Find hope in your local library; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1/10/17

Marilyn Jenkins, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; 

Find hope in your local library:

"While it is important to celebrate their success during the past 25 years, ACLA and member libraries will continue to look ahead. Constant changes in technology, pressure on the RAD to fund a wider range of assets, the growing demands of residents for current information in new formats and the continued need to diversify library funding are just a few of the issues with which we’re dealing. Fortunately, Allegheny County’s libraries now are building on a solid foundation of collaboration.

Our libraries took “A Quiet Crisis” a quarter century ago and turned it into a model of regional cooperation. It is remarkable what can happen when committed individuals share a common vision, roll up their sleeves and work together.

So, if you get discouraged in the days and weeks ahead as the new year unfolds, just pull out your library card and remember what’s possible. And if you don’t have a library card — make getting one your easiest resolution for 2017!

Just visit any local library or www.aclalibraries.org to find out how.

Marilyn Jenkins is executive director of the Allegheny County Library Association."

Kerry apologizes for past LGBT discrimination at State Department; Politico, 1/9/17

Nahal Toosi, Politico; 

Kerry apologizes for past LGBT discrimination at State Department:

"Secretary of State John Kerry is formally apologizing to gay, lesbian and other State Department employees who were fired or otherwise discriminated against in the past because of their sexual orientation.

The unprecedented apology, issued in a statement Monday, is the latest step that the Obama administration has taken to promote inclusion of the LGBT community in its ranks. It appears to refer to the "Lavender Scare" purging of gays and lesbians from U.S. government ranks in the 1950s and 1960s, and it comes less than two weeks before President Barack Obama leaves office, making the way for President-elect Donald Trump's team.

"In the past — as far back as the 1940s, but continuing for decades — the Department of State was among many public and private employers that discriminated against employees and job applicants on the basis of perceived sexual orientation, forcing some employees to resign or refusing to hire certain applicants in the first place," Kerry said in his statement. "These actions were wrong then, just as they would be wrong today,"

He added: "On behalf of the department, I apologize to those who were impacted by the practices of the past."

5 ethics principles big data analysts must follow; TechRepublic, 1/2/17

Michael Kassner, TechRepublic; 5 ethics principles big data analysts must follow

"Big data is not only big—it is also powerful and error prone, notes Susan Etlinger, an industry analyst with Altimeter Group, in her 2014 TED talk. "At this point in our history... we can process exabytes of data at lightning speed, which also means we have the potential to make bad decisions far more quickly, efficiently, and with far greater impact than we did in the past."

Besides the potential for bad decisions, Etlinger believes that humans place too much faith in technology, including, for example, our blind acceptance of charts and graphs developed from big data analysis."

Black Mirror’s Charlie Brooker Looks Back on a 2016 as Dark as Any Dystopian Future; Slate, 12/30/16

Sam Adams, Slate; Black Mirror’s Charlie Brooker Looks Back on a 2016 as Dark as Any Dystopian Future

[Kip Currier: Sophie Gilbert's Atlantic article nicely sums up the techno-angst mood of Netflix's Black Mirror TV series-- a technology-infused Information Ethics-y update of Rod Serling's classic Twillight Zone:

 "Black Mirror, a British speculative anthology series created by Charlie Brooker in 2011, considers the murky relationship between humans and technology, the latter of which often threatens to progress so quickly that our ethical frameworks don’t have the chance to catch up."]

"Black Mirror’s Charlie Brooker is best known for exploring dystopian futures, but in Charlie Brooker’s 2016 Wipe, he looks back at a year that was as dark as any future he’s envisioned."

In China, Big Brother isn’t just watching your every move. He may be selling your personal data.; Washington Post, 1/4/17

Simon Denyer, Washington Post; In China, Big Brother isn’t just watching your every move. He may be selling your personal data.

[Kip Currier: This article's chilling real-world information about Chinese authorities' "social credit" score efforts reminded me of Black Mirror's 2016 "Nosedive" episode, starring Bryce Dallas Howard, in which citizens are given crowd-sourced ranking scores that influence all areas of their lives.]

"Sometimes living in China feels like dystopia has already arrived. As thick clouds of choking smog envelop the Chinese capital this week, more bad news has emerged to make life here feel even more like a grim science fiction movie.

