🍿 Today’s Double Feature: Privacy and Free Speech

EFF update
2 weeks 4 days ago

It’s Power Up Your Donation Week! Right now, your contribution to the Electronic Frontier Foundation will go twice as far to protect digital privacy, security, and free speech rights for everyone. Will you donate today to get a free 2X match?

Power Up!

Give to EFF and get a free donation match

Thanks to a fund made by a group of dedicated supporters, your donation online gets an automatic match up to $307,200 through December 10! This means every dollar you give equals two dollars to fight surveillance, oppose censorship, defend encryption, promote open access to information, and much more. EFF makes every cent count.

Lights, Laptops, Action!

Who has time to decode tech policy, understand the law, then figure out how to change things for the users? EFF does. The purpose of every attorney, activist, and technologist at EFF is to watch your back and make technology better. But you are the superstar who makes it possible with your support.

'Fix Copyright' member shirt inspired by Steamboat Willie entering the public domain.

With the help of people like you, EFF has been able to help unravel legal and ethical questions surrounding the rise of AI; keep policymakers on the road to net neutrality; encourage the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that location-based geofence warrants are unconstitutional; and explain why banning TikTok and passing laws like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) will not achieve internet safety.

The world struggles to get tech right, but EFF’s experts advocate for you every day of the year. Take action by renewing your EFF membership! You can set the stage for civil liberties and human rights online for everyone. Please give today and let your donation go twice as far for digital rights!

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Strengthen the community when you help us spread the word about Power Up Your Donation Week! Here’s some sample language that you can share:

Donate to EFF this week for an instant match! Double your impact on digital privacy, security, and free speech rights for everyone. https://eff.org/power-up

Bluesky | Email | Facebook | LinkedIn | X
(More at eff.org/social)

Each of us has the power to help in the movement for internet freedom. Our future depends on forging a web where we can have private conversations and explore the world online with confidence, so I thank you for your moral support and hope to have you on EFF's side as a member, too.

________________________

EFF is a member-supported U.S. 501(c)(3) organization. We’re celebrating ELEVEN YEARS of top ratings from the nonprofit watchdog Charity Navigator! Your donation is tax-deductible as allowed by law.

Aaron Jue

[B] 低賃金低農産物価格　失われた３０年、労賃も生産者米価も下がりっぱなしだった

日刊ベリタ
2 weeks 4 days ago
おコメの値段が高止まりしています。この夏、いきなりスーパーからコメが消えるという事態が勃発、“令和の米騒動”と騒ぎになりました。所管の農水省は「なぁに、９月も中旬になれば新米が出回りますから一時的なことですよ」といっていました。その言葉通り、新米に時期が来たらコメは店頭に戻ってきたのですが、値段は上昇を続け、高止まりということになって今に至っています。(大野和興)
日刊ベリタ

Listen to Feminist Sound Bites 2024

APC
2 weeks 4 days ago
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Amazon and Google Must Keep Their Promises on Project Nimbus

EFF update
2 weeks 4 days ago

When a company makes a promise, the public should be able to rely on it. Today, nearly every person in the U.S. is a customer of either Amazon or Google—and many of us are customers of both technology giants. Both of these companies have made public promises that they will ensure their technologies are not being used to facilitate human rights violations. These promises are not just corporate platitudes; they’re commitments to every customer and to society at large.  

It’s a reasonable thing to ask if these promises are being kept. And it’s especially important since Amazon and Google have been increasingly implicated by reports that their technologies, specifically their joint cloud computing initiative called Project Nimbus, are being used to facilitate mass surveillance and human rights violations of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. This was the basis of our public call in August 2024 for the companies to come clean about their involvement.   

But we didn’t just make a public call. We sent letters directly to the Global Head of Public Policy at Amazon and to Google’s Global Head of Human Rights in late September. We detailed what these companies have promised and asked them to tell us by November 1, 2024 how they were complying. We hoped that they could clear up the confusion, or at least explain where we, or the reporting we were relying on, were wrong.  

