Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be giving a talk at Tilburg University in the Netherlands on the topic of “A World Without Borders”. The Facebook event can be found here. February 25, 2015 Tilburg, Netherlands
Posts
Has the tide turned against the FCC’s plan for regulating the Internet?
By Yaël Ossowski / Watchdog.org / February 23, 2015 Whether the public knows it or not, the Internet is set to face its biggest transformation yet when the Federal Communications Commission meets in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. It’s at this meeting of the commissioners, cloaked in bureaucratic mystique, that FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is expected to present the Title II classification of Internet service providers….
Mark Cuban: FCC control of Internet ‘scares the sh*t out of me’
By Yaël Ossowski / Watchdog.org / February 20, 2015 The idea of the Federal Communications Commission regulating the Internet by way of net neutrality is not only a bad idea in Mark Cuban’s view, but it’s also literally scary. “Having them overseeing the Internet scares the sh*t out of me,” said Cuban at the Code/Media conference hosted in Laguna Niguel, Calif., on Wednesday, one of…
Racism in the 21st Century
I was recently asked about the “huge increase in racism” in the past few years. It’s a topic I’m normally faced with upon returning to North Carolina from abroad. Not sure why. It’s become a leading narrative for many political observers and it seems denotes something very bothersome about what is going on in society. I lived in North Carolina for 15 years and I…
States don’t want illegal immigrants, but could they need them?
By Yaël Ossowski / Watchdog.org / February 19, 2015 A coalition of 26 states fought and won a battle to freeze President Barack Obama’s deferred action plan to give temporary work visas to illegal immigrants with children born in the United States. Judge Andrew Hanen’s injunction order, issued Monday, makes certain eligible illegal immigrants won’t get permission from the federal government to seek lawful employment,…
Does the NSA have a spy in your hard drive?
A protestor holds up a sign at a rally against the NSA’s spying program. By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org | February 18, 2015 A Russian security firm claims to have uncovered a major tool used to rewrite hard drives and collect all stored information in potentially millions of computers and hard drives around the world. In a very technical post on its website, the Moscow-based…
Anonymous is hitting ISIS harder than any government could
By Yaël Ossowski / February 11, 2015 / Watchdog.org The hacking collective Anonymous is on the offensive yet again, striking the Islamic State’s many proactive social media users who use sites such as Twitter and Facebook to recruit for jihad terrorism. In a series of posts on the website Pastebin over the weekend, purported members of Anonymous vow to continue “Operation Ice ISIS,” taking down…
FCC commissioner: If you like the IRS, you’ll love net neutrality
By Yaël Ossowski / February 9, 2015 / Watchdog.org After years of dithering, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has at last deposited the formal proposal to reclassify Internet as a public utility and subject it to federal regulation, championed by proponents as “net neutrality.” Wheeler outlined the plan in an article for Wired magazine last week and it will be considered for a vote…
#JeSuisProsecuted: U.S. government sentences journalist Barret Brown
JAILED: Journalist Barrett Brown will face 5 years jail time for charges relating to the hack of a private intelligence firm. By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org His name is Barrett Brown. He is a journalist with active author archives on websites such as the Guardian, Vanity Fair magazine, Huffington Post and more, going back to 2009. But since 2012 he has been in jail, awaiting his…
Mercenary in Ukraine and the State of Permanent Contradiction
Is this American (or Anglo) mercenary in Marioupol, Ukraine fighting the Russian-backed separatists? Or protecting the Ukrainian state forces? Who hired him? Is he Blackwater? The Russians say one thing, the Ukrainians another, and so many people don’t know what to think. Whether it’s Putin, the EU, Cameron, or Obama, I agree with Adam Curtis: This “strategy of creating confusing and contradictory political and media…