The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) sent shockwaves through the prisoner rights community in April when it announced a new policy forbidding inmates from participating in social media. The memo, distributed in English and Spanish within prisons, read:
[O]ffenders are prohibited from maintaining active social media accounts...

Last month we submitted comments to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), an agency within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, opposing its proposal to gather social media handles from foreign visitors from Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries. CBP recently provided its preliminary responses (“Supporting Statement”) to several...

On September 14, Ask Your Representative to Oppose the TPP

It's now or never for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). It's almost certain that if the TPP can't pass during the lame duck session of Congress in its present form before the new President takes office, it...

Edward Snowden’s 2013 release of once-secret documents about U.S. intelligence surveillance of the private communications of Americans and non-U.S. persons focused much-needed attention on the problem of how to control the burgeoning U.S. surveillance-industrial complex.
But while the USA Freedom Act began to limit national security surveillance to...

Let’s Send a Message to the FCC: Consumers, Not Hollywood, Should Drive the Pay TV Market

The FCC is about to make a decision about whether third-party companies can market their own alternatives to the set-top boxes provided by cable companies. Under the proposed rules, instead...

Imagine: you're a programmer who loves to code. You're studying at college, but you're also working as a freelance web developer. In what spare time you have, you polish and release your best work under an open source license, for the world to use. Your father has grown sick and...