READ

la-ca-jc-james-lasdun

James Lasdun recounts being stalked via the Internet. But he shows his own blind spots, especially when his story turns toward Israel. When someone crawls over Madonna's garden wall or breaks into Brad Pitt's house, it's unpleasant but not unexpected: the price of fame, if also prosecutable. Imagine, though, if in the course of your everyday, ...

New Wikileaks E-mail Dump Shows Wasted Drone Efforts

It’s been a big week for national security controversies in Washington. On Wednesday, a confidential Justice Department memo acquired by NBC made waves for its justification for the extrajudicial killing by a drone of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen suspected of association with al-Qaeda. Thursday, protesters stormed CIA director nominee John Brennan’s Senate confirmation, upset over the White House’s [...]

Read the full article →

Washington State Residents Say “No!” to Police Surveillance Drones

Last February, President Obama signed a bill allowing up to 30,000 police drones to be flown by police departments and the Department of Homeland Security within the United States to keep an eye on “we the people.” On the heels of the “Occupy” protests, the Seattle police department became one of the first 50 agencies in [...]

Read the full article →

Affidavit Indicates FBI Targeted Anarchists for Being Anarchists

crypto-anarchism

The newest document released in the Pacific Northwest Grand Jury case reveals the federal government’s criminalization of anarchists. On January 30, a redacted affidavit was unsealed by order of Judge Richard Jones. The affidavit can be found Redacted Warrant. Throughout the document Geoffrey Maron, an FBI Special Agent assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, [...]

Read the full article →

First American Anarchist Sought Freedom Through Retail

Americans in the early republic struggled to adjust as traditional relations of exchange and autonomy were transformed by new realities of markets, wages and growing inequality. For each citizen who thrived in these conditions there were many more who failed to adjust. Everyone responded differently. But few rose to the moment as brilliantly, or as [...]

Read the full article →

UK: Surveillance Devices to Monitor Web Traffic

eye

The U.K. plans to install an unspecified number of spy devices along the country’s telecommunications network to monitor Britons’ use of overseas services such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a report published Tuesday by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. The devices — referred to as “probes” in the report — are meant to underpin [...]

Read the full article →

A pataphysical education.

A Fortnightly Review of ‘Pataphysics: A Useless Guide Andrew Hugill MIT Press 2012 | 296 pp | £17.95 $24.95 By Paul Cohen. Bien ‘pataphysic à vous! SINCE ‘PATAPHYSICS IS still not a household word after more than a century, at least in the Anglophone world, some background would no doubt be appropriate. ‘Pataphysics is the [...]

Read the full article →

Giving Voice to Novel eBook Experience, The Silent History

The silent epidemic began in the year 2011. Children around the world were born without the ability to learn language. They didn’t babble as babies. They didn’t speak as they grew older. They couldn’t understand what their parents were saying. They seemed to show no interest in using language at all. Parents became frustrated, trying [...]

Read the full article →

Forty public universities will offer free online courses with full credit starting this spring

In an unusual arrangement with a commercial company, dozens of public universities plan to offer an introductory online course free and for credit to anyone worldwide, in the hope that those who pass will pay tuition to complete a degree program. The universities — including Arizona State, the University of Cincinnati and the University of [...]

Read the full article →

First Toy Multiverse Created in a Laboratory, Say Physicists

ferrofluid

Researchers exploit the strange properties of a liquid metamaterial to watch Minkowski spacetimes leap in out and of existence Metamaterials are synthetic substances with nanoscale structures that manipulate light. This ability to steer photons makes them the enabling technology behind invisibility cloaks and has generated intense interest from researchers. The ability to guide light has [...]

Read the full article →

In Egypt, anarchists carry the revolution forward

The media may be puzzled by the emergence of anarchists in Tahrir, but the truth is that anarchism was behind the insurrectionary impulse from the start.   When tens of thousands of Egyptians swarmed back into Tahrir Square on Friday to commemorate and continue the revolution that started two years ago, a remarkable and unexpected [...]

Read the full article →

Pissed Off Scientists: Earth Is Fucked, Commence Resistance Now

Why Earth and Atmospheric Scientists Are Swearing Up a Storm and Getting Arrested. Many of us have wondered at some point in almost precisely these terms: “Is Earth Fucked?” But it’s not the sort of frank query you expect an expert in geomorphology to pose to his colleagues as the title of a formal presentation [...]

Read the full article →

The Rebel Who Whipped His Mother

invisible_armies

  All this week, the Volokh Conspiracy is kindly allowing me to run excerpts from my newly released book, Invisible Armies: an Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Modern Day. Today’s section concerns Shamil, the great Muslim leader who fought Russian occupation of Chechnya and Dagestan in the 19th century. The [...]

Read the full article →

The ‘privacy visor’ that stops surveillance in its tracks

Worried about the rising amount of surveillance tools used in the West? Perhaps a pair of these visors will calm your fears.   It’s not just police and governmental departments that are known for using surveillance and tracking technology. Security cameras double-up as data harvesters, bars and pubs track people for use with mobile device [...]

Read the full article →

A ‘Black Bloc’ Emerges in Egypt

black-bloc

click to enlarge While using Twitter to narrate events in Tahrir Square on Friday, people in Egypt described tires burning in the street, protesters blocking traffic and hurling rocks, and police officers launching tear gas in an effort to break up crowds that had gathered to protest against the Muslim Brotherhood and the country’s new [...]

Read the full article →

Thrill-Seeking Beats Take the Scenic Route

‘On the Road,’ Directed by Walter Salles First the good news: America the Beautiful has rarely looked more ripe for exploration than it does in “On the Road,” a noble attempt by the Brazilian director Walter Salles (“The Motorcycle Diaries,” “Central Station”) to capture literary lightning in a bottle. With spacious skies stretching endlessly over [...]

Read the full article →

Congress Makes It Illegal To Unlock Smartphones Starting Tomorrow

Owning a smartphone is handy, but owning an unlocked smartphone is even better. Without ties to a specific carrier, users can take their devices overseas and have their choice of service providers. When at home in the States, these users can walk tall, knowing that no carrier has absolute control over their device. And while [...]

Read the full article →

Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown faces new charges

Barrett Brown, a self-proclaimed spokesman for Anonymous, has been hit with new charges by authorities in Texas for concealing evidence. It’s the third round of charges in a case that his former attorney describes as an attempt to silence the outspoken and provocative activist. “Clearly they’re more worried about what they perceive as his egging [...]

Read the full article →