Not only are Chinese authorities collecting vast amounts of personal data on all of their citizens, that data is now for sale.

A report in the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper, translated by the SupChina newsletter and website on Wednesday, found that vast amounts of citizens’ private information can be freely bought by strangers, for very affordable prices...

If that wasn’t bad enough, China is already in the midst of an ambitious plan to centralize everyone’s data and issue everyone a score based on their “social credit.”"

CRISPR will be a huge story in 2017. Here are 7 things to look for.; Vox, 1/3/17

Eliza Barclay and Brad Plumer, Vox; CRISPR will be a huge story in 2017. Here are 7 things to look for.

"We’re about to enter a golden age of genetic engineering, where huge advances in gene-editing technology are making it possible for scientists to tweak the DNA of different organisms with incredible, unprecedented precision.

Until just a few years ago, altering individual genes in everything from plant cells to mouse cells to human cells was a crude, laborious, and often futile process.

Now scientists have developed a technology called CRISPR/Cas9 (or CRISPR for short), which harnesses the immune system of bacteria to snip individual genes, either knocking them out or even inserting new ones in their place. (Here’s our full explainer on CRISPR, which is different from conventional genetic modification techniques.)

What’s impressive about CRISPR is how it’s transforming the work of so many scientists in so many different fields. Much of the important work is still in the proof-of-concept stage — for example, proving that you can use CRISPR to control transcription (making an RNA copy of a gene sequence), edit the epigenome, or image the genome in living cells. But as the details get worked out, scientists say they can imagine CRISPR becoming an incredibly powerful tool."

Donald Trump didn't save the ethics committee. You did; Guardian, 1/4/17

Richard Wolffe, Guardian; 

Donald Trump didn't save the ethics committee. You did:

"As ethics experts from both the Bush and Obama administrations have written, the founders saw the so-called Emoluments clause as a way to stop corruption by foreign powers. If a president accepts any gifts and benefits from foreign nations, he faces the threat of impeachment.

Instead the newly-elected Trump claims, wrongly, that there is nothing to prevent him from being president of the United States and CEO of his company at the same time. “In theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly,” he told the New York Times.

It takes real leadership to create a culture of ethics, and it takes very little leadership to destroy any semblance of ethics. It’s only natural that the House Republicans would follow Trump’s lead by treating ethics as some kind of low priority interference with their real business: business itself."

From Hands to Heads to Hearts; New York Times, 1/4/17

Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times; From Hands to Heads to Hearts:

"The technological revolution of the 21st century is as consequential as the scientific revolution, argued Seidman, and it is “forcing us to answer a most profound question — one we’ve never had to ask before: ‘What does it mean to be human in the age of intelligent machines?’”

In short: If machines can compete with people in thinking, what makes us humans unique? And what will enable us to continue to create social and economic value? The answer, said Seidman, is the one thing machines will never have: “a heart.”

“It will be all the things that the heart can do,” he explained. “Humans can love, they can have compassion, they can dream. While humans can act from fear and anger, and be harmful, at their most elevated, they can inspire and be virtuous. And while machines can reliably interoperate, humans, uniquely, can build deep relationships of trust.

Therefore, Seidman added, our highest self-conception needs to be redefined from “I think, therefore I am” to “I care, therefore I am; I hope, therefore I am; I imagine, therefore I am. I am ethical, therefore I am. I have a purpose, therefore I am. I pause and reflect, therefore I am.”"

House Fires at Ethics and Shoots Self; New York Times, 1/3/17

Editorial Board, New York Times; House Fires at Ethics and Shoots Self:

"The O.C.E. is the only House body that investigates allegations from the public, including anonymous tips. Its staff of independent, nonpartisan professionals must be private citizens, not elected officials; most are lawyers and ethics experts. The O.C.E. refers cases it finds substantial to the Ethics Committee with recommendations. The committee is notoriously weak, but at least the O.C.E., by making its work public, helps hold legislators accountable. No wonder swamp dwellers of both parties have tried to put the O.C.E. more completely under the thumb of Congress.

