An unseemly meeting at the US Supreme Court raises ethics questions; Quartz, November 2, 2019

Ephrat Livni, Quartz; An unseemly meeting at the US Supreme Court raises ethics questions

"“A case isn’t finished until the opinion is out,” Roth noted. So, any meeting between a justice and an advocate who has expressed positions on a matter is problematic because it undermines public trust in the judge’s ability to be fair. He calls these engagements failures of a “basic ethics test” and is concerned about how commonly these failures occur...

Roth believes that everyone, whatever their political party or ideological tendencies, should be concerned about these kinds of engagements by the justices. And he doesn’t think it’s too much to ask that members of the bench not interact with the people and institutions who’ve broadcast their views in amicus briefs while those cases are open, if only to maintain that precious appearance of neutrality."

Facebook and Twitter spread Trump’s lies, so we must break them up; The Guardian, November 3, 2019

Robert Reich, The Guardian; Facebook and Twitter spread Trump’s lies, so we must break them up 

"The reason 45% of Americans rely on Facebook for news and Trump’s tweets reach 66 million is because these platforms are near monopolies, dominating the information marketplace. No TV network, cable giant or newspaper even comes close. Fox News’ viewership rarely exceeds 3 million. The New York Times has 4.7 million subscribers.

Facebook and Twitter aren’t just participants in the information marketplace. They’re quickly becoming the information marketplace."

Amber Heard: Are We All Celebrities Now? Only a federal law can stop "revenge porn"; The New York Times, November 4, 2019

Amber Heard, The New York Times; Amber Heard: Are We All Celebrities Now? Only a federal law can stop "revenge porn"

"This is precisely why “revenge porn,” the term often used to describe this abuse, is the wrong name: It is focused on intent rather than consent. What matters is not why the perpetrator disclosed the images; it is that the victim did not consent to the disclosure.

That is why laws against nonconsensual pornography should look like laws against other privacy violations, like the laws that prohibit the unauthorized disclosure of a broad range of private information, such as medical records and Social Security numbers.

Because the patchwork of state laws fails to truly protect intimate privacy, it is vital that Congress pass legislation that does. And that is why in May, I spoke at the news conference for the introduction of the Stopping Harmful Image Exploitation and Limiting Distribution (SHIELD) Act, a bipartisan federal bill introduced by Representatives Jackie Speier of California and John Katko of New York.

Every person, from the most famous to the most obscure, from the privileged to the poor, deserves privacy."

A.I. Regulation Is Coming Soon. Here’s What the Future May Hold; Fortune, October 24, 2019

David Meyer, Fortune; A.I. Regulation Is Coming Soon. Here’s What the Future May Hold

"Last year Angela Merkel’s government tasked a new Data Ethics Commission with producing recommendations for rules around algorithms and A.I. The group’s report landed Wednesday, packed with ideas for guiding the development of this new technology in a way that protects people from exploitation.

History tells us that German ideas around data tend to make their way onto the international stage...

So, what do those recommendations look like? In a word: tough."

The biggest lie tech people tell themselves — and the rest of us; Vox, October 8, 2019

Rose Eveleth , Vox;

The biggest lie tech people tell themselves — and the rest of us

They see facial recognition, smart diapers, and surveillance devices as inevitable evolutions. They’re not.

"With great power comes great responsibility

Often consumers don’t have much power of selection at all. Those who run small businesses find it nearly impossible to walk away from Facebook, Instagram, Yelp, Etsy, even Amazon. Employers often mandate that their workers use certain apps or systems like Zoom, Slack, and Google Docs. “It is only the hyper-privileged who are now saying, ‘I’m not going to give my kids this,’ or, ‘I’m not on social media,’” says Rumman Chowdhury, a data scientist at Accenture. “You actually have to be so comfortable in your privilege that you can opt out of things.” 

