03/15/18 Morning News & Commentary

New York Times: Pentagon wants Silicon Valley’s help on A.I.

The Intercept: Washington breaks out the “just following orders” Nazi defense for CIA Director-designate Gina Haspel

East Bay Express: Berkeley council approves surveillance technology oversight board

Newsweek: Is Silicon Valley silencing conservatives on social media?

CATO: Facebook and the future of free speech

Jacobin: The high-tech poorhouse: “We live in what legal scholar Frank Pasquale has called a “scored society.” Corporations and governments collect unprecedented amounts of data about us — our habits, our histories, our beliefs, our desires, our social networks. Machine learning algorithmsparse that data to assess our worthiness for public benefits, for jobs, for loans, for insurance, and for suspicion in the criminal justice system.

The rich are not exempt from this reality, but it’s the poor and working class who are most endangered by it. Predictive policing algorithmslaunder racial bias and reproduce inequality. Reputational scores based on historical data reinforce the lopsided structure of American society, further advantaging the already advantaged and marginalizing the marginalized.”

NextGov: 5 things you may have missed in the Homeland Security reauthorization bill

CATO: Risky Business: The role of arms sales in U.S. foreign policy

The American Conservative: The Navy wants $1.5 billion in additional goodies. We want an audit.

The Verge: Chelsea Manning thinks we need to remake the internet

GEORGE WILL: The real Down Syndrome ‘problem’

Gizmodo: DARPA is funding time crystal research

Author: S. Smith