Analysis ← Joshua Foust

How do you fix a problem like the NSA? 2

Jun

2013

So now that we’ve all established that the NSA indiscriminately collecting data on Americans is not acceptable, how do we fix it? The answer, I suspect, is not as simple as “just don’t collect on us.” As I explained at length yesterday, we the people, through our elected representatives in Congress, demanded that the NSA collect ...

Nine Dashed-Off Points on the NSA “Scandal” 39

Jun

2013

Ugh, the NSA “scandal” is already hurting my brain. The stupid burns! So here’s what you need to know about it: 1. Congress voted to legalize expansive surveillance powers in 2001 (The USA PATRIOT ACT), 2008 (retroactive immunity for warantless NSA wiretaps in the FISA Amendments Act), and in 2012 (renewing the FISA Amendments Act). ...

Technology Bans Don’t Work

May

2013

Yesterday the UN Human Rights Council debated whether to preemptively ban the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems — that is, platforms like drones that can decide on their own whether to use force or not. 26 states, including the special rapporteur, all said this sort of technology is so morally abhorrent, even its development ...

The Future and Its Discontents

May

2013

Evgeny Morozov has what can only be called another Morozovian review of some high-minded utopia book in the New Republic. This time, rather than turning his attention on the intellectual scourge of Parag Khanna’s TED Talk, he turns his attention to something a bit more familiar to all of us: Google. Specifically, Morozov reviews the new ...

Human Agency and the Moral Imperative of Robot Warfare

May

2013

There have been a number of responses to my FP article on robot autonomy and warfare — some serious, some laughably unserious. Among the more serious and considered is Jay Adler. Writing for The Algemeiner, he brings up the biggest and, I think, most serious objection to increasing automation in warfare: human agency. He also, perhaps ...

Deconstructing a DC Op-Ed

May

2013

I write op-eds for a living, more or less, though I like to tell myself that what I do is more analytic and researched than simply slinging around an opinion. That being said, there is a specific genre of op-ed writing, one meant to float trial balloons for policymakers while propping up the influence and ...

Russia’s Civil Society Crackdown Should Raise Concerns

Apr

2013

This post is adapted from UN Dispatch. One week ago, Russian journalist Mikhail Beketov died from heart failure while choking on a piece of food during lunch. He was badly traumatized five years ago when assailants beat him so badly that several fingers and one of his legs had to be amputated. He was confined to a wheelchair. ...

“Power” Is Ending. Celebrate!

Apr

2013

Moisés Naím laments the end of traditional power. Insurgents, fringe political parties, innovative start-ups, hackers, loosely organized activists, upstart citizen media outlets, leaderless young people in city squares, and charismatic individuals who seem to have “come from nowhere” are shaking up the old order. These are the micropowers: small, unknown, or once-negligible actors who have found ...

Proportionality and Discrimination: How the Drone Debate Misses the Point

Apr

2013

April is, apparently, to be a month of protest against drones. The protesters, working off the assumption that drones are indiscriminate killing robots, plan to build public opposition to the aircraft through nation-wide protest events at various cities and even a few drone manufacturers. These protesters, however, will run up against two very big problems ...

America’s Incoherent Petro-Diplomacy

Mar

2013

Pakistan is going ahead with its natural gas pipeline to Iran, part of Islamabad’s larger project of cooperating with Tehran on energy issues. The executives in charge insist that, despite the pipeline going through restive Baluchistan, the project is nevertheless viable. The U.S. feels otherwise, and is arraying a number of hostile responses. None of ...