And so we’re left with a tech world claiming to be driven by our desires when those decisions aren’t ones that most consumers feel good about. There’s a growing chasm between how everyday users feel about the technology around them and how companies decide what to make. And yet, these companies say they have our best interests in mind. We can’t go back, they say. We can’t stop the “natural evolution of technology.” But the “natural evolution of technology” was never a thing to begin with, and it’s time to question what “progress” actually means."

Google Maps Just Introduced a Controversial New Feature That Drivers Will Probably Love but Police Will Utterly Hate; Inc., October 20, 2019

Bill Murphy Jr., Inc.; Google Maps Just Introduced a Controversial New Feature That Drivers Will Probably Love but Police Will Utterly Hate

"This week, however, Google announced the next best thing: Starting immediately, drivers will be able to report hazards, slowdowns, and speed traps right on Google Maps...

But one group that will likely not be happy is the police. In recent years, police have asked -- or even demanded -- that Waze drop the police-locating feature."

‘Don’t leave campus’: Parents are now using tracking apps to watch their kids at college; The Washington Post, October 22, 2019

Abby Ohlheiser, The Washington Post; ‘Don’t leave campus’: Parents are now using tracking apps to watch their kids at college

"Many parents install tracking apps with good intentions, said Stacey Steinberg, a law professor at the University of Florida who has studied how technology impacts raising families and privacy. “We don’t want our kids to screw up,” she said. “We don’t want them to get hurt. Technology offers us new ways to feel like we are protecting them — both from others and from themselves.

“But kids need autonomy from their parents, especially when they reach adulthood,” Steinberg added. “If we want our kids to trust us, if we want our kids to believe they are capable of making wise decisions, then our actions need to show it. Valuing their privacy is one way to do so.”"

The Black-and-White World of Big Tech; The New York Times, October 24, 2019

Kara Swisher, The New York Times; The Black-and-White World of Big Tech

Mark Zuckerberg presented us with an either-or choice of free speech — either we have it or we’re China. Tech leaders have a duty to admit it’s much more complicated.

"Mr. Zuckerberg presented us with an either-or choice of free speech — either we have free speech or we’re China. “Whether you like Facebook or not, I think we need to come together and stand for voice and free expression,” he said with an isn’t-this-obvious tone.

But, as anyone who has lived in the real world knows, it’s much more complex. And that was the main problem with his speech — and it’s also what is at the crux of the myriad concerns we have with tech these days: Big Tech’s leaders frame the debate in binary terms. 

Mr. Zuckerberg missed an opportunity to recognize that there has been a hidden and high price of all the dazzling tech of the last decade. In offering us a binary view for considering the impact of their inventions, many digital leaders avoid thinking harder about the costs of technological progress."

Food delivery robots from Starship Technologies are coming to Pitt’s Oakland campus; Nextpittsburgh, September 3, 2019

Bill O'Toole, Nextpittsburgh; Food delivery robots from Starship Technologies are coming to Pitt’s Oakland campus

"Stakeholders got their first look at the project last week when the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation (OPDC) held a public meeting where Starship gave a presentation on the project.

The university has confirmed to us that Starship’s service is due to launch later this fall, but the company declined to offer further specifics about the project to NEXTpittsburgh. According to the minutes of the meeting, they plan to begin a staged rollout in mid-September. The fleet will eventually have 25 autonomous rovers carting goods (presumably to hungry students) from campus food vendors such as Forbes Street Market...

The food delivery service poses obvious practical challenges for the flow of traffic and people throughout the bustling neighborhood. According to the minutes of the public meeting, several attendees expressed concerns over the potential for traffic and bicycle accidents.

“It’ll be interesting to see how they interface with people there in the public right of ways,” says Georgia Petropoulos, executive director of the Oakland Business Improvement District, which has no formal role in the project."

A face-scanning algorithm increasingly decides whether you deserve the job; The Washington Post, October 22, 2019

Drew Harwell, The Washington Post; A face-scanning algorithm increasingly decides whether you deserve the job 

HireVue claims it uses artificial intelligence to decide who’s best for a job. Outside experts call it ‘profoundly disturbing.’

