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Category Archives: Civil Liberties

The Four Quadrants of American Politics

The Atlantic: “Control of the House of Representatives could teeter precariously for years as each party consolidates its dominance over mirror-image demographic strongholds. That’s the clearest conclusion of a new analysis of the demographic and economic characteristics of all 435 congressional districts, conducted by the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California in conjunction with The Atlantic. Based on census data, the analysis finds that Democrats now hold a commanding edge over the GOP in seats where the share of residents who are nonwhite, the share of white adults with a college degree, or both, are higher than the level in the nation overall. But Republicans hold a lopsided lead in the districts where the share of racial minorities and whites with at least a four-year college degree are both lower than the national level—and that is the largest single bloc of districts in the House…

Nearly three-fourths of House Democrats represent districts where the share of white adults with a college degree exceeds the national level of 36 percent. More than three-fourths of Republicans hold districts where the share of white college graduates trails the national level…”

Visualizing Political Bias in Bicameral Legislatures

The Economist – See the visualization here: “Left-of-centre Americans often bemoan their country’s Senate, in which each state gets two seats regardless of population. This has always given the least populous states extra sway in the upper chamber of Congress. But in recent years, smaller states have become more Republican, and Democrats have called for… Continue Reading

TSA confirms plans to mandate mug shots for domestic air travel

Papers Please: “In an on-stage interview [March 14, 2023] at South By Southwest by a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, the head of the US Transportation Security Administration made explicit that the TSA plans to make collection of biometric data mandatory for airline travel: According to a report in [March 15, 2023] of the… Continue Reading

Understanding Antisemitism on Twitter After Musk

“New research from CASM Technology and ISD has found a major and sustained spike in antisemitic posts on Twitter since the company’s takeover by Elon Musk on October 27, 2022. Powered by the award-winning digital analysis technology Beam – and based on a powerful hate speech detection methodology combining over twenty leading machine-learning models –… Continue Reading

Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine to the Human Rights Council

President of Human Rights Council appoints members of investigative body in Ukraine English | 30 March 2022 Infographic – Main Findings – Report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, March 2023 War crimes, indiscriminate attacks on infrastructure, systematic and widespread torture show disregard for civilians, says UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine… Continue Reading

The Atlantic: “The Librarians Are Not Okay”

The Librarians Are Not Okay – “…The graduate degree for librarians is not, typically, a master of arts, but a master of science—in library and information sciences. Librarians may adore books, but they are trained in the technical and data-driven work of running libraries. Unlike a privately owned bookstore, where the stock might reflect the… Continue Reading

Hate crimes in U.S. rose to highest level in 2021, FBI says

Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime Data Explorer: “Hate Crime data for the nation are derived from National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and Summary Reporting System (SRS) reports voluntarily submitted to the FBI. The 2021 FBI Hate Crime statistics for the nation are based on data received from 11,883 of 18,812 law enforcement agencies in the… Continue Reading

Only 14 countries have full equal rights for women

World Economic Forum: “There are only 14 countries in the world which offer full legal protections to women, according to the report Women, Business and the Law 2023, recently published by the World Bank. Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Sweden as well as Germany and the Netherlands were… Continue Reading

Freedom in the World 2023

Freedom House – Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy – Key Findings Global freedom declined for the 17th consecutive year.  Moscow’s war of aggression led to devastating human rights atrocities in Ukraine. New coups and other attempts to undermine representative government destabilized Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Peru, and Brazil. Previous years’ coups and ongoing… Continue Reading

Inside the Suspicion Machine

Wired: “Obscure government algorithms are making life-changing decisions about millions of people around the world. Here, for the first time, we reveal how one of these systems works…Machine learning algorithms like Rotterdam’s are being used to make more and more decisions about people’s lives, including what schools their children attend, who gets interviewed for jobs,… Continue Reading

The privacy loophole in your doorbell

Politico: “…As networked home surveillance cameras become more popular, Larkin’s case, which has not previously been reported, illustrates a growing collision between the law and people’s own expectation of privacy for the devices they own — a loophole that concerns privacy advocates and Democratic lawmakers, but which the legal system hasn’t fully grappled with. Questions… Continue Reading