Tim Cook: ‘You Deserve Privacy Online. Here’s How You Could Actually Get It’ →

Apple CEO Time Cook, writing at Time:

In 2019, it’s time to stand up for the right to privacy—yours, mine, all of ours. Consumers shouldn’t have to tolerate another year of companies irresponsibly amassing huge user profiles, data breaches that seem out of control and the vanishing ability to control our own digital lives.

[…]

That’s why I and others are calling on the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation—a landmark package of reforms that protect and empower the consumer.

I like what Cook pitches in this article, but until we have Congresspeople who actually understand the Internet, I’m not holding my breath for meaningful change.

Marsha Blackburn: ISPs Should Charge for Fast Lanes →

Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica, writing about a representative from my home state of Tennessee:

Congressional Republicans want to impose “net neutrality” rules that allow Internet service providers to charge online services and websites for priority access to consumers. Making the case for paid prioritization Tuesday, US Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said that paying for priority access would be similar to enrolling in TSA Precheck.

“In real life, all sorts of interactions are prioritized every day,” Blackburn said in her opening statement at a subcommittee hearing on paid prioritization.

First, this is the exact opposite of what “net neutrality” means.

Secondly … I forgot what I was going to write and now my desk is covered in my own hair that I’ve pulled out.

Let’s see what she said:

Many of you sitting in this room right now paid a line-sitter to get priority access to this hearing. In fact, it is commonplace for the government itself to offer priority access to services. If you have ever used Priority Mail, you know this to be the case. And what about TSA Precheck? It just might have saved you time as you traveled here today. If you define paid prioritization as simply the act of paying to get your own content in front of the consumer faster, prioritized ads or sponsored content are the basis of many business models online, as many of our members pointed out at the Facebook hearing last week.

Blackburn is currently the chair of the House Communications and Technology subcommittee, so she has some authority when it comes to Internet legislation. However, she’s running for Bob Corker’s Senate seat here in TN, so that could change.

Personally, I can’t wait to vote for her opponent.

Net Neutrality Repealed →

Aja Romano, Vox:

Despite last-minute requests to delay the December 14 vote from some Republican members of Congress, it went through as scheduled, thanks to the support of a much longer list of Republicans who favored the repeal and urged the vote to be held without delay. As had been heavily predicted for months, the vote was split 3-2 along party lines, with the FCC chair Ajit Pai and the other Republican members Michael O’Rielly and Brendan Carr voting for repeal and Democratic commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel voting to protect it.

The vote to repeal came in spite of overwhelming bipartisan support for net neutrality from the public, as the FCC was clearly determined to move ahead with the repeal.

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Graham-Cassidy →

Sarah Kliff at Vox:

I have spent the bulk of 2017 writing about the different Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Graham-Cassidy, in my view, is the most radical of them all.

Read every word of this and then call your Representatives and tell them to vote against this bill.

Tim Cook Pledges Support to Employees Affected by DACA →

Tim Cook, in a letter obtained by MacRumors:

Earlier today, the Justice Department announced that President Trump will cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in six months if Congress does not act to make the program permanent.

I am deeply dismayed that 800,000 Americans — including more than 250 of our Apple coworkers — may soon find themselves cast out of the only country they’ve ever called home.

DACA recognizes that people who arrived in the United States as children should not be punished for being here illegally. It lets these Americans, who have successfully completed rigorous background investigations, go to school, earn a living, support their families, pay taxes and work toward achieving their dreams like the rest of us. They are called Dreamers, and regardless of where they were born, they deserve our respect as equals.

I’ve received several notes over the weekend from Dreamers within Apple. Some told me they came to the U.S. as young as two years old, while others recounted they don’t even remember a time they were not in this country.

Dreamers who work at Apple may have been born in Canada or Mexico, Kenya or Mongolia, but America is the only home they’ve ever known. They grew up in our cities and towns, and hold degrees from colleges across the country. They now work for Apple in 28 states.

They help customers in our retail stores. They engineer the products people love and they’re building Apple’s future as part of our R&D teams. They contribute to our company, our economy and our communities just as much as you and I do. Their dreams are our dreams.

I want to assure you that Apple will work with members of Congress from both parties to advocate for a legislative solution that provides permanent protections for all the Dreamers in our country.

Trump’s move on DACA is harmful and un-American. I’d like to hope that Congress will turn this around, but I have little faith in Paul Ryan and his minions.