"“It’s a profoundly disturbing development that we have proprietary technology that claims to differentiate between a productive worker and a worker who isn’t fit, based on their facial movements, their tone of voice, their mannerisms,” said Meredith Whittaker, a co-founder of the AI Now Institute, a research center in New York...

Loren Larsen, HireVue’s chief technology officer, said that such criticism is uninformed and that “most AI researchers have a limited understanding” of the psychology behind how workers think and behave...

“People are rejected all the time based on how they look, their shoes, how they tucked in their shirts and how ‘hot’ they are,” he told The Washington Post. “Algorithms eliminate most of that in a way that hasn’t been possible before.”...

HireVue’s growth, however, is running into some regulatory snags. In August, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed a first-in-the-nation law that will force employers to tell job applicants how their AI-hiring system works and get their consent before running them through the test. The measure, which HireVue said it supports, will take effect Jan. 1."

Trump housing plan would make bias by algorithm 'nearly impossible to fight'; The Guardian, October 23, 2019

Kari Paul, The Guardian; Trump housing plan would make bias by algorithm 'nearly impossible to fight'

"Under the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) new rules, businesses would be shielded from liability when their algorithms are accused of bias through three different loopholes:

• When the algorithm in question is vetted by a “neutral third party”.
• When the algorithm itself was created by a third party.
• If an algorithm used did not use race or a proxy for it in the computer model.

In the letter, groups in opposition to the change noted many pieces of data can be proxies for race – discriminating by a zip code, for example, can enable a racial bias. The rule would give “unprecedented deference” to mortgage lenders, landlords, banks, insurance companies, and others in the housing industry, the letter said."

How is an academic CV different from a résumé?; The Washington Post, October 22, 2019

Daniel W. Drezner, The Washington Post; How is an academic CV different from a résumé?

"During the weekend, the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Megan Zahneis wrote up Phillips’s study, noting some possible concerns: “While it has popped up in a few high-profile cases, CV falsification is an instance of academic misconduct that might not make as many headlines as fudging data or plagiarism. But the difficulty of detecting it could make it all the more insidious.” Indeed, the grad students who did the coding for Phillips et al. got more and more upset as they proceeded. As Phillips explained to Zahneis, “That’s because most of these were applicants for entry-level positions, which is what they hoped to be applying for someday.""

Under digital surveillance: how American schools spy on millions of kids; The Guardian, October 22, 2019

Lois Beckett, The Guardian; Under digital surveillance: how American schools spy on millions of kids

"The new school surveillance technology doesn’t turn off when the school day is over: anything students type in official school email accounts, chats or documents is monitored 24 hours a day, whether students are in their classrooms or their bedrooms.

Tech companies are also working with schools to monitor students’ web searches and internet usage, and, in some cases, to track what they are writing on public social media accounts.

Parents and students are still largely unaware of the scope and intensity of school surveillance, privacy experts say, even as the market for these technologies has grown rapidly, fueled by fears of school shootings, particularly in the wake of the Parkland shooting in February 2018, which left 17 people dead."

Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t understand free speech in the 21st century; The Guardian, October 18, 2019

Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Guardian; Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t understand free speech in the 21st century

"The problem of the 21st century is cacophony. Too many people are yelling at the same time. Attentions fracture. Passions erupt. Facts crumble. It’s increasingly hard to deliberate deeply about complex crucial issues with an informed public. We have access to more knowledge yet we can’t think and talk like adults about serious things...

The thing is, a thriving democracy needs more than motivation, the ability to find and organize like-minded people. Democracies also need deliberation. We have let the institutions that foster discussion among well informed, differently-minded people crumble. Soon all we will have left is Facebook. Look at Myanmar to see how well that works."

How to Stop the Abuse of Location Data; The New York Times, October 16, 2019

Jeff Glueck, The New York Times; How to Stop the Abuse of Location Data

There are no formal rules for what is ethical — or even legal — in the location data business. That needs to change.