But instead, they failed to respond. This is unfortunate, since it leads us to question how serious they were in their promises. And it should lead you to question that too.

Project Nimbus: Technology at the Expense of Human Rights

Project Nimbus provides advanced cloud and AI capabilities to the Israeli government, tools that an increasing number of credible reports suggest are being used to target civilians under pervasive surveillance in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This is more than a technical collaboration—it’s a human rights crisis in the making as evidenced by data-driven targeting programs like Project Lavender and Where’s Daddy, which have reportedly led to detentions, killings, and the systematic oppression of journalists, healthcare workers, aid workers, and ordinary families. 

Transparency is not a luxury when human rights are at risk—it’s an ethical and legal obligation.

The consequences are serious. Vulnerable communities in Gaza and the West Bank suffer violations of their human rights, including their rights to privacy, freedom of movement, and free association, all of which can be fostered and furthered by pervasive surveillance. These documented violations underscore the ethical responsibility of Amazon and Google, whose technologies are at the heart of this surveillance scheme. 

Amazon and Google’s Promises

Amazon and Google have made public commitments to align with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and their own AI ethics frameworks. These frameworks are supposed to ensure that their technologies do not contribute to harm. But their silence on these pressing concerns speaks volumes, undermining trust in their supposed dedication to these principles and casting doubt on their sincerity.

Unanswered Letters, Unanswered Accountability

When we sent letters to Amazon and Google, it was with direct, actionable questions about their involvement in Project Nimbus. We asked for transparency about their contracts, clients, and risk assessments. We called for evidence that due diligence had been conducted and demanded explanations of the steps taken to prevent their technologies from facilitating abuse.

Our core demands were straightforward and tied directly to the company’s commitments:

  • Disclose the scope of their involvement in Project Nimbus.
  • Provide evidence of risk assessments tied to this project.
  • Explain how they are addressing credible reports of misuse.

Despite these reasonable and urgent requests, which are tied directly to the companies’ stated legal and ethical commitments, both companies have remained silent, and their silence isn’t just an insufficient response—it’s an alarming one.

Why Transparency Cannot Wait

Transparency is not a luxury when human rights are at risk—it’s an ethical and legal obligation. For both of these companies, it’s an obligation they have promised to the rest of us. For global companies that wield immense power, silence in the face of abuse is inexcusable.

The Fight for Accountability

EFF is making these letters public to highlight the human rights obligations Amazon and Google have undertaken and to raise reasonable questions they should answer in light of public reports about the misuse of their technologies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We aren’t the first ones to raise concerns, but, having raised these questions publicly, and now having given the companies a chance to clarify, we are increasingly concerned about their complicity.   

Google and Amazon have promised all of us—their customers and noncustomers alike—that they would take steps to ensure that their technologies support a future where technology empowers rather than oppresses. It’s increasingly clear that those promises are being ignored, if not entirely broken. EFF will continue to push for transparency and accountability.

Betty Gedlu

【おすすめ本】佐々木寛『市民エネルギーと地域主権 新潟｢おらって｣10年の挑戦』─水力発電への挑戦から政治改革へ＝鈴木耕(編集者)

日本ジャーナリストクラブ（JCJ）
2 weeks 4 days ago
　元気が出る本です！読んでいると、よし、オレもいっちょやってみるか！という気分になってくるから不思議だ。本書は「おらって」（新潟地方の方言で「私たち」と いう意味）にちなみ＜おらってにいがた市民エネルギー協議会＞と名付けたグループの活動を、やわらかくそして面白く記述したもの。　著者は新潟国際情報大学教授であり、国際政治学の研究者。あの2011年の福島原発事故の衝撃(それを著者は「第二の敗戦」と呼ぶ)から、エネルギーの民主化と地域主権を深く考えるようになり、地域循環共生圏という..
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