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Jul 10, 2018

George Joseph: Palantir and the Police (Ep. 145)

Palantir and the police have joined forces in Los Angeles to crunch the city's suspect database. George Joseph joined Joe Miller to discuss what this means for local communities and individuals who are disproportionately targeted by surveillance.

Bio

George Joseph (@GeorgeJoseph94) is criminal justice reporgter at The Appeal. Formerly, he was a reporting fellow at Demos focusing on surveillance, immigration, law enforcement, and the entry of big data in criminal justice systems. His work has appeared in outlets such as The Guardian, NPR, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Verge, Slate, and CityLab.

Resources

The Appeal

The LAPD Has a New Surveillance Formula, Powered by Palantir by George Joseph

 

Trump nominates Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court

President Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The Washington Post’s Ann Marimow reports that even though Kavanaugh clerked for the justice he would replace—Justice Anthony Kennedy—Kavanaugh’s ideology is far to the right of Kennedy’s, and he has a broad view when it comes to presidential authority. For example, in his 12 years as a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Kavanaugh has supported military tribunals for terrorism suspects and restructuring the consumer financial protection bureau. As far as tech is concerned, Kavanaugh issued a dissent in the case that upheld the FCC’s 2015 net neutrality rules, arguing that Congress did not provide the FCC with clear statutory authority to issue the rules. Kavanaugh needs just 50 votes to be confirmed by the Senate.

Trump’s trade war

China’s Commerce Ministry on Friday accused Trump of using bullying tactics to launch “the biggest trade war in economic history”, after the White House began implementing a 25% tariff against Chinese goods, which will cost China an estimated $34 billion, according to CNN. China retaliated with another $34 billion worth of tariffs against American produce. The tech sector decries Trump’s tariffs, with ITI’s Josh Kallmer saying they would harm American consumers and businesses. Trump may have another $16 billion worth of tariffs coming against China later this month.

Facebook faces more scrutiny

As if the scrutiny of Facebook couldn’t get any worse, the FBI, Securities and Exchange Commission, and Federal Trade Commission will now join the wide-ranging investigation into how it and Cambridge Analytica shared the data of 71 million Americans in 2015. The investigation is trying, among other things, to understand more about why Facebook failed to disclose its data-sharing practices.

It was also reported last week that Facebook suffered another mishap in late May and early June in which a bug caused it to temporarily unblock accounts that some 800,000 users had previously blocked. The company also came under fire for deleting a post containing references to “Indian savages”—it turns out the post was an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence—so Facebook apologized for that as well.  Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg has surpassed Warren Buffet for the third spot on the list of the world’s richest people. Zuck is work $81.6 billion—behind Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

Inspector General: DC Metro susceptible to cyberattack

The DC Metro is susceptible to cyberattack, according to a leaked Inspector General’s report that was presented to Metro’s board of directors last month. The report cites vulnerabilities that threaten Metro’s rail traffic control systems, gas and fire sensors, the power grid, station ventilation, an voice and data communications. Martine Powers reports in the Washington Post.

Report: Amazon still selling Nazi paraphernalia

Amazon is still selling Nazi paraphernalia, according to a new report by the Partnership for Working Families and the Action Center on Race & the Economy. The report listed a swastika pendant, cross burning baby onesie for girls, stickers and decals, and even music among the products. Amazon had promised last year to stop selling items featuring the Confederate flag but the company was found to have kept a lot of those products active.

Twitter deleted 70 million accounts in May and June

Finally, Twitter deleted 70 million fake accounts and bots in May and June this year, according to the Washington Post. This would significantly reduce Twitter’s user base, but lately the social media company has been increasing its usership, which has led to more investment in the company. The Washington Post reports that Twitter has been deleting accounts at the same rate in July.