"Companies should have to maintain data with adequate security protections, including encryption at rest and in transit. Employees at companies that collect data on millions of consumers should undergo privacy and ethics training. Companies should require clients and other people who use the data to promise that they will not use the tech and data for unethical or discriminatory practices — and should penalize those that act unethically. Regulation should force companies to create ethics committees where management and employees must discuss their privacy and ethical data use policies regularly."

What Teaching Ethics in Appalachia Taught Me About Bridging America’s Partisan Divide; Politico, October 13, 2019

Evan Mandery, Politico; What Teaching Ethics in Appalachia Taught Me About Bridging America’s Partisan Divide
 

There’s a language for talking about hot-button issues. And we’re not learning it.

"The aim “is to create a space in which I can admit—let in—another person’s voice,” Gilligan says. It’s a way of stimulating empathy. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it,” Atticus Finch tells Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. An emerging body of research shows that Finch—or Harper Lee—was right.

Curious things start to happen to people when they listen generously. At the most superficial level, one hears things that he or she might not like. But one also hears the sincerity of people’s convictions, the authenticity of their experiences, and the nuance of their narratives. Being open is transformative because, almost inevitably, one finds that the stories they’ve been told about what people believe oversimplify reality... 

Caleb Wright, who’s from Chapel Hill says, “The value is that you can staunchly disagree with someone, but also humanize the person.” Adds Gaby, “It was more to learn about each other than to change people’s minds.”

The point, in other words, is to combat “othering.”

“People don’t change their minds, they just change their opinion about the other side,” says Ravi Iyer, a social psychologist who, with Jonathan Haidt and Matt Motyl, founded Civil Politics, a nonprofit aimed at bridging moral divisions. “The evidence is imperfect,” Iyer says, “but all of the imperfect evidence is telling a similar story.”

That story is known as the contact hypothesis—a well-supported theory in social psychology that contact between members of different groups is likely to reduce mutual prejudice...

I left my experience at App with a richer understanding of Southern conservatives and libertarians, but more significantly with great optimism, even exuberance, about the untapped potential of experiences that teach people how to talk productively about their differences. Even after a career spent moderating conversations on controversial issues, I learned how to listen better and was changed by the stories I heard.

Imagine if, instead of requiring a swim test for college students or gym for middle-schoolers, we required students to sit in a room with a diverse group of people and listen to the stories of their life. “If I wanted to prepare children to live as citizens in a democratic society,” Gilligan says, “nothing would be more valuable than to teach them to listen.”"

Seven Bold Leaders Reveal How Ethical Leadership Is A Boon To Business; Forbes, October 14, 2019

Bruce Weinstein, Forbes; Seven Bold Leaders Reveal How Ethical Leadership Is A Boon To Business

"Ethical leadership in a business benefits the bottom line. It’s also a boon to the people who work for the organization and the people it serves.

The relationship between ethical conduct and benefits is one of the themes of this year’s Global Ethics Day. The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs created this event nine years ago to provide an “opportunity for organizations around the world to hold events on or around this day, exploring the meaning of ethics in international affairs.”

Last year, I observed Global Ethics Day in this column by asking 20 leaders what “ethics” meant to them. Each provided a one-sentence summary. This year we’re stretching out a bit. I asked seven leaders to provide a concrete example or two of how ethical leadership benefits businesses, employees, clients and communities.

Here’s what they said."

Student tracking, secret scores: How college admissions offices rank prospects before they apply; The Washington Post, October 14, 2019

Douglas MacMillan and Nick Anderson, The Washington Post; Student tracking, secret scores: How college admissions offices rank prospects before they apply

"Admissions officers say behavioral tracking helps them serve students in the application process. When a college sees that a qualified student is serious about applying based on the student’s Web behavior, it can dedicate more staffers to follow up...