The public protests over the House move to weaken the office were heartening. Even the conservative group Judicial Watch paused in its pursuit of Hillary Clinton to decry the Goodlatte proposal as a “poor way to begin draining the swamp.” The O.C.E. proposal has now gone back to the House, which will likely take the rest of the session to “study” it. Americans will be watching to see whether Mr. Trump, Mr. Ryan and other lawmakers return to this rotten idea."

There’s no good way to deal with trolls, so you might as well tattle to their moms; Washington Post, 1/2/17

Jessica Contrera, Washington Post; There’s no good way to deal with trolls, so you might as well tattle to their moms:

"People being harassed can alert the police, but law enforcement has struggled to identify and prosecute anonymous online harassers. Of the millions of people who were stalked and harassed online between 2010 and 2013, only 10 cyberstalking cases were filed in federal courts during that time, according to a review by “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace” author Danielle Citron. These situations nearly always involve not just one harasser, but dozens or even thousands threatening or spreading a false rumor about their victim.

“Every single individual who promotes [the rumor] is part of the problem, but none of them are actually criminally responsible,” explained Mary Anne Franks, the legislative policy director at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, which advocates for laws to protect online victims.

Franks said there is no “one size fits all” approach for dealing with trolls, but she doesn’t recommend trying to reason with them.

“There is nothing you can say to them that won’t give them more to work with,” Franks said."

The Great A.I. Awakening; New York Times, 12/14/16

Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New York Times; The Great A.I. Awakening:

"Google’s decision to reorganize itself around A.I. was the first major manifestation of what has become an industrywide machine-learning delirium. Over the past four years, six companies in particular — Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and the Chinese firm Baidu — have touched off an arms race for A.I. talent, particularly within universities. Corporate promises of resources and freedom have thinned out top academic departments. It has become widely known in Silicon Valley that Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, personally oversees, with phone calls and video-chat blandishments, his company’s overtures to the most desirable graduate students. Starting salaries of seven figures are not unheard-of. Attendance at the field’s most important academic conference has nearly quadrupled. What is at stake is not just one more piecemeal innovation but control over what very well could represent an entirely new computational platform: pervasive, ambient artificial intelligence."

Algorithms: AI’s creepy control must be open to inspection; Guardian, 1/1/17

Luke Dormehl, Guardian; Algorithms: AI’s creepy control must be open to inspection:

"The issue of AI accountability is shaping up to be one of this year’s hot topics, ethically and technologically. Recently, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory published preliminary work on deep learning neural networks that can not only offer predictions and classifications, but also rationalise their decisions.

Artificial intelligence achieved a lot in 2016. One of the goals in 2017 should be to make its workings more transparent. With plenty riding on it, this could be the year when, to coin a phrase, we begin to take back control."

Germany’s Latest Best Seller? A Critical Version of ‘Mein Kampf’; New York Times, 1/3/17

Melissa Eddy, New York Times; Germany’s Latest Best Seller? A Critical Version of ‘Mein Kampf’:

"The decision to bring out a new edition of a work that advocated an Aryan “master race” provoked fierce debate before publication. One side argued the new work was an important step toward illuminating an unsavory era in Germany.

The other insisted it would only encourage nationalists and xenophobes at a time when the country was engulfed in its own debate about refugees and the threat posed by foreigners."

Leave Your Laptops at the Door to My Classroom; New York Times, 1/2/17

Darren Rosenblum, New York Times; Leave Your Laptops at the Door to My Classroom:

"Focus is crucial, and we do best when monotasking: Even disruptions of a few seconds can derail one’s train of thought. Students process information better when they take notes — they don’t just transcribe, as they do with laptops, but they think and record those thoughts. Laptops or tablets can undermine exam performance by 18 percent. Other studies reveal that writing by hand helps memory retention. Screens block us from connecting, whether at dinner or in a classroom. Kelly McGonigal, a psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University, says that just having a phone on a table during a meal “is sufficiently distracting to reduce empathy and rapport between two people.”

For all these reasons, starting with smaller classes, I banned laptops, and it improved the students’ engagement. With constant eye contact, I could see and feel when they understood me, and when they did not. Energized by the connection, we moved faster, further and deeper into the material. I broadened my rule to include one of my large upper-level courses. The pushback was real: A week before class, I posted the syllabus, which announced my policy. Two students wrote me to ask if I would reconsider, and dropped the class when I refused. But more important, after my class ends, many students continue to take notes by hand even when it’s not required.

