Category: Technology

Trump Shuts China’s ‘Backdoor’ to Cyber Spying

President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order in a prescient move to defend America’s national security against Chinese cyber espionage. Invoking his powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the president gave the Commerce Department 150 days to devise methods of implementing new rules for American companies that wish to trade with “foreign … Continued

The Continued Resilience of Quiet America

Fifty years ago, the United States was facing crises and unrest on multiple fronts. Some predicted that internal chaos and revolution would unravel the nation. The 1969 Vietnam War protests on the UC Berkeley campus turned so violent that National Guard helicopters indiscriminately sprayed tear gas on student demonstrators. Later that year, hundreds of thousands … Continued

Would New York Really Benefit from Amazon?

Quite a few “I-told-you-so” articles have appeared in the conservative and business press piling on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who opposed Amazon’s planned relocation of its second headquarters to Long Island City in Queens. The deal was controversial because it entailed extensive subsidies that have long raised the ire of the libertarian Right and the … Continued

Free the Kidnapped Canadians in Communist China

Last week, we discussed the national security threat to the United States and her siblings in the family of free nations that is posed by Communist China’s Huawei technology company—specifically, in the words of Eli Lake, “that China’s largest telecom company will allow the Chinese state to monitor the electronic communications of anyone using Huawei … Continued

Conservatives, Don’t Quit Twitter

If you are someone on the political Right who might quit Twitter because it just banned Jesse Kelly, here’s my plea: Don’t. After the shocking news spread Sunday night that Twitter had deplatormed the conservative influencer for unknown reasons, some conservatives are threatening to leave the social media site. Glenn Reynolds, a.k.a. Instapundit, a law … Continued

Fahrenheit 111000011

The digital world, like the modern world generally, is ephemeral. Entire universes appear and disappear in the space of days or weeks. In the mid-2000s, MySpace was a thing. Online “zines” have come and gone. Even the much maligned “Pepe the Frog” has been subsumed by his cousin, the Groyper. Some of these changes are … Continued

Forget 1984, It’s 2018

In the last week, Antiwar.com editorial director Scott Horton, former State Department employee and author Peter Van Buren, and Dan McAdams, the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, had their Twitter accounts suspended. The hammer came down on them just one day after Alex Jones and InfoWars were banned and … Continued

Questions Linger in the House IT Scandal

There’s stench rising from the House side of the Capitol this week, and no, it’s not just the usual smell of D.C. in the oppressive summer heat. A months-long probe into a growing House cybersecurity scandal has reached an ignominious end, leaving questions unanswered, substantiated allegations unresolved, and a growing unease with just how easily … Continued