But Web tracking may unfairly provide an advantage to students with better access to technology, said Bradley Shear, a Maryland lawyer who has pushed for better regulation of students’ online privacy. A low-income student may be a strong academic candidate but receive less attention from recruiters because the student does not own a smartphone or have high-speed Internet access at home, he said.

“I don’t think the algorithm should run the admissions department,” Shear said."

MARVEL & Others Sued Over X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES Theme Song Alleging Copyright Infringement - Report; Newsarama, October 9, 2019

Chris Arant, Newsarama; MARVEL & Others Sued Over X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES Theme Song Alleging Copyright Infringement - Report

"Marvel Entertainment, the Walt Disney Company, and others are being sued for copyright infringement over the 1990s theme song to X-Men: The Animated Series due to its similiarities to a 1980s Hungarian cop show's theme, according to TMZ. The similarities between the two themes have been noted before online, and now a representative from the estate of the original show's composer has reportedly filed a lawsuit."

Artificial Intelligence Moving to Battlefield as Ethics Weighed; Bloomberg Government, October 10, 2019

Travis J. Tritten, Bloomberg Government; Artificial Intelligence Moving to Battlefield as Ethics Weighed

"The Pentagon, taking the next big step of deploying artificial intelligence to aid troops and help select battlefield targets, must settle lingering ethical concerns about using the technology for waging war...

Ethical uses of the technology could include the development of landmines, similar to the Claymore mines used by the U.S. in Vietnam, that can distinguish between adults carrying weapons and children, the nonprofit research group the Mitre Corp. told the defense board at a public hearing at Carnegie Mellon University in March.

Shanahan’s center first employed the technology to help fight wildfires in California and elsewhere and has discussed humanitarian relief uses in the Pacific with Japan and Singapore. Much of the potential for military artificial intelligence lies outside direct battlefield operations in areas such as logistics and accounting."

FBI violated Americans’ privacy by abusing access to NSA surveillance data, court rules; October 8, 2019

Nick Statt, The Verge; FBI violated Americans’ privacy by abusing access to NSA surveillance data, court rules

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation made tens of thousands of unauthorized searches related to US citizens between 2017 and 2018, a court ruled. The agency violated both the law that authorized the surveillance program they used and the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.

The ruling was made in October 2018 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a secret government court responsible for reviewing and authorizing searches of foreign individuals inside and outside the US. It was just made public today."

Americans and Digital Knowledge; Pew Research Center, October 9, 2019

Emily A. Vogels and Monica Anderson, Pew Research Center; Americans and Digital Knowledge

A majority of U.S. adults can answer fewer than half the questions correctly on a digital knowledge quiz, and many struggle with certain cybersecurity and privacy questions

"A new Pew Research Center survey finds that Americans’ understanding of technology-related issues varies greatly depending on the topic, term or concept. While a majority of U.S. adults can correctly answer questions about phishing scams or website cookies, other items are more challenging. For example, just 28% of adults can identify an example of two-factor authentication – one of the most important ways experts say people can protect their personal information on sensitive accounts. Additionally, about one-quarter of Americans (24%) know that private browsing only hides browser history from other users of that computer, while roughly half (49%) say they are unsure what private browsing does.

This survey consisted of 10 questions designed to test Americans’ knowledge of a range of digital topics, such as cybersecurity or the business side of social media companies. The median number of correct answers was four. Only 20% of adults answered seven or more questions correctly, and just 2% got all 10 questions correct."

Most people don’t understand privacy, and that’s a huge opportunity for design; Fast Company, October 9, 2019

Mark Wilson, Fast Company; Most people don’t understand privacy, and that’s a huge opportunity for design

New research highlights just how clueless we are when it comes to digital privacy. It’s time for companies to step up and fill in the gaps.

 

"About half of Americans don’t even recognize that privacy policies are a binding contract between websites and their users in the first place.

