Joe Biden’s Love of Austerity Cut the Stimulus Bill in Half Jacobin

Dec 222020
 

We’re in the middle of a brutal pandemic during which millions are suffering. Yet according to the New York Times, Joe Biden actually moved to undercut progressives demanding greater economic aid in the stimulus negotiations, giving “Democrats confidence to pull back on their demands” — and surrender to Mitch McConnell. President-elect Joe Biden has endorsed an initiative to slash the stimulus bill in half. (@jlhervàs / Flickr) If there is any consistent through line in…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/12/joe-biden-austerity-stimulus-bill-cut-in-half-covid-19/

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Senator Tillis Releases Massive Unconstitutional Plan To Reshape The Internet In Hollywood’s Image Techdirt.

Dec 222020
 

Yesterday, Senator Thom Tillis helped ram through a gift for Hollywood: getting the felony streaming copyright bill that he’d only released a week earlier included in the must-pass omnibus funding bill despite literally no discussion or debate about the problems with the bill. This morning, he really doubled down. As announced last month, Tillis has now released a draft of his DMCA overhaul, which appears to be exactly what he had hinted at last month…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201222/09404045933/senator-tillis-releases-massive-unconstitutional-plan-to-reshape-internet-hollywoods-image.shtml

 2020-12-22  Comments Off on Senator Tillis Releases Massive Unconstitutional Plan To Reshape The Internet In Hollywood’s Image Techdirt.

This Disastrous Copyright Proposal Goes Straight to Our Naughty List Deeplinks

Dec 222020
 

Just yesterday we saw two wretched copyright bills-the CASE Act and a felony streaming bill — slipped into law via a must-pass spending bill. But it seems some people in Congress were just getting started. Today, Senator Thom Tillis launched a “discussion draft” of the so-called Digital Copyright Act. But there’s nothing to discuss: the bill, if passed, would absolutely devastate the Internet. We’ll have a more in-depth analysis of this draft bill later, but…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/disastrous-copyright-proposal-goes-straight-our-naughty-list

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Humane Trap-And-Removal Program Sedates Tenants So They Unconscious During Eviction The Onion

Dec 222020
 

ORLANDO, FL—Aiming to make the process of forcible displacement easier for all involved, a new humane trap-and-removal program being piloted by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office sedates apartment tenants so they are unconscious during an eviction, sources confirmed Friday. “Residents often become frightened and act…Read more…

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The Cosmologist Working to Preserve the Night Sky for the Future Motherboard

Dec 222020
 

As 2020 draws to a close, Dr. Aparna Venkatesan is struck by how her personal experience of grief—set against a year of collective mourning—has changed something fundamental in her life: the way she looks at the Moon. Venkatesan, a cosmologist at the University of San Francisco, lost her father in March; a man she described as “my lifelong best friend” and “one of my greatest allies” in a call. “I think all girls should have…

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Did ET Finally Call Us? Hackaday

Dec 222020
 

An Australian radio telescope picked up unusual signals back in 2019 and thinks they originated from Proxima Centauri, a scant 4.3 light years from our blue marble. Researchers caution that it almost certainly is a signal of human or natural origin and that more analysis will probably show it didn’t come from Proxima Centauri. But they can’t yet explain it. The research is from the Breakthrough Listen project, a decade-long SETI project. The 980 MHz…

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Congress (Once Again) Sells Out To Hollywood: Sneaks CASE Act And Felony Streaming Bill Into Government Funding Omnibus Techdirt.

Dec 222020
 

As we warned about earlier this month, it appears that Congress has in fact put two very controversial copyright provisions into the government funding “omnibus” bill that will be voted on later today. As you may have heard, last night Congress worked out a “deal” on both a $900 billion Covid relief/stimulus package and the giant $1.4 trillion omnibus government funding bill, which is being voted on today. There had been concerns raised all month…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201221/09573745928/congress-once-again-sells-out-to-hollywood-sneaks-case-act-felony-streaming-bill-into-government-funding-omnibus.shtml

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CBP’s Plan to Expand Face Surveillance at Airports is a Civil Liberties Disaster in the Making American Civil Liberties Union

Dec 222020
 

Over the last couple years, it’s become increasingly clear that facial recognition technology doesn’t work well, and would be a civil liberties and privacy nightmare even if it did. But that’s not stopping the Trump administration from moving forward with its dangerous plans to expand the technology’s use at U.S. airports and other ports of entry.U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has proposed a new rule that would massively expand the use of face surveillance…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/cbps-plan-to-expand-face-surveillance-at-airports-is-a-civil-liberties-disaster-in-the-making

 2020-12-22  Comments Off on CBP’s Plan to Expand Face Surveillance at Airports is a Civil Liberties Disaster in the Making American Civil Liberties Union