Josh Paniagua
In the nationwide panic after the September 11th attacks, the US government introduced the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. Most people know it as the USA Patriot Act.
While this bill may have brought comfort to paranoid suburban families that were convinced that squads of terrorists were lurking around their neighborhood, it also paved a paper path for a new era of mass surveillance.
By Josh Paniagua
In November 2012, Pakistani officials announced their plans for mandatory biometric registration for all mobile devices. Now, after a lengthy delay, the policy is now being enforced on all 136 million mobile subscribers in Pakistan.
In what appears to be the hastiest gathering of biometric verification in history, millions of Pakistanis are forming massive lines outside of their mobile provider outlets waiting to register their fingerprints with their SIM card.
Josh Paniagua
On Tuesday morning, I woke up to news of a Berkeley City Council meeting that would pass or reject a 2-year moratorium on the use of drones by the city happening later in the afternoon. By the evening, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that City Council had indeed passed a one-year ban on police drones and referred recommendations on remodeling community-police relations to the city manager.
During the 1-year suspension, City Council has pledged to work toward developing appropriate policies regarding city use of unmanned aircraft. While this may come as good news to some, vice chair of Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission Robert Meola was a bit disappointed.
