Reading List: December 23, 2016

Friday is here.

Sam Sacks writes about Congress’ attempts to curtail encryption at The District Sentinel. These attempts are ongoing, Sacks reports, despite a bipartisan commission finding that doing so would be acting directly in violation of the national interest.

The analysis is likely to ruffle FBI Director James Comey, who, on behalf of the law enforcement community, coined the term “going dark” two years ago, to describe the challenges that police face when they encounter an encrypted device during an investigation. The use of crypto-secured platforms and technology has exploded since the revelations of widespread spying by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.

Speaking of worrying data collection trends, Peter Bright reports for Ars Technica that Facebook has a large amount of data on Muslim users, a Muslim registry of sorts.

Among the pieces of personal information that the site asks users for is religion. As with most pieces of information that Facebook requests, this is of course optional. But it’s an option that many people fill in to ensure that our profiles better reflect who we are.

This data collection means that Facebook already represents, among other things, a de facto — if partial — Muslim registry. Facebook has the data already; the company can provide a list of self-attested Muslims in the US simply by writing a query or two. That data could be similarly queried for anyone who isn’t straight.

As such, government coercion of Facebook — or even a hack of the company — represents a particular threat to civil liberties. Accordingly, Facebook should take a simple and straightforward protective step: delete that information.

Over at The Concourse, Ashley Feinberg wonders how Newt Gingrich is doing after a bizarre video reversing himself on Trump’s “Drain the Swamp” pledge.

Newt was quick to add that he, personally, has “a sense of humor” and likes “the alligator and swamp language. … I think it vividly illustrates the problem, because all the people in this city who are the alligators are going to hate the swamp being drained.” Do you get it?, Newt asks. It’s like the bad people are the alligators and they LIKE swamps. But not Mr. Trump! Alas, for poor Newt, it was too late. The damage had been done.

Sky Cohen appears on ThinkTech to talk trump, automation, and the future.

An oversized edition coming tomorrow for the holiday weekend.