Echoes of war


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David Swanson joined the Marines of Echo Company in April 2004 as an embedded photographer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He was widely recognised for the image of Private Eric Ayon. Echoes of war is Swanson’s account of his time spent with Echo Company in Ramadi, one of the most dangerous places in Iraq at the time. Swanson published this video some years after it had disappeared from the pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

They stormed the Capitol. Their apps tracked them.

“The location-tracking industry exists because those in power allow it to exist. Plenty of Americans remain oblivious to this collection through no fault of their own. But many others understand what’s happening and allow it anyway. They feel powerless to stop it or were simply seduced by the conveniences afforded in the trade-off. The dark truth is that, despite genuine concern from those paying attention, there’s little appetite to meaningfully dismantle this advertising infrastructure that undergirds unchecked corporate data collection.” Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson show the ease with which supposedly anonymised data from your smartphone is re-identified. From nothing to hide to nowhere to hide—we are all Americans now.

www.nytimes.com

How can we win


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“…they are lucky that what black people are looking for is equality, and not revenge.” After 450 rounds of playing, Kimberly Jones finds the game of monopoly rigged and not in her favour.

Don’t feel sorry for refugees — believe in them


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“We take in so few refugees worldwide. We resettle less than .1 percent. That .1 percent benefits us more than them. It dumbfounds me how the word refugee is consided something to be dirty, something to be ashamed of. They have nothing to be ashamed of. We have seen advances in every aspect of our lives except our humanity. There are 65.3 million people who have been forced out of their homes because of war. The largest number in history. We are the ones who should be ashamed.”

Luma Mufleh

The swedish kings of cyberwar

“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.

www.nybooks.com

With thanks to Michael August.

Farewell address to the American People


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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?

An American tragedy

​“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.

www.newyorker.com

How surveillance stifles dissent on the Internet

“People who said they had ‘nothing to hide’ were in fact more likely to censor themselves.” Kaveh Waddell reports on resarch by Elizabeth Stoycheff that, given current practices of government and comercial entities around the world, rules out the Internet as a tool to promote democracy.

www.theatlantic.com

“This structure of surveillance will stop us doing things which are right, that we know we should be doing.”

Anthony Barnett speaking in October 2013

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