I’ve got a long double review up at Ars of two of privacy scholar Dan Solove’s recent books, one a more abstract and theoretical examination of the concept of privacy in American law, the second more of a case study of how the Internet and social media are making it harder to control our identities [...]

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I figure my blog readers, even the ones not normally super enamored of the techy stuff, might be interested in this story at Ars about a fascinating case that doesn’t seem to have gotten a whole lot of coverage.  It involves Echostar, the parent company of DISH Network, suing a firm that manufactures “free to [...]

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Remember waaaay back when I did that vlog interview with Doug Wolk about his fantastic book Reading Comics?  Well, we actually had a pretty long and (I thought) interesting conversation, only a few minutes of which ultimately made it into that vlog.  And with Reading Comics having picked up an Eisner over the summer, it [...]

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I know there’s a measure of FISA-exhaustion out there, but it’s worth keeping an eye on the looming constitutional fight over the FISA Amendments Act—or, as I prefer to call it, in homage to the epic rivalry between James Tiberius Kirk and Khan Noonien Singh: “FISAAA!“  I’ve got a writeup at Ars with a summary [...]

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What I thought would be a quick writeup of a press conference announcing a new wiretap suit ballooned into a rather lengthy analysis of the surprisingly tricky quesition of when a communication is “intercepted” or “acquired” by a government device. Check it out at Ars. The rest of the writing I’ve been doing there this [...]

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At least not every old piece is wince-inducing.  A vanity-Google this morning turned up a blogger linking to this old Reason piece on “judicial tyranny”—which I’m still surprisingly happy with, given that I think I’d knocked it out so quickly I had forgotten about it. One of the rare cases where I still like the [...]

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So it turns out that I’m going to be on a panel of journalists assigned to pepper Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr with questions at a National Press Club event tomorrow, which will focus on privacy and civil liberties issues. Festivities kick of at noon; come check it out.

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Hey folks, sorry posting has been so light. (Well, nonexistent) Between the new gig at Ars and a move to a new apartment (without Internet for another week—thanks Comcast!) there hasn’t been a ton of time for posting.  But here’s what I’ve been getting up to at Ars: Secretive surveillance court rejects plea for transparency [...]

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I’m mostly scribbling over at The Economist today if you’re hungry for Sanchez.

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I’ve got a writeup at Ars Technica of an important ruling in yesterday in a suit against the government stemming from extralegal NSA wiretapping. Short version: Yes, FISA really is the “exclusive means” by which the government can do foreign intelligence wiretaps in the U.S., assertions of magical “inherent authority” notwithstanding. And no, you can’t [...]

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