will his words be remembered?
“The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit—and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety.” David Remnick is not the only one who’s worried.
“And one way to fight back is through Open Source. To make sure that the systems we use are trustworthy and can be verified and can be veryfied by anybody [sic]. Relying on Open Source to bring us privacy and trustworthy security is a crucial point for our future on the Internet. The Utopia is gone, it’s not coming back. But we can do what we can to maintain as much trust on the Internet as possible. And openess is key to trust. Without openess there is no trust—without trust there is no democracy.”
“Sie wollen eine Wahl gewinnen? Ihnen laufen die Wähler weg? Sie haben inhaltlich nicht so viel auf der Pfanne? Und eigentlich läuft gar nichts bei Ihnen? Dann haben wir das Richtige für Sie!”
“Human rights introduce morality into law and offer limited legal enforcement to moral claims. But as morality is not one and the law is not a simple exercise in reasoning, moral conflict enters the legal archive and legal strictures regiment and control moral responsibility.” For Costas Douzinas, the human rights movement is an ongoing struggle to close the gap between the abstract man of the Declarations and the empirical human being.
“We might not achieve that today, but at the very least we have to call upon our politicians and our media to drop the language of fear and be far more tolerant of one another.”
Alexander Betts