Safe Tech For Schools uploaded this video of Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein saying, "We Should Not Be Subjecting Children's Brains To Wi-Fi Screens In Schools. It's Not OK."

Ars Technica reported that last week that Illinois is the latest state to require law enforcement officials to seek court approval before deploying cell-site simulators, so-called "Stingray" devices, which can locate and track a person’s cell phone without their knowledge. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the “Citizen Privacy Protection Act,” with law enforcement officials forced to, “include a description of the nature and capabilities of the cell site simulator device to be used and the manner and method of its deployment, including whether the cell site simulator device will obtain data from non-target communications devices.” The law also makes law enforcement immediately delete any information collected about others, non- "targets." Some stingrays can intercept calls and text messages, others just collect metadata, and they can collect all sorts of records near their location, including criminals, and folks just passing by. California, Washington, Virginia, Minnesota, and Utah mandate a warrant for use of the devices, and the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice last year created new policies that require a warrant for stingray use in most cases.

Human Rights Watch reported that the Turkish government last week shut down 23 radio stations and 16 television channels under the State of Emergency law. All together, 131 newspapers, news agencies, publishers, television, and radio stations were forced to close July 27, in a backlash from the conservative government after the recent failed military coup. “The government crackdown is on media outlets and journalists it accuses of being linked to the Fethullah Gülen movement, which it blames for the foiled military coup,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director at Human Rights Watch. “In the absence of any evidence of their role or participation in the violent attempt to overthrow the government, we strongly condemn this accelerated assault on the media, which further undermines Turkey’s democratic credentials.” The government also arrested many individual journalists, according to the group.

Here's the relevant piece of transcript, from 2015: https://t.co/yVbzyziDHF pic.twitter.com/wXh3Hunx1I

— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) July 25, 2016

There's lots of talk in the news about whether Russian hackers broke into a Democratic computer, copied a lot of information and internal communications, and sent it to Wikileaks to disrupt the Presidential election in the United States. Wikileaks denies that is true, President Obama has said anything is possible, and Donald Trump on July 27 spoke about how a foreign country hacking and releasing emails to affect the outcome of an election was a good thing. Last year, The New York Times included a long story about how Russia employed trolls posting hoaxes and conspiracy theories, heavily-produced YouTube videos, fake Wikipedia entries, and using tens of thousands of bogus social media accounts to alter discourse on topics affecting Russia worldwide. The Times writer, Adrian Chen, said in a podcast released with the story that, "I created this list of the Russian trolls I was researching. And I check on it once in awhile, still. And a lot of them have turned into conservative accounts, like fake conservatives. I don't know what is going on, but they're all tweeting about Donald Trump and stuff." So you don't need to believe the Wikileaks story to think that the Russian government is attempting to influence this presidential election. Chen said, "I feel like maybe it's some kind of really opaque strategy of electing Donald Trump, to undermine the U.S., or something. Like a false flag kind-of thing. You know, that's how I started thinking about this stuff after being in Russia."

The New York Times reported last week that the Federal Communications Commission will trust a foreign company, Ericsson, to route billions of U.S. cellphone calls and text messages. A New Jersey subsidiary of Ericsson, Telcordia, presented the lowest bid, to manage the system that American company Neustar has since the 1990s. The Times reports that several months ago Telcordia used a small number of foreign nationals, including one Chinese citizen, for computer coding after Telcordia was given preliminary approval for the job. But only “vetted U.S. citizens” were allowed to work on the project, so the FCC made the company discard the work and start over. The paper points out that, "In 2006... a $6.8 billion deal that would have allowed a company in the United Arab Emirates to manage six American port terminals set off outrage in Congress and was eventually killed." Now, critics says, the FCC is putting communications infrastructure into foreign hands.

John Anderson at DIYmedia.net breaks down the 103-page report from Meintel, Sgrignoli, & Wallace, Maryland-based consulting engineers hired by the New York State Broadcasters’ Association to report on the breadth of pirate radio in the New York City area. The firm camped out at two New York City locations and two northern New Jersey locations and tuned in 76 different illegal transmitters recently, using dozens of watts up to 3,000 or more. Anderson writes that, "the rest [of the report] is full of conjecture, including such specious assertions that pirate stations interfere with Emergency Alert System broadcasts (they provide no substantive evidence of this); expose unsuspecting citizens to 'significant public health and safety issues' from antenna-radiation (again, no evidence beyond best-guesses); and have the potential to interfere with aviation-related frequencies (yet 'Importantly, our survey did not find that these unauthorized pirate stations were directly causing interference to FAA systems')." Anderson says the reports claims about the interference the station's cause is filled with words such as, “potential,” “may be,” “likely,” “not certain,” and “certainly possible.” The consultants main takeaway is that, “While it is beyond the scope of this analysis to make policy recommendations, it appears more resources and a new enforcement strategy is necessary to address this growing problem since current efforts do not appear to be effective.” Read the full story at DIYmedia.net.

