News & Commentary

There are seven billion people in the world, and 95 percent of them live outside the United States. We know from dozens of revelations from the last year that few, if any, are immune from the watchful eyes of the National Security Agency.

I’ve always found radar speed signs to be interesting indicators of our relationship with technology, and I think how we relate to these signs can tell us something about privacy and technology.

As an academic, it’s my job to be a skeptic. 

When Congress, the courts, and the American people disagree with you, it's probably time to re-think your position.

In 2008, Barack Obama, then a U.S. senator, realized that if an important surveillance law were to pass, Americans’ right to privacy in their international communications would be (in the later words of the Department of Justice) “significantly diminished, if not completely eliminated.”

Listening to Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) speak is like having a real life history lesson. Mr. Conyers is the second-longest serving member of Congress, having been in office for nearly 50 years.  After participating in the March on Washington in 1963, he entered Congress in the middle of the fight for civil rights and, as a leading civil rights activist himself, has played a key role in passing, protecting and expanding the our nation’s most vital civil rights laws.

The Washington Post recently ran some amazing articles on the safety record of drones. The three-part series focuses on the more than 400 large U.S. military drones that have crashed overseas, domestic U.S. crashes of military drones inside and outside military airspace, and the record of incidents of small drones coming dangerously close to civilian aircraft within the United States. Fortunately nobody has been killed in any crashes yet, but it all makes for gripping reading.

Since the Supreme Court ruled that Hobby Lobby can deny contraceptive coverage to its female employees, a lot of people have questions about what that ruling means for women. While there are still some question marks, here are five things you need to know:

The clock is ticking.  With just four months until Election Day, we’re fighting to stop four voter suppression measures that would keep Americans from casting their ballots.