April, 02 2018, 09:45am EDT
Privacy, Civil Liberties, and Human Rights Groups Launch Groundbreaking "Security Pledge" Campaign In Wake of Facebook Data Scandal
Tech and legal experts propose concrete steps tech companies can take to ensure their products are not used to undermine democracy.
WASHINGTON
A group of prominent privacy, civil liberties, and human rights organizations have launched SecurityPledge.com, a major new campaign calling on tech companies to take concrete steps to protect their users in the wake of widely reported abuses like the harvesting and manipulation of Facebook data conducted by Cambridge Analytica. The site asks Internet users to add their name to an open letter calling on tech companies to take the data security pledge and make needed changes to ensure their users' data isn't used against them.
"Tech companies need to change," reads the headline on the site, backed by the 18 Million Rising, the American Civil Liberties Union, Demand Progress, Coworker, Color of Change, Fight for the Future, and Sum of Us, grassroots groups that represent millions of people. The pledge outlines a detailed set of technological and policy commitments that tech companies must make in order to "ensure the Internet is used to expand democracy, not undermine it."
Specifically, the pledge calls for companies to:
- Limit the amount of data they collect in the first place, and give users control over how it is shared.
- Offer end-to-end encryption by default to ensure that users' communications are protected from corporate and government surveillance
- Provide users with full transparency about what data is collected, how it is used, and what measures are in place to prevent it from being abused.
- Support legislation and policy reforms that limit government access to user data except with a warrant and judicial oversight.
The organizations behind the campaign will encourage users to flock to services that have taken these steps and avoid those that haven't until they do.
"The internet can be made a tool for transformational change for the better," said David Segal, Executive Director of Demand Progress, "but it can also be used for the extraction of sensitive private information and manipulation towards the benefit of large corporations or for social control by governments. The major online platforms are facing a reckoning: How they respond in this moment will help determine whether the utopian vision that inspired so many internet pioneers and users stands a chance of becoming a reality, or whether companies will ignore the public interest turn the internet against its users towards the end of private benefit."
"This is a watershed moment for the Internet," said Evan Greer, Deputy Director of Fight for the Future (pronouns: she/her), Millions of people now understand how their data can be weaponized and used against them, and they are demanding change. Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of the iceberg, and this problem doesn't begin and end with Facebook. If the largest tech companies take the steps outlined in the security pledge, it will change the course of human history for the better, and protect billions of people's basic rights."
"It's time that companies take steps to ensure that using their products doesn't mean that users have to sacrifice their rights," said Neema Singh Guliani, ACLU legislative counsel. "The way companies treat data can affect whether you are wrongly excluded from job or housing ads because of your gender, targeted for dubious financial products, or have your security compromised. Many companies have for too long ignored their obligation to treat data responsibly, prevent information from being used to discriminate, and provide users' full control over how it is handled."
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
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Sanders: 'The Netanyahu Gov't Should Not Receive Another Penny from US'
The bill passed the Senate in a 74-24 vote at 2:03AM
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Following the passing of the U.S. government appropriations bill early Saturday morning, Senator Bernie Sanders said:
I voted NO on the appropriations bill that the Senate passed last night. While hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children face starvation in Gaza, this bill actually prohibits funding to UNWRA, the key United Nations aid agency delivering life-saving humanitarian support. This will only intensify the already horrific situation in Gaza. This bill also provides another $3.3 billion in U.S. military aid for Netanyahu’s right-wing government to continue this barbaric war. The Netanyahu government should not receive another penny from U.S. taxpayers.
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As India's right-wing government cracks down on opposition ahead of next month's general elections, Amnesty International on Friday urged authorities to "stop weaponizing the criminal justice system to intimidate and harass" political candidates, activists, and others.
Protests broke out in the capital New Delhi and other Indian cities after police on Thursday arrested Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, an opposition leader from the Aam Aadmi Party, over corruption allegations AAP members say are politically motivated. Two other AAP leaders were previously arrested in connection with the same case, which involves the alleged favoring of certain alcohol vendors and illegal campaign financing.
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“They want to know we are corrupt like them, which is not the case.” – AAP chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar on the BJP’s crackdown on opposition politicians.
AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal was arrested just today on charges of corruption.
The India Report: https://t.co/rxPr6zKnWx pic.twitter.com/P3eSbxVTVm
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 21, 2024
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"The authorities have repeatedly exploited and weaponized various financial and terrorism laws to systematically crack down on human rights defenders, activists, critics, nonprofit organizations, journalists, students, academics, and political opposition," Patel added. "The arrest of Arvind Kejriwal and the freezing of Indian National Congress' bank accounts a few weeks before India holds its general elections show the authorities' blatant failure to uphold the country's international human rights obligations."
Patel continued:
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"House Republicans had a bad day," said one reporter, listing challenges and changes to leadership as a government shutdown looms.
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The U.S. House of Representatives started a two-week recess on Friday, but not before a series of events that provoked fresh declarations of what has become a familiar phrase over the past few years: "Republicans in disarray."
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Meanwhile, far-right Republicans like Texas Congressman Chip Roy have made comments like, "Everyone that I know and trust about the border, about overall spending, see it as a complete and total failure and a capitulation by Republicans. And leadership worked the deal, so it's on leadership."
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) not only opposed the package but also filed a motion to vacate, hoping to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)—which would only require a simple majority if it came up for a vote.
The \u201cRepublican-controlled\u201d House just passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill that doesn\u2019t secure our border, but funds full term abortion and trans ideology on our youth.\n\nI filed a Motion to Vacate because the House needs a Speaker who\u2019s able to win for Republicans and our\u2026— (@)
House Republicans elected Johnson to the leadership role in late October, after ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)—who then opted to leave office at the end of last year—and rejecting three other candidates for the post: Reps. Tom Emmer (D-Minn.), Steve Scalise (R-La.), and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Noting that Greene filed a regular motion rather than a privileged one, meaning it could be referred to a committee, "where it would likely languish," NBC Newsreported Friday:
Greene told reporters that her motion to vacate was "more of a warning than a pink slip," saying she does not want to "throw the House into chaos," like the three and a half weeks that the chamber was without a speaker when McCarthy, her close ally, was ousted.
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also responded dismissively when questioned about Greene's motion on Friday, tellingPunchbowl News, "She's a joke."
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