• PRIVACY DEPT.

    Illinois Schools Hate Your Children’s Privacy

    Illinois recently passed an anti-bullying law that some school districts are interpreting as granting some disturbing powers, according to a story at Motherboard by Jason Koebler: School districts in Illinois are telling parents that a new law may require school officials to demand the social media passwords of students if they are suspected in cyberbullying… Read more

  • EDUCATION DEPT.

    Of Experts and Explainers

    The Volokh Conspiracy blog has finally made the move behind the Washington Post paywall, and that led to an interesting comment on Twitter by conspirator Orin Kerr about the change in audience from being an independent blog to being part of a major media outlet: I think we’ve gained some and lost some. I’m worried… Read more

  • SEX WORK DEPT.

    McWhores!

    At The Honest Courtesan, Maggie McNeill notes a human trafficking propaganda infographic by Haisam Hussein that includes this map, which shows sex trafficking hot spots: This pattern looked familiar… Watch what happens when I overlay the sex trafficking hotspots with another geographic data source. The overlay’s not perfect, because the maps use different projections, but… Read more

  • FREE SPEECH DEPT.

    Free Speech From a Friend of the Blog

    Over at the Friendly Atheist, Terry Firma has some harsh words about media outlets that congratulate themselves for standing up for free speech but refuse to publish images of the controversial Charlie Hebdo cover even in stories specifically about it. Read more

  • FREE SPEECH DEPT.

    To Publish or Not To Publish

    Rick Horowitz has an interesting post about his decision not to display any Charlie Hebdo cartoons in his post about the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Er, in other words, his post about the Charlie Hebdo massacre consisted of an explanation of why he wasn’t posting Charlie Hebdo cartoons in his post about the Charlie Hebdo massacre.… Read more