Does Google Have an Ethical Obligation Not to Spy?

By Christopher Flavelle – Many Americans are outraged at the government for mining user data from Apple, Google, Facebook and other Silicon Valley giants. What about the actions of the companies themselves — have they met their ethical obligations to their customers and society as a whole? Do they even have any?

Take the recent case of Apple’s use of Irish subsidiaries with no tax residency to avoid U.S. taxes; the tactics may be legally sound, but ethically dubious. Now turn that around: If companies are willing to go to such lengths to get around U.S. tax law, is it too much to ask that they apply the same creativity to avoiding the surrender of their customers’ private information? more> http://tinyurl.com/malrkq2

Related>

• Building America’s secret surveillance state ↓
• Our Reflection in the N.S.A.’s Prism →
• Verizon scandal: Barack Obama’s national security state is now beyond democratic control ←
• How could Verizon have fought the NSA and won? Tim Kern, Washington Times
• If I Were a Verizon Customer, Scott Mayer, americanthinker.com
• Could the Verizon-NSA Metadata Collection Be a Stealth Political Kickback? Patrick Durusau, naked capitalism
• US government collects Verizon customers’ phone metadata … So what? Mark Gibbs, Computerworld
• NSA’s Verizon Spying Order: Fourth Amendment And Big Data On A Collision Course, Anthony Wing Kosner, Forbes
• NSA whistleblower reveals his identity, Daniel Strauss, Hill
• Google, Facebook CEOs downplay ties to PRISM program as companies perform linguistic tango, Associated Press/Washington Post
• What the …? Larry Page and David Drummond, Google
• Google Adword: time to close the ‘rogue sites’ loophole, Miles Brignall, Guardian
• Bashed by liberals and the GOP, White House launches three-pronged defense, Justin Sink, Hill
• Republicans see an ‘arrogance of power’ in Obama White House, Megan R. Wilson, Hill

The President and the Press

By Steve Coll – It has been apparent for several years that the Obama Administration has departed from the First Amendment norms established during the seven Presidencies since Branzburg. Holder has overseen six prosecutions of government officials for aiding the press, more than were brought by all previous Administrations combined.

It is no coincidence that the A.P. and the Fox cases arose from national-security reporting. Obama inherited a bloated national-security state. It contains far too many official secrets and far too many secret-keepers—more than a million people now hold top-secret clearances.

The First Amendment aspires to a fuller compact among citizens, including between journalists and confidential sources, that is premised on the self-evident truth that secrecy and concentrated power are inherently corrupting. more> http://tinyurl.com/k2c8o9l

Related>

• Eric Holder’s power waltz with the press, Jack Shafer, Reuters
• Note to Media: The First Amendment Protects All of Us, Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg

Comcast and Verizon’s Phony Free-Speech Claim

By Susan Crawford – Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit wrote this week that the First Amendment shields Comcast Corp. from Congress’s authority to ensure the free flow of information across the basic network connections it provides.

The court should resist this reasoning, or risk trivializing the freedom of speech that the First Amendment truly protects.

Congress, though, has long distinguished basic information transmission facilities from newspapers; there is a sharp difference between a facility that allows someone else’s speech to be transmitted, and expression itself. Indeed, all of American communications policy is based on this premise. more> http://tinyurl.com/oy654m2

Watergate: Are we there yet?

By Suzanne Garment – Bearing in mind the all-purpose scandal caveat — the other shoe may always drop — it looks like what we have in the news is three distinct scandals, each emblematic of a different American political phenomenon.

The Associated Press scandal is the outgrowth of a perennial postwar (we’re talking World War Two) struggle between the press and the national security apparatus. The Internal Revenue Service scandal is a sign of a massive incoherence in the way the country regulates its non-profit groups. And the Benghazi scandal is — well, we’ll see. more> http://tinyurl.com/cq88uqh

Related>

• What the IRS should be scrutinizing, Robert Kuttner, Reuters
• President tries to win back press, Amie Parnes, Hill
• IRS scandal: First head rolls, Peter Schroeder and Bernie Becker, Hill
• White House releases Benghazi emails, Justin Sink and Ian Swanson, Hill
• An Onset of Woes Raises Questions on Obama Vision, Peter Baker, NYTimes.com

IRS abuses power in targeting tea party

By Michael Macleod-Ball and Gabe Rottman – The extraordinary revelation this week that the Internal Revenue Service targeted tea party groups for more aggressive enforcement highlights exactly why caution is needed in any response to the much-vilified Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC (pdf).

It also shows how all Americans, from the most liberal to the most conservative, should closely guard their First Amendment rights, and why giving the government too much power to limit political speech will inevitably result in selective enforcement against unpopular groups. more> http://tinyurl.com/bsgo2we

Related>

• Wonkbook: The good reasons for the IRS’s dumb mistake, Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas, Washington Post