Putting aside medical exemptions, many students are just resistant. They are used to typing and prefer it to writing. They may feel they take better notes by keyboard. They may feel they know how to take notes by hand but do not want to have to do so. They can look up material, and there’s no need to print assignments. Some may have terrible handwriting, or find it uncomfortable or even painful to write.

To them, I’ll let the Rolling Stones answer: You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. My students need to learn how to be lawyers and professionals. To succeed they must internalize an ethos of caution, care and respect. To instill these values and skills in my students, I have no choice but to limit laptop use in the classroom.

In Navajo Nation, a Basketball Elder Earns Respect; New York Times, 1/1/17

Michael Powell, New York Times; In Navajo Nation, a Basketball Elder Earns Respect:

"Mendoza took a battery of tests and aced math. He applied to a college and was awarded grants. He met his wife, Marjorie, a Navajo, in college. She got pregnant, and they dropped out. Mendoza worked in a factory, making $30,000 a year.

It was good money, yet again he felt an ache: He wanted to coach and teach children to navigate new worlds. When he quit his factory job, his friends hooted: “You’re crazy! You won’t make any money teaching!

He paused, laughing.

“Sure enough, my first job at Window Rock, I made $9,500 a year.”

Mendoza has worked ever since as a guidance counselor and coach in the Navajo Nation and the Apache Nation in the White Mountains. His wife teaches on the reservation.

These nations are bounded by mountains and forests and buttes, with embracing clans, leaders and spiritualism woven deep. Each is poor, plagued by alcoholism and drug abuse and fractured families...

The Apache reservation suffered an epidemic of teenage suicide. Mendoza is a master at infusing the rez ball whirlwind with offensive and defensive discipline. His proudest accomplishment, however, was this: None of his teenagers took their own lives.

“I told the kids, ‘I understand, I knew fear,’” he said. “I learned how anger can affect you.”"

House Republicans Back Down on Bid to Gut Ethics Office; New York Times, 1/3/17

Eric Lipton and Matt Flegenheimer, New York Times; House Republicans Back Down on Bid to Gut Ethics Office:

"House Republicans, facing a storm of bipartisan criticism, including from President-elect Donald J. Trump, moved early Tuesday afternoon to reverse their plan to kill the Office of Congressional Ethics. It was an embarrassing turnabout on the first day of business for the new Congress, a day when party leaders were hoping for a show of force to reverse policies of the Obama administration.

The reversal came less than 24 hours after House Republicans, meeting in a secret session, voted, over the objections of Speaker Paul D. Ryan, to eliminate the independent ethics office, created in 2009 in the aftermath of a series of scandals involving House lawmakers, including three that were sent to jail."

The Republican Ethics Vote: What Happened; New York Times, 1/3/17

Jonah Engel Bromwich, New York Times; The Republican Ethics Vote: What Happened? :

"Why would House Republicans want to do this? The office has been criticized by many Congress members of both parties, including those it has aggressively investigated, and Republicans have long been opposed to its existence. When Republicans recaptured the House in 2010, there was speculation that they might get rid of the office then.

Photo

Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, announced on Monday that the House Republican Conference had approved a change to weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics.CreditChristopher Gregory for The New York Times

Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, a Republican of Virginia, said in a statement that the move on Monday night would strengthen the office. He also wrote that the change “improves upon due process rights for individuals under investigation.”

“The O.C.E. has a serious and important role in the House, and this amendment does nothing to impede their work,” the statement said.

But if passed by the full House, the new measure would effectively kill the office by stripping it of its independence. It would now report to the House Ethics committee, meaning that Congress would ultimately control the investigations of its own members.

The office would no longer take anonymous complaints and would not be authorized to make public statements or hire a “communications director or press spokesperson” to speak with news outlets.

It would no longer even be known as the Office of Congressional Ethics. Its name would be Office of Congressional Complaint Review."

