Houston’s ‘Little Banned Library’ highlights literature as Texas leads country in number of books banned;Click2Houston, August 8, 2023

 Zachery Lashway, Click2Houston; Houston’s ‘Little Banned Library’ highlights literature as Texas leads country in number of books banned

"House Bill 900 goes into effect on Sept. 1. This law regulates and establishes new standards for reading material at public school libraries. Book vendors will assign ratings to books based on sexual references. Depending on the level of the rating, a child might need parental consent to check out the book, or the book could be banned and removed from the bookshelves.

Kasey Meehan is PEN America Freedom to Read Program Director.

“An effort to really suppress free speech,” Meehan said.

PEN America is a national non-profit organization that defends and celebrates free expression through literature.

“So, one of the, you know, pieces of rhetoric that we’re constantly pushing up against this idea that there’s obscene material in schools or pornography in schools, and by no definition of those terms is that the case. These books are intended to be in schools.” Meehan said. “Sometimes it can be individuals in the district, in the school district, or in the community that are challenging books. And increasingly, though, we also see the role of legislation influencing what books are available.”

Real-Time Surveillance Will Test the British Tolerance for Cameras; The New York Times, September 15, 2019

Adam Satariano, The New York Times; Real-Time Surveillance Will Test the British Tolerance for Cameras

Facial recognition technology is drawing scrutiny in a country more accustomed to surveillance than any other Western democracy. 

"“Technology is driving forward, and legislation and regulation follows ever so slowly behind,” said Tony Porter, Britain’s surveillance camera commissioner, who oversees compliance with the country’s surveillance camera code of practice. “It would be wrong for me to suggest the balance is right.”

Britain’s experience mirrors debates about the technology in the United States and elsewhere in Europe. Critics say the technology is an intrusion of privacy, akin to constant identification checks of an unsuspecting public, and has questionable accuracy, particularly at identifying people who aren’t white men."