FULL DISCLOSURE: John Anderson is on Wave Farm's board.

The New York Times reports that Edward Snowden, who worked for the National Security Agency before leaking government information, last week announced he will help develop a modified version of Apple’s iPhone for journalists to ward off government surveillance. The announcement was part of the “Forbidden Research” conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, with Snowden joining by video link from exile in Russia. Snowden teams with Andrew Huang, a computer hacker known as Bunnie, to modify a smartphone to, "alert journalists working in dangerous environments to electronic surveillance." Snowden is also on the board of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and said journalists need to operate without government oversight. He specifically cited a mortar attack in 2012 by the Syrian government that killed Marie Colvin, an American journalist who was reporting in Homs, Syria, for The Sunday Times of London. “The radio frequency emissions of her communications that she used to file those news reports were intercepted by the Syrian Army,” he said. If their plan works, journalists would get modified phones, "in a special case with a separate display that would provide an alert when the phone was active and transmitting data at improper times."

Photo by Kelly Benjamin.

WGXC correspondent Kelly Benjamin talks to protesters outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, including Medea Benjamin from Code Pink.

Click here to download or play this interview.

The Republican National Convention began in Cleveland July 18, and the Democratic Convention begins in Philadelphia July 25, and both have radio stories. First, both cities won't allow radio-controlled drones during the conventions, with the Federal Aviation Administration blocking 30 nautical miles in radius around the Quicken Loans Arena from 6 p.m. July 17 through 3 a.m. July 22. Radio-controlled drones not only can't be flown within 30 miles of the RNC, they are among the 26 types of items not allowed in the zone around the arena. Mike Pence, the Republican nominee for vice-president, is familiar with the airwaves. After losing two Congressional campaigns, he started hosting "The Mike Pence Show," on WRCR in Rushville, Indiana in 1994, with Pence calling himself "Rush Limbaugh on decaf." The show was syndicated by Network Indiana on 19 stations there, including WIBC in Indianapolis. Slate reports that anyone protesting Pence, or any other issue during the convention, should note what local and federal police can do with the local airwaves. Cleveland has a flash mob law, for instance, that allows the police to arrest anyone arriving at an event organized over social media “to commit a crime,” and police will then confiscate your cell phone as evidence. Ohio police and the FBI also have face recognition technology they may use, and a $50 million grant from Congress to buy equipment such as cameras, surveillance trailers, and and sound cannons. Of course, protesters will also bypass the media by broadcasting from their phones, as we've seen recently in events as diverse as a failed coup in Turkey and a sit-down protest in the U.S. Congress.

The Guardian reports that on July 15 the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Navy is using sonar in ways that could harm whales and dolphins. That reversed a lower court decision upholding the 2012 decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service to allow the Navy to use low-frequency sonar for training, testing, and routine operations. The story claims whales, seals, dolphins, and walruses could be hurt by sonar, or the underwater radio waves could disrupt their feeding and mating. The Natural Resources Defense Council led a lawsuit filed in San Francisco in 2012, arguing the Navy's sonar practices violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The appellate court agreed, saying the rules failed to meet a section of the protection act requiring peacetime oceanic programs to have, “the least practicable adverse impact on marine mammals.” The court said the fisheries service, “did not give adequate protection to areas of the world’s oceans flagged by its own experts as biologically important,” according to a summary accompanying the court’s decision. "The result is that a meaningful proportion of the world’s marine mammal habitat is under-protected,” the decision said.

Click here to play or download an audio version of this report.

Matthew Lasar reports at Radio Survivor that while there are global warming skeptics in Washington D.C., the Federal Communications Commission has authorized three new Emergency Alert System event codes that seem to confirm more powerful storms: “Extreme Wind Warning” (EWW), “Storm Surge Watch” (SWW), and “Storm Surge Warning” (SSW). FCC Chair Tom Wheeler wrote on his blog earlier this month that the current system with radio and television stations interrupting programming to alert viewers and listeners about weather warnings is a “proven life-saver, but it could be better.” The FCC spoke with the heads of Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Hurricane Center about what the most dangerous weather events are, and found they had no warnings for storm surge or high winds. Lasar explains that the Emergency Alert System includes a digital header code, then that grating two-tone attention signal, "then the automatic audio message, triggered by a specific event code, and then an End of Message code. The header code contains the event code, which classifies the emergency."