INTERVIEW: KIERON GILLEN RETURNS TO STAR WARS WITH ‘ETHICALLY BROKEN’ DOCTOR APHRA; Comic Book Resources, 1/2/17

Dave Richards, Comic Book Resources; INTERVIEW: KIERON GILLEN RETURNS TO STAR WARS WITH ‘ETHICALLY BROKEN’ DOCTOR APHRA:

"One of the intriguing elements of the Star Wars Universe is its rich history both in terms of the time period of what’s been seen on screen, and the ancient periods of history that span thousands of years before the films and television shows. Games and comic books have mined that time period for stories in the past, but now there’s a Marvel Comics series about a character who mines that time period for her wallet.

Of course, that would be “Doctor Aphra,” the new ongoing series by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Kev Walker, which started with two issues last month. The book starring the titular ethically challenged archeologist who made her debut in the Gillen-written “Darth Vader” series."

With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Hobble Independent Ethics Office; New York Times, 1/2/17

Eric Lipton, New York Times; With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Hobble Independent Ethics Office:

"House Republicans, defying their top leaders, voted Monday to significantly curtail the power of an independent ethics office set up in 2008 in the aftermath of corruption scandals that sent three members of Congress to jail.

The move to weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics was not public until late Monday, when Representative Robert Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that the House Republican Conference had approved the change with no advance public notice or debate...

The surprising vote came on the eve of the start of a new session of Congress, with emboldened Republicans ready to push an ambitious agenda on everything from health care to infrastructure, issues that will be the subject of intense lobbying from corporate interests. The move by Republicans would take away both power and independence from an investigative body, and give lawmakers more control over internal inquiries."

The Rum War; 60 Minutes, 1/1/17

Sharyn Alfonsi, 60 Minutes; The Rum War

"Who makes the real Havana Club rum? And who owns the rights to sell the liquor under that famous brand name?"

Consider ethics when designing new technologies; TechCrunch, 12/31/16

Gillian Christie, TechCrunch; 

Consider ethics when designing new technologies:

[Kip Currier: Happy 2017! 1st post here for the new year.]

"In the weeks since the U.S. presidential election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been firefighting. Not literally, but figuratively. Widespread accusations assert that his social media company contributed to the election’s unexpected outcome by propagating fake news and “filter bubbles.” Zuckerberg has harshly refuted these allegations, but the case poses a thorny question: How do we ensure that technology works for society?

A Fourth Industrial Revolution is arising that will pose tough ethical questions with few simple, black-and-white answers. Smaller, more powerful and cheaper sensors; cognitive computing advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, predictive analytics and machine learning; nano, neuro and biotechnology; the Internet of Things; 3D printing; and much more, are already demanding real answers really fast. And this will only get harder and more complex when we embed these new technologies into our bodies and brains to enhance our physical and cognitive functioning."

U.S. Ethics Chief Ordered Gushing Responses To Trump’s Tweets; Huffington Post, 12/30/16

Mary Papenfuss, Huffington Post; 

U.S. Ethics Chief Ordered Gushing Responses To Trump’s Tweets:

"Newly obtained records reveal that the head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics personally ordered several oddly enthusiastic tweets after President-elect Donald Trump’s recent claim that he planned to sever ties to his business operations to avoid conflicts of interest as president."

You Could Have Bought A Ticket To Donald Trump’s New Year’s Eve Party; Huffington Post, 12/30/16

Daniel Marans, Huffington Post; 

You Could Have Bought A Ticket To Donald Trump’s New Year’s Eve Party:

"Tickets were on sale for a lavish New Year’s Eve party that President-elect Donald Trump and his family are hosting at the Mar-a-Lago Club this weekend, which once again raises those thorny ethics question that have dogged Trump’s presidential transition.

Mar-a-Lago sold the tickets, the Trump transition team confirmed to Politico. They cost $525 each for members of the Mar-a-Lago Club and $575 for guests. Since Trump himself owns the Palm Beach, Florida, resort, those sales profit him personally. 

Simply buying a ticket could be seen as an effort to curry favor with the president-elect. Those seeking an in-person audience with him also had an incentive to buy since Trump will be there."

These common mistakes can lead to lawyer ethics complaints; ABA Journal, 2/10/16

Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal; 

These common mistakes can lead to lawyer ethics complaints:

"Oddball ethics complaints may get more attention, but it’s the run-of-the-mill problems that are most likely to trip up lawyers, according to lawyers who handle such cases.