The findings come courtesy of a new report by Pew Research, which polled 4,727 U.S. adults with a straightforward, 10-question test. It checked for basic knowledge about phishing, online advertising, and cookies. Only 20% of people answered 7 of 10 questions correctly. Just as devastating? Only 2% of people got all 10 questions right...

It’s easy to blame people in these situations. Get educated about technology already! Learn your privacy rights! Isn’t it obvious all that legalese constitutes a binding contract? But the fact is, people are pretty smart when given the right opportunity. Everyone you know understands, more or less, how to use relatively complicated platforms like email and social media. They understand both how to pull the levers and what those levers do. What they don’t understand is who might be watching those levers being pulled, why they’re allowed to be watching, and for what purpose they are watching in the first place."

California makes ‘deepfake’ videos illegal, but law may be hard to enforce; The Guardian, October 7, 2019

Kari Paul, The Guardian; California makes ‘deepfake’ videos illegal, but law may be hard to enforce 

AB 730 makes it illegal to circulate doctored videos, images or audio of politicians within 60 days of an election

"California made it illegal to create or distribute “deepfakes” in a move meant to protect voters from misinformation but may be difficult to enforce.

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, on Thursday signed legislation that makes it illegal to create or distribute videos, images, or audio of politicians doctored to resemble real footage within 60 days of an election.

Deepfakes are videos manipulated by artificial intelligence to overlay images of celebrity faces on others’ bodies, and are meant to make viewers think they are real."

Inside the Deepfake ‘Arms Race’; The Daily Beast, October 7, 2019

David Axe, The Daily Beast; Inside the Deepfake ‘Arms Race’

Can countermeasures neutralize the coming wave of high-tech disinformation?

"The first deepfakes appeared in late 2017 on Reddit. An anonymous user calling themselves “deepfakes”—a portmanteau of artificial-intelligence “deep learning” and “fakes”—imposed celebrities’ faces on pornography...

A deepfake video, still image, or audio recording is the product of a clever bit of coding called a “generative adversarial network,” or GAN. A GAN has two components: a discriminator and a generator. The discriminator is trying to tell fake media from real media. The generator is trying to fool the discriminator with increasingly realistic-seeming fakes."

The Supreme Court Denies Domino’s Petition in a Win for Disability Rights; Slate, October 7, 2019

Aaron Mak, Slate; The Supreme Court Denies Domino’s Petition in a Win for Disability Rights

"On Monday, the Supreme Court handed down an order announcing it would not take up a petition from the Domino’s pizza chain to appeal a lower-court decision dictating that the company must make its website and app accessible to people with disabilities. The decision is a major win for disability rights advocates, who have been arguing that the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to websites, digital platforms, and other nonphysical spaces."

Scientist Who Discredited Meat Guidelines Didn’t Report Past Food Industry Ties; The New York Times, October 4, 2019

Tara Parker-Pope and Anahad O’Connor, The New York Times;

Scientist Who Discredited Meat Guidelines Didn’t Report Past Food Industry Ties

The lead researcher, Bradley C. Johnston, said he was not required to report his past relationship with a powerful industry trade group.

"In an interview, Dr. Johnston said his past relationship with ILSI had no influence on the current research on meat recommendations. He said he did not report his past relationship with ILSI because the disclosure form asked only about potential conflicts within the past three years. Although the ILSI-funded study publication falls within the three-year window, he said the money from ILSI arrived in 2015, and he was not required to report it for the meat study disclosure.

“That money was from 2015 so it was outside of the three year period for disclosing competing interests,” said Dr. Johnston. “I have no relationship with them whatsoever.”"

Why We Need a Code of Ethics for the Supreme Court; Time, October 1, 2019

Alicia Bannon and Johanna Kalb, Time; Why We Need a Code of Ethics for the Supreme Court

"Alicia Bannon is the co-author of Supreme Court Ethics: The Need for an Ethics Code and Additional Transparency. Bannon is the managing director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program and head of its Fair Courts team.