Click here to download or play an audio version of this report.

Wired reports Facebook has launched "Secret Conversations," a beta feature that a small number of users are now testing that encrypts messages end-to-end, so know one can read the communications except for the sender and receiver. All of Facebook's 900 million users will be able to opt-in to encrypted messages later this summer. Facebook and its WhatsApp will both be encrypted, the largest services on the internet providing secure communication. Viber added encryption for its 700 million users, and Google announced in May that its messaging app Allo would also offer opt-in end-to-end encryption. Facebook is using Signal, which was created by the non-profit Open Whisper Systems, and is also available as an app on its own. “This... brings access to encrypted messaging to nearly a billion more people,” says Matt Green, a Johns Hopkins computer scientist. “If you make a list of all the messaging services that have end-to-end encryption and the ones that don’t, we’re starting to live in a world where the ones that don’t are mostly in China.”

Image from Apple's patent.

9-to-5 Mac reports that Apple just received approval for a patent on a technology that would disable locally a phone’s video and camera capabilities. A small sensor sends infrared signals containing encoded data that could disable a smartphone or tablet’s camera or microphone functions. An image in the patent paperwork shows how this technology could be used to prevent unwanted recording during concerts. But police in countries all over the world could also use it to block recordings of their actions, and there are many other applications for the technology. "An infrared emitter can be located in areas where picture or video capture is prohibited, and the emitter can generate infrared signals with encoded data that includes commands to disable the recording functions of devices. An electronic device can then receive the infrared signals, decode the data, and temporarily disable the device’s recording function based on the command," reads the patent. The FCC is no fan of jamming devices, and Apple has not revealed how, or if, it will employ the technology.

Cora Currier reports in The Intercept on the classified rules that allow the FBI to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials, less oversight than under normal judicial procedures, according to Currier. The Intercept is reporting on classified rules from 2013, governing the FBI’s use of National Security Letters, which allow the FBI to find out about journalists’ calls without going to a judge or informing the news organization that is under surveillance. There is an extra step if the NSL targets a journalist specifically, “to identify confidential news media sources.” Then, the general counsel and the executive assistant director talk the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division about the case. Christopher Allen, a spokesperson for the FBI would not comment other to say they are “very clear” that “the FBI cannot predicate investigative activity solely on the exercise of First Amendment rights.” Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that the “use of NSLs as a way around the protections in the guidelines is a serious concern for news organizations.” The Reporters Committee last week filed a brief for the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s lawsuit for the FBI’s NSL rules and other documents on behalf of 37 news organizations, including The Intercept.

Hillary Clinton's campaign for president announced a tech policy plan June 28 and Techdirt looks at Clinton's proposals on encryption. Techdirt's Karl Bode writes, "she intends to continue waging war on encryption -- her plan for a "Manhattan Project" to "solve" (read: weaken) encryption still very much on the table." Clinton's proposal says, "Hillary rejects the false choice between privacy interests and keeping Americans safe. She was a proponent of the USA Freedom Act, and she supports Senator Mark Warner and Representative Mike McCaul’s idea for a national commission on digital security and encryption. This commission will work with the technology and public safety communities to address the needs of law enforcement, protect the privacy and security of all Americans that use technology, assess how innovation might point to new policy approaches, and advance our larger national security and global competitiveness interests." Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president, is also against encryption, saying during the debate on whether Apple should open an iPhone for the FBI, "To think that Apple won't allow us to get into her cellphone? Who do they think they are?" Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson sided with Apple in that public discussion, and favors encryption. Green Party candidate Jill Stein's internet platform does not specifically mention encryption, but it does say she will, "protect the free Internet," and she has called Edward Snowden a hero.

"Share the Safety" press conference at the Reagan Library from Troy's Yes Men.

Claire Voon reported in Hyperallegeric that Troy-based art activist group The Yes Men have now started a website called "Share the Safety," purporting to be a joint effort between the National Rifle Association and arms manufacturer Smith & Wesson to donate a gun to a “less fortunate” U.S. citizen for every gun sold. The "Share the Safety" program promised a gun to someone living in an “at-risk neighborhood” whenever someone purchases one of three Smith & Wesson weapons. Donors can also choose from ten U.S. neighborhoods. The Troy-based group has previously had fake press conferences, and a fake edition of The New York Times, making various political points with their satire. This time, the group announced the gun initiative at the Reagan Library in California. Read the full story in Hyperallegeric.