BNA’s U.S. Law Week spoke with several experts about common errors. Here are five of them..."

What You Can Do to Improve Ethics at Your Company; Harvard Business Review (HBR), 12/29/16

Christopher McLaverty

Annie McKee, Harvard Business Review (HBR); 

What You Can Do to Improve Ethics at Your Company:

"Enron. Wells Fargo. Volkswagen. It’s hard for good, ethical people to imagine how these meltdowns could possibly happen. We assume it’s only the Ken Lays and Bernie Madoffs of the world who will cheat people. But what about the ordinary engineers, managers, and employees who designed cars to cheat automotive pollution controls or set up bank accounts without customers’ permission? We tell ourselves that we would never do those things. And, in truth, most of us won’t cook the books, steal from customers, or take that bribe.

But, according to a study by one of us (Christopher) of C-suite executives from India, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and the U.K., many of us face an endless stream of ethical dilemmas at work. In-depth interviews with these leaders provide some insight and solutions that can help us when we do face these quandaries."

Let's Make 2017 The Year Of Ethics And Morality; Forbes, 12/28/16

Deepali Srivastava, Forbes; Let's Make 2017 The Year Of Ethics And Morality:

"The chronic decline of our political structures and civil society institutions became painfully obvious this year. The election of Donald Trump in the United States and the rise of the far right in Europe are inspiring much soul searching in the West. The problem is just as acute in Asia where the middle class’ growing prosperity is deeply intertwined with worsening inequality, environmental degradation and social unrest.

Yet, I detected another trend in 2016 that fills me with hope for the New Year: the very public embrace by eminent scientists, economists, novelists and even some businesspeople of the role of ethics in society.

Influential people have started espousing the moral philosophy of doing the right thing and are building bridges between spirituality and rationality."

The ethics of digitally resurrecting actors; New Atlas, 12/27/16

Rich Haridy, New Atlas; The ethics of digitally resurrecting actors:

"In the wake of Peter Cushing's digital resurrection in Star Wars: Rogue One, debate is once again raging around the ethics of re-purposing the images of long dead actors. In a previous article we examined the journey into the uncanny valley Hollywood has taken over the past 15 years as computer generated images have become more photo-realistic. But how are we to deal with the murky legal and ethical waters surrounding this discomforting territory?"

As We Leave More Digital Tracks, Amazon Echo Factors In Murder Investigation; NPR, 12/28/16

Alina Selyukh, NPR; 

As We Leave More Digital Tracks, Amazon Echo Factors In Murder Investigation:

"Amazon's personal assistant device called Echo was one of the most popular gifts this Christmas. But this week, the device grabbed headlines for another reason: Police in Arkansas are trying to use its data in a murder investigation.

What we know from court documents is that in November 2015, a man in Arkansas had some friends over at his house to watch a football game and in the morning, one of the friends was found dead in a hot tub in the backyard. Police later charged the man who lived in the house, James Bates, with murder. He has pleaded not guilty.

As the police were investigating the crime, they found a number of digital devices in the suspect's house, including an Amazon Echo device that was in the kitchen. They have since seized the device and have apparently gotten some information from it, but what they want to check is what — if anything — the device may have recorded around the time of the murder."

Does Empathy Guide or Hinder Moral Action?; New York Times, 12/29/16

Room for Debate, New York Times; 

Does Empathy Guide or Hinder Moral Action? :

"After a year of surprising election results and referendums, and violence in protests, terrorism and war, the term “empathy” has been cited by many as a key component to helping groups of people that have little in common, or disagree, come together. But does empathy actually increase the ability of opposing parties to understand each other better, or otherwise inform correct moral action?"

Global Press Freedom Has Taken An ‘Unbelievable’ Hit This Year; Huffington Post, 12/29/16

Jesselyn Cook, Huffington Post; 

Global Press Freedom Has Taken An ‘Unbelievable’ Hit This Year:

"The freedom of information advocacy group, also known as Reporters Sans Frontières, ranks 180 countries’ levels of press freedom to produce an overall world evaluation. Between 2013 and the start of this year, the global score plummeted by 13.6 percent. Factors evaluated by the group ― all of which worsened during this period ― include media independence, transparency and censorship, among others. The final grade for 2016 has yet to be calculated and released, but the overall picture is grim...

