Congress approves COVID-19 spending bill with contentious copyright measures

US Congress has finally passed a new spending bill with COVID-19 relief measures, which on the one hand is good news for many Americans. As often happens with crucial legislation, however, lawmakers tacked on some extra legislation, including a contr...

Federal judge rules suspicionless device searches at the border are illegal

Civil liberties advocates just scored an important victory in a bid to prevent arbitrary device searches at the US border. A federal court handling a 2017 lawsuit has ruled that US policies allowing device searches without valid suspicion or warrant...

Google, Reddit execs to speak at House hearing on internet moderation

American politicians have been questioning whether internet companies should be held liable for the content they allow, and two of those companies will soon address those concerns directly. Two House subcommittees are holding a joint online content...

Sex, lies, and surveillance: Something’s wrong with the war on sex trafficking

Silicon Valley's biggest companies have partnered with a single organization to fight sex trafficking -- one that maintains a data collection pipeline, is partnered with Palantir, and helps law enforcement profile and track sex workers without their...

How sex censorship killed the internet we love

When was the last time you thought of the internet as a weird and wonderful place? I can feel my anxiety climbing as I try to find current news stories about sex. Google News shows one lonely result for "porn," an article that is 26 days old. I log...

Maria Butina: Cybersecurity charlatan, spy

Russian spy Maria Butina's cover story was her academic interest and expertise in cybersecurity. As cover stories go, this unfortunately wasn't a hard one to pull off. Except anyone holding even the barest minimum of cybersecurity knowledge could've...