John Anderson reports in DIYMedia.net about current pirate radio action, one year after the Federal Communication Commission announced it was scaling back its enforcement bureau and creating so-called “Tiger Teams” that swoop in with a cheaper, swifter form defense against the scourge of pirate radio. "Have they even been populated and trained up yet?" Anderson asks, after reporting that enforcement actions are slightly up from a year ago, but not by any significant amount. Last week the U.S. House Appropriations Committee voted 29-17 for a Federal Communications Commission appropriations bill that would dramatically reduce the FCC budget, mostly to attempt to hamstring net neutrality rule enforcement. But that also means less money for pirate radio enforcement, and lawmakers in the New York City area, who have been very vocal in their calls for increased pirate radio enforcement given the large amount of activity on the airwaves in the area, might not be happy with the figures showing less enforcement in the area this year. So far in 2016 there have been 70 enforcement actions nationally, slightly ahead of the pace of last year's 125 actions. But, Anderson writes, "with party conventions and elections looming, it’s highly unlikely that Congress will get around to awarding any supplementary enforcement tools to the agency beforehand, and with a change in presidential administration on the horizon Chairman Tom Wheeler might very well like to leave this entire issue for his successor to sort out." Read the full story at DIYmedia.net.

(Note: John Anderson is on Wave Farm's board.)

Click here to download or play an audio version of this report.

Techdirt reports that the ultimate fate of net neutrality probably rests with the results of the November presidential election. Congress continues to try and hack away at the idea that the virtual playing field be level for digital services. Last week the U.S. House Appropriations Committee voted 29-17 for a Federal Communications Commission appropriations bill that would dramatically reduce the FCC budget and try to hamstring net neutrality rule enforcement. President Barack Obama's White House, and the federal courts, have so far supported the latest version of net neutrality against the Republican-led attacks in the House. So, clearly, net neutrality's long-term success will hinge on the results of the presidential election. Donald Trump does not support net neutrality, tweeting in 2014, “Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media.” Hillary Clinton says she supports net neutrality, but has expressed concern that regulations could mean stagnant competition among service providers, saying “we’ve got to do more about how we incentivize competition in broadband.” Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson opposes net neutrality, "regulations that would lead to a larger government role in the use of Internet bandwidth." Green Party candidate Jill Stein is in favor, and discussed the public support for the measure, saying, "And FCC got some four million letters, which were, like, 99 percent to preserve net neutrality. We have the numbers. What we don't have is the conviction and the infrastructure to use that power. And what we want to do in our campaign is to flick that switch in our brains from powerlessness to powerfulness."

Christian Fennesz and Jim O'Rourke, "Wouldn't Wanna Be Swept Away" (Editions Mego)

Techdirt reports that a recent Consumer Reports survey found the Chattanooga Electric Power Board and Google Fiber were the only two internet providers with positive consumer satisfaction ratings among 30 national ISPs. "The results were ugly for value, too, with 28 of the 30 TV service providers earning our lowest score. The two exceptions —municipal broadband company EPB Fiber Optics-Chattanooga and Google Fiber — each earned high scores from the survey respondents. Both services offer super-fast 1-gigabit-per-second (Gbps) speeds. EPB Fiber Optics-Chattanooga ranked highest in the survey for overall satisfaction, edging out Google Fiber and cable company Armstrong." While Google Fiber is well-known, the Chattanooga utility provides electric power, digital cable TV, high-speed internet, and phone services in Chattanooga utilizing a community-wide fiber optic network. Comcast, and several politicians working for giant Internet providers, have tried to kill it, and want to keep its success a secret, for fear that other municipalities will start cheap mesh networks that provide such good service. But word is getting out. This week, Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke said the city's broadband service has businesses and people moving to Tennessee town. "It changed our conceptions of who we are and what is possible,” Berke said. “Before we had never thought of ourselves as a technology city." But now the downtown area has doubled its residents, and landlords often advertise the fast internet speeds as selling points. “It’s an explosion of growth in our technology sector,” he said. “That has sparked not only this (downtown) living but restaurants and bars and music and the quality of life that truly makes a city interesting, cool, hip, vibrant and energetic." Read the full story at Techdirt.