Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King, Vinette K. Pryce, Bert
Wilkinson, Lloyd Kam Williams
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, Jan. 25–31, 2019
By Rebecca Ricks
CAMBRIDGE, MA, USA,
Jan 23 2019 (IPS) — On
Dec. 6, the Australian parliament
rushed to pass a bill
that could weaken security
on the phones and software
people rely on every day,
in Australia and worldwide.
The sweeping law could
force tech companies to take
vaguely described actions to
access encrypted data.
For example, authorities
could order Apple and WhatsApp
to send secretly altered
software updates that would
undermine the encryption
they use to protect our data
and communications.
At a time when governments
across the globe
are engaging in increasingly
invasive surveillance,
unfettered public access
to encryption protects our
basic rights to privacy and
freedom of expression. Users
should call on their governments
to promote strong
encryption, not undercut
efforts to protect our safety
and rights.
Encryption ensures that
our information stays private,
whether we are browsing
the web, buying things,
chatting online, or sending
an email. We may not always
know it, but the security
of our networks relies on
encryption, which scrambles
our data so no one else
can see what we’ve written
or said unless we want to
share it with them.
Strong encryption also
ensures our safety in other
critical ways. It protects our
communications networks,
our power grids, our hospitals,
and our transportation
systems.
Encryption is especially
important for the most vulnerable
among us. Access
to encrypted tools is critical
to maintaining the safety
of people who are disproportionately
subjected to
surveillance and scrutiny,
whether victims of domestic
abuse or minorities
and other marginalized
members of society. Political
dissidents, journalists,
and activists are vulnerable
to retaliation for expressing
their views or exposing
wrongdoing. By encrypting
our devices and our messages
by default, we–along with
the companies that build
these tools–are taking steps
to ensure that we can speak
out without endangering
ourselves.
Encryption also helps
protect us in our personal
lives, keeping us safe from
online harassers, abusive
partners, or other malicious
people. The market for commercial
spyware products
has skyrocketed, and there
is mounting evidence that
these tools are being used
to monitor, abuse, intimidate,
and victimize people,
especially intimate partners.
When our tools use
encryption by default, we
have more control over our
information from people in
our lives who might want to
hurt us.
As companies and nongovernmental
organizations
have taken steps to secure
communications by using
encryption, many governments
have complained that
it is hampering their ability
to investigate criminals
and conduct surveillance. In
recent years, some governments
have called for building
intentional weaknesses,
or backdoors, into encrypted
technologies.
The Australian law passed
despite strong opposition
by cybersecurity experts,
human rights groups, and
some members of parliament.
It is modelled on the
UK’s Investigatory Powers
Act, which similarly requires
companies to potentially
break encryption and hack
into their own systems. In
the US, law enforcement
officials continue to call for
anti-encryption legislation,
even though they have been
criticized for overstating the
problem encryption poses to
investigations.
Cybersecurity experts
have repeatedly explained
By Albert Baldeo
Judge Jesse M. Furman, a federal
judge, gave us our first victory
when he blocked the Commerce
Department on Tuesday
from adding a question disclosing
whether the person filling
out the 2020 Census Form is
an American citizen. Civil rights
leaders and advocates had long
argued that adding the question
to the census itself would undermine
the constitutional mandate
to count every person, regardless
of citizenship, because it would
discourage noncitizens from
filling out the questionnaire for
fear of persecution and deportation.
(See previous publications,
“Remove the Citizenship Question
from the Census.”)
This fear became more pronounced
within the context
of extant immigration policy.
Although it may reach the
Supreme Court, the ruling is
likely to stand, and will have
profound consequences relating
to federal policy and for all communities
across America. The
printing of census forms begins
this summer.
About 24 million noncitizens
live in the United States, and
fewer than 11 million of that
aggregate do so illegally. Nearly
one in 10 households includes
at least one noncitizen. A substantial
reduction in the number
of households that respond to
the census could alter the distribution
of hundreds of billions
of dollars in federal grants and
subsidies.
Congress depends on those
results not only to decide how to
distribute federal resources, but
how to determine the number
of congressional districts in each
state. It is the most important
data and economic tool in America,
and is used to plan the provision
of health care, law enforcement,
education, employment,
transportation, social services,
like where to build new schools,
roads, health care facilities, childcare
and senior centers.
At least 132 government programs
use information from
the census to determine how
to allocate in excess of $675 billion,
much of it for programs
that serve lower-income families,
like Medicare, Head Start, the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program, Pell grants for
college and reduced-price school
lunch programs. Census data
also apportions highway spending.
According to a 2016 study
by the Federal Communications
Commission, about 12.6 million
American households do not
have access to broadband, and
census data will determine which
OP-EDS
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the right to edit all submissions.
Continued on Page 12
Continued on Page 12
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Protecting your security
and rights online
No excuse for
ignoring US census!
Dinh Manh Tai
Civil rights advocate and
community leader Albert
Baldeo.
/schnepsmedia.com