Johanna Kalb is the co-author of Supreme Court Ethics: The Need for an Ethics Code and Additional Transparency. Kalb is a fellow at the Brennan Center and associate dean and professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law."

"Judges are supposed to take steps to avoid even the appearance of bias or political activity. But over the last twenty years, we’ve seen Supreme Court justices engage in activities forbidden under the code of ethics for other federal judges. Members of the Court have given partisan speeches. They have failed to recuse themselves from cases with which they have apparent conflicts of interest. Some have accepted lavish gifts from people and organizations who also fund constitutional litigation...

Of course, having a code of conduct isn’t a cure-all, whether the code applies to judges, professors, or CEOs. But it’s vital for transparency and accountability. By adopting a code of ethics that is publicly available, the Court would shape expectations among judges and the public about acceptable behavior. A code would anticipate and give guidance on knotty ethical dilemmas, and also help to protect the justices against criticism for the tricky ethical decisions they make. And if the justices slip up, a code would allow them to be held accountable, by each other, in the court of public opinion and, in very rare instances, through impeachment."

Bootleg film shows Florida prison in all its danger, squalor. An inmate shot it on the sly; The Miami Herald, October 4, 2019

Romy Ellenbogen, The Miami Herald; Bootleg film shows Florida prison in all its danger, squalor. An inmate shot it on the sly

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article235623292.html#storylink=cpy

"David Fathi, the director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said as technology has developed, videos and photos from inside prisons have become more common.

“This would be, to my knowledge, the first prison documentary filmed exclusively by a prisoner with a cellphone,” he said.

Fathi said the issue is paradoxical — prisons have good reason for forbidding cellphones, but the footage also increases transparency, shining daylight in a dark place and potentially exposing abuses."

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article235623292.html#storylink=cpy

Federal whistleblowers would do it again, even after retaliation and ‘professional suicide’; The Washington Post, October 4, 2019

Joe Davidson, The Washington Post; Federal whistleblowers would do it again, even after retaliation and ‘professional suicide’

"“Was the destruction of my career and family worth the excruciating time and money, ostracism and vilification? No,” [former FBI agent Jane Turner] said Wednesday. “Was standing up and doing the ethical, legal and moral whistleblowing the right thing? Yes. Would I do it again? My moral and legal compass would not allow any different course of action.

Her advice to the CIA whistleblower: “Carefully weigh the costs to you, your family and your career when deciding whether to blow the whistle. And document, document, document … because the hierarchy will lie.”"

The Hippocratic License: A new software license that prohibits uses that contravene the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights; BoingBoing, October 4, 2019

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing; The Hippocratic License: A new software license that prohibits uses that contravene the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

"The Open Source Initiative maintains the canonical list of free/open licenses based on compliance with its Open Source Definition, which excludes licenses that ""discriminate against any person or group of persons" and that "restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor." On this basis, OSI cofounder Bruce Perens says the Hippcratic License is not compatible with the OSD.

Ehmke calls the OSD "horribly dated" because it doesn't enable software developers to ensure that "our technology isn't used by fascists.""

An Open Source License That Requires Users to Do No Harm; Wired, October 4, 2019

Klint Finley, Wired;

An Open Source License That Requires Users to Do No Harm

Open source software can generally be freely copied and reused. One developer wants to impose ethical constraints on the practice.

"Increasingly, some developers are calling on their employers and the government to stop using their work in ways they believe are unethical...

Coraline Ada Ehmke wants to give her fellow developers more control over how their software is used. Software released under her new "Hippocratic License" can be shared and modified for almost any purpose, with one big exception: "Individuals, corporations, governments, or other groups for systems or activities that actively and knowingly endanger, harm, or otherwise threaten the physical, mental, economic, or general well-being of individuals or groups in violation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Defining what it means to do harm is inherently contentious, but Ehmke hopes that tying the license to existing international standards will reduce the uncertainty. The declaration of human rights "is a document that's 70 years old and is pretty well established and accepted for its definition of harm and what violating human rights really means," she says."