Tag Archives: Press

New Paper “Loopholes for Circumventing the Constitution”, the NSA Statement, and Our Response

This post was published on Freedom to Tinker on 11 July 2014.

CBS News and a host of other outlets have covered my new paper with Sharon Goldberg, Loopholes for Circumventing the Constitution: Warrantless Bulk Surveillance on Americans by Collecting Network Traffic Abroad. We’ll present the paper on July 18 at HotPETS [slides, pdf], right after a keynote by Bill Binney (the NSA whistleblower), and at TPRC in September. In the CBS piece, the NSA responds to our paper in a clever way that avoids addressing what our paper is actually about – here’s our reaction. Continue reading New Paper “Loopholes for Circumventing the Constitution”, the NSA Statement, and Our Response

‘Behind the Scenes of the Internet’: Participate in a Critical Engineering NETworkshop 5-8 July

Some time ago, I blogged about how the art projects of Critical Engineers Julian Oliver and Danja Vasiliev give us a provoking window pane on an increasingly technology-mediated world. I’m happy they will be keynoting on Information Influx, a three-day international conference the Institute for Information Law is putting together from 2-4 July in Amsterdam. Moreover, they will be giving another NETworkshop on 5-8 July in Amsterdam, promising no little than a peek ‘Behind the Scenes of the Internet’. There are still about three open slots  for anyone interested in this unique opportunity to join us in building and hacking the net from the ground (or, the command line) up. [UPDATE: the workshop is fully booked.] Continue reading ‘Behind the Scenes of the Internet’: Participate in a Critical Engineering NETworkshop 5-8 July

Opinie FD en Lezing Eerste Kamer: ‘Nederland als Internetdokter tussen Cybergrootmachten’

Op 6 mei mocht ik een bijdrage leveren aan de expertsessie ‘Cyberintelligence en Publiek Belang’ in de Eerste Kamer. Het ontwikkelen van inzicht in de Snowden-onthullingen stond daarin centraal. Het Financieel Dagblad publiceerde gisteren een bewerking van mijn lezing op de Opiniepagina. Klik op het plaatje hieronder om het stuk te lezen, waarin ik probeer in te gaan op welke rol voor Nederland is weggelegd nu we ons geconfronteerd zien met genetwerkte communicatie-omgeving van totale surveillance. De opinie is voor een breed publiek en daarom wat simpeler. De volledige tekst van mijn langere lezing heb ik daaronder integraal opgenomen. De lezing is wat anders van toon, want gericht aan senatoren, en bevat meer technische en juridische lagen.

UPDATE: Mede op basis van mijn lezing, heeft de Eerste Kamer een aantal moties aangenomen over privacy en security na Snowden.

Continue reading Opinie FD en Lezing Eerste Kamer: ‘Nederland als Internetdokter tussen Cybergrootmachten’

Interviewed by the Dutch Financial Times on the Collingridge Dilemma

The other day, the Dutch Financial Times published an interview with me on my ‘Brandende Kwestie’ (literal translation: burning issue). It was a great opportunity to raise awareness for something I’ve really wanted to talk about for a long time: the lack of meaningful societal debate and hidden agendas when new technologies or new government IT-projects are introduced.  Continue reading Interviewed by the Dutch Financial Times on the Collingridge Dilemma

Data Retention: Figurehead of Our Liberation?

Back in 2010, I wrote a long piece in Dutch for De Groene Amsterdammer about the deplorable state of the controversial EU Data Retention Directive evaluation. My point was that, instead of the prime example of our loss of fundamental rights, data retention might one day become the case in point of digital freedom vindicating over surveillance, once the Directive in one way or another is repealed or its inherent privacy violations seriously limited.   Continue reading Data Retention: Figurehead of Our Liberation?