Foreign governments are surveilling people through push notifications on Apple and Google devices, according to a letter sent to the Department of Justice by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Wednesday.

The Fourth Amendment secures our right to be secure against unreasonable searches, right?

Not anymore, explains Naomi Brockwell on her popular YouTube channel.

In my new video, she explains how tech companies spy on us and then sell our information to the government.

But some of us actually find that tech companies prying can be a good thing.

Neil Chilson of the Charles Koch Institute says, "It's not only good for the companies; it's good for the user because it makes for a much more seamless experience."

Hackers have been able to gain access to personal information from about 6.9 million users of genetic testing company 23andMe, using customers' old passwords.

In some cases this included family trees, birth years and geographic locations, the company said.

After weeks of speculation the firm has put a number on the breach, with more than half of its customers affected.

The stolen data does not include DNA records.

Google gives Apple a 36 percent cut of all search ad revenue that comes from Safari, according to University of Chicago professor Kevin Murphy. Google had fought to keep the number confidential, but Bloomberg reports that Murphy shared the figure while testifying in Google’s defense today at the Google antitrust trial.

Notorious video chat site Omegle — which was launched to link like-minded strangers but morphed into a cesspool for child predators — was shut down Thursday.

Founded in 2009 by a then 18-year-old Leif K-Brooks, the site has faced multiple allegations over the years of being a breeding ground for child pornography and sexual abuse of minors.

The decision to pull the plug comes a week after Omegle settled a $22 million lawsuit filed by the parents of an 11-year-old girl who was randomly matched with a since-convicted Canadian pedophile, according to the CBC.

If Americans are to address a rising tide of urban dysfunction and implement high-tech, smart cities, they must focus not only on digital technologies but also on the culture of digital citizenship.

That’s the prescription of Park Jung-sook, secretary-general of the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization, or WeGO, a global association of over 200 cities worldwide.

“Data is the blood of a smart city and data is generated by smart citizens,” Ms. Park says, “so the social contract is more important than ever.”

If war is the health of the state, as Randolph Bourne had it, then scaring the hell out of people is the health of the security state. Nothing scares people more than threats to wee ones, which is why "think of the children" is the go-to marketing hook for control-freak policies. And if children are involved in authoritarian schemes, you know that implicates public schools, which are the focus of a new report on surveillance and kids by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Surveillance Inside the Schoolhouse

On June 15, 2022, a freshman legislator in Louisiana’s House of Representatives accomplished something no other lawmaker or activist in the country could claim: She passed a law that is changing the online porn industry.

If you think this was the result of a bitter culture war battle, think again.

The European Union’s (EU) wide-ranging new digital privacy protection law went into effect on Friday (Aug. 25), ushering in a new era for Big Tech in Europe.

The slate of laws known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) is arguably the toughest series of tech privacy regulations in the world. It builds on last year’s Digital Markets Act, which focused on antitrust reform for major tech firms. The DSA’s priorities are different. Its laws are focused on individual user protection, and on preventing harmful content and misinformation from spreading across the web.

Imagine this nightmare scenario. An American citizen walking on American streets is arrested, detained, and questioned by a police officer who serves a hostile foreign government such as China, Russia, or Iran. The foreign cop might be a spy charged with keeping track of U.S.-based persons of interest on behalf of his government. This spy, who doubles as an American cop, has the power to act under American law, investigate U.S. residents, and even use lethal force, should he see fit.