Our Justice Department has the authority to "update" Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure such that our government could get a warrant to hack into almost any computer, as long as it can convince a judge that the computer's owner or administrator has obscured its location data. Strangely, right-wingers have not made a habit of proclaiming this rule change an example of unfettered federal authority, though it actually is -- our government could hack into thousands or millions of computers used by folks who have taken very basic steps to surf the net privately, all with just one warrant. As I said earlier this week, there's no use arguing if-you've-done-nothing-wrong-you've-got-nothing-to-fear, when what was OK yesterday can suddenly be wrong today, according to our government. But Congress could pass legislation barring the Justice Department from following through on this "update," hence No Global Warrants, Access Now, and Demand Progress all help you tell Congress to protect consumer privacy on the internet by restraining the executive branch's computer-hacking authority.
Meanwhile, three years after the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed and killed over 1,100 good folks, and dozens of clothing corporations committed to better fire and building safety for their Bangladeshi workers, the clothing corporation H&M, despite being one of the early committers to better worker safety, still haven't refitted their factories so workers are less likely to die in them. And it's not like they're just shuffling along like everyone else, since other corporations have been making substantial progress on repairing their workplaces. Hence, the Big Stick of Bad PR comes out once again, as Sum of Us helps you tell H&M to fulfill its committments to worker safety in their Bangladesh factories. We're a few years past the point where corporations can simply say "we can't make the factories safer because then your clothes would cost more." It's sad that so many folks had to die to get us to that point, when we should already have been there, but now we can only focus on saving future lives.
Comments