A large group of press freedom organizations recently penned an open letter to President-elect Donald Trump, whom the Committee to Protect Journalists has already declared a “threat to press freedom.” The incoming leader of the free world has continuously berated and vilified the “disgusting” media, and denied press credentials to news organizations that covered his campaign in ways that displeased him."

Getting a Drone as a Gift? Check Your Insurance; New York Times, 12/14/16

Ann Carrns, New York Times; 

Getting a Drone as a Gift? Check Your Insurance:

[Kip Currier: Amazon is getting buzz this week with widely-reported coverage of the ever-experimenting online retailer's 2016 patent for floating warehouse blimps--or in Amazon's own words "airborne fulfillment centers (AFCs)". AFCs would, in theory, serve as "motherships" for worker bee drones to transport purchased goods directly to Amazon customers.

Joanne Lipman, chief content officer for Gannett, predicts that though some crystal ball gazers declared 2016 as the year drones would take off and be the new "it" thing, 2017 will be "The Year of the Drone, Really".

Earlier this month I did a very informative American Bar Association (ABA) Continuing Legal Education (CLE) webinar, "U.S. Drone Law: Current Status, Future Direction", through the ABA Intellectual Property Law section. A panel of practitioners with drone expertise highlighted key cases (e.g. the so-called "Drone Slayer" case), current legal issues, and liability concerns for emerging drone technologies. (Aside: in addition to legal issues, drones implicate a whole slew of information ethics issues; most notably, privacy.)

The article excerpted below sheds useful light on insurance issues regarding drone ownership and usage, something most of us probably have not considered, but absolutely should know more about. Especially considering how many people gifted and received drones as holiday gifts this year! (See Drone sales soaring this Christmas, capping a record year for the industry)]

"MANY people will receive drones as gifts this holiday season. But before heading to the nearest field to fly the devices, recipients may want to check their insurance coverage.

“I’m sure there will be a lot of drones given as Christmas gifts, and we’ll start to see more drone-related claims,” said Chris Hackett, the senior director for personal lines at the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, an industry group."

Campus Identity Politics Is Dooming Liberal Causes, a Professor Charges; Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/15/16

Evan R. Goldstein, Chronicle of Higher Education; Campus Identity Politics Is Dooming Liberal Causes, a Professor Charges:

"Rage over racial, gender, and sexual identity has no sense of proportion and creates a damaging spectacle, says Mark Lilla, a professor of humanities at Columbia University."

A professor wants to teach ‘The Problems of Whiteness.’ A lawmaker calls the class ‘garbage.’; Washington Post, 12/28/16

Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Washington Post; A professor wants to teach ‘The Problems of Whiteness.’ A lawmaker calls the class ‘garbage.’ :

"“I support academic freedom and free speech,” [David Murphy, Wisconsin state assemblyman] said. “Free speech also means the public has the right to be critical of their public university. The university’s handling of controversies like this appears to the public as a lack of balance in intellectual openness and diversity of political thought on campus.”

Gov. Scott Walker (R) told the Wisconsin State Journal that he didn’t agree with Murphy’s call to withhold funding from the university if it doesn’t drop the class...

In a statement, the university defended the course and stressed that it was elective, not required, and that it was “not designed to offend individuals or single out an ethnic group.”

“We believe this course, which is one of thousands offered at our university, will benefit students who are interested in developing a deeper understanding of race issues,” the university’s statement said. “The course is a challenge and response to racism of all kinds.”"

Russians No Longer Dispute Olympic Doping Operation; New York Times, 12/27/16

Rebecca R. Ruiz, New York Times; Russians No Longer Dispute Olympic Doping Operation:

"Russia is for the first time conceding that its officials carried out one of the biggest conspiracies in sports history: a far-reaching doping operation that implicated scores of Russian athletes, tainting not just the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi but also the entire Olympic movement.

Over several days of interviews here with The New York Times, Russian officials said they no longer disputed a damning set of facts that detailed a doping program with few, if any, historical precedents.

“It was an institutional conspiracy,” Anna Antseliovich, the acting director general of Russia’s national antidoping agency, said of years’ worth of cheating schemes, while emphasizing that the government’s top officials were not involved."