Month: October 2019

After Hong Kong criminalized the wearing of masks at public gatherings, protesters who were the clear targets of the law promptly protested again –- this time wearing masks of faces that included cartoon characters and Hong Kong’s chief executive. The demonstrators had already destroyed some street security cameras they thought were equipped with facial recognition software, and put on the masks to thwart police from using the same technology. People may like the facial recognition ID in their smartphones, but in the hands of law enforcement – that may be another matter.

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The intentional blackouts that have left millions of Californians without electricity this week have been branded “public safety power shut-offs” because they were intended to stop downed utility lines from sparking the kind of devastating wildfires that level communities and kill people. On the face of it, that sounds reasonable: After all, more than 2,000 fires — including the state’s deadliest and most destructive — Read original

The House’s inquiry into whether President Trump should be impeached moves into a new phase this week with a significant — and in our view overdue — vote on a proposed set of rules for what Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the “ongoing, existing” investigation. Will congressional Republicans, who called for such a vote, now engage with the impeachment process seriously and stop serving as apologists and enablers for Trump? So far, the answer appears to be no.

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