Tim Cook Comments on Charlottesville →

From a company-wide email:

What occurred in Charlottesville has no place in our country. Hate is a cancer, and left unchecked it destroys everything in its path. Its scars last generations. History has taught us this time and time again, both in the United States and countries around the world.

We must not witness or permit such hate and bigotry in our country, and we must be unequivocal about it. This is not about the left or the right, conservative or liberal. It is about human decency and morality. I disagree with the president and others who believe that there is a moral equivalence between white supremacists and Nazis, and those who oppose them by standing up for human rights. Equating the two runs counter to our ideals as Americans.

Regardless of your political views, we must all stand together on this one point — that we are all equal. As a company, through our actions, our products and our voice, we will always work to ensure that everyone is treated equally and with respect.

Well said.

Cook announced the company will be making $1 million donations to the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League. Additionally, Apple will match employee donations to those organizations two-to-one until the end of next month.

Pence Goes to Kennedy Space Center

Yesterday, Vice President Pence visited Kennedy Space Center. He was given a detailed tour1 of the spaceport and updates on its on-going evolution into a multi-user facility.

At the heart of that evolution is NASA’s relationship with private companies, including SpaceX and Boeing. Both are part of the Commercial Crew program, which will fly American astronauts to the International Space Station aboard non-NASA vehicles.

Pence spoke about this program in a lengthy speech that took place in addition to his tour. “In conjunction with our commercial partners we’ll continue to make space travel safer, cheaper, and more accessible than ever before,” he said.

Eric Berger at Ars Technica commented on this section of the Vice President’s remarks:

This seems to be a nod toward efforts by the commercial space industry, led by SpaceX and Blue Origin, to develop reusable launch vehicles that have the potential to substantially cut the cost of access to space and provide launch-on-demand services. “I think he pretty clearly gave advocates of cheap access a shout-out,” said James Muncy, the founder of PoliSpace, and a commercial space supporter.

I agree with this way of viewing Pence’s comments, and I believe the Trump administration will lean heavily on commercial companies to take over some of NASA’s work.

That isn’t new, however. NASA had been handing this work over to its partners as it focuses on the Space Launch System, a new heavy-lift rocket, and Orion, a next-generation capsule that will send crew members around the moon in the next few years.

There have been many complaints lodged against the SLS. It is incredibly expensive, but more importantly, is being built without a clear mission in mind. After the initial test launches and a crewed trip to cis-lunar space, NASA will still be left without the additional hardware needed to go to Mars.

The Obama administration holds the blame for this, but Trump hasn’t done anything to move the ball forward yet, either.

This was evident in Pence’s speech, which was heavy on something close to patriotism and light on details:2

Let us do what our nation has always done since its very founding and beyond: We’ve pushed the boundaries on frontiers, not just of territory, but of knowledge. We’ve blazed new trails, and we’ve astonished the world as we’ve boldly grasped our future without fear.

From this ‘Bridge to Space,’ our nation will return to the moon, and we will put American boots on the face of Mars.

Pence did not mention the SLS, which I found a little surprising. There are few things as American as building a giant-ass rocket and blasting crew members into space.

Moreover, it’s been unclear what sort of mission the new executive branch may have in mind for the SLS. Republicans, historically, have favored returning to the moon, complete with landing on its surface once again. Is that what Pence meant? Then again, he specifically mentioned landing on Mars, which is a plan set forth under Obama’s leadership.

This confusion is made worse by the fact that the Trump White House still has not named an administrator for NASA. Here’s Loren Grush at The Verge:

[Pence] didn’t mention any new additions to NASA’s leadership team either, which means the space agency is still left without a permanent administrator and no clear direction for its future under President Trump. “Usually you have a leader visit, tour, and give a speech to roll out a detail-oriented policy after it’s been developed,” Phil Larson, a former space advisor for the Obama administration and assistant dean at the University of Colorado’s college of engineering, tells The Verge. “This is backwards.”

The only concrete news out of the speech was that the National Space Council will be meeting in the coming weeks. The NSC — first founded in the 1960s and briefly resurrected by George H.W. Bush — is tasked with shaping US space policy.

Perhaps then we will see what Trump and company have in mind for NASA and its commercial partners. Until then, there are far more questions than there are answers about what this executive branch wants to do with America’s space program.


  1. Don’t miss this real head-into-desk moment captured by Mike Brown of Reuters. 
  2. As is this White House’s general style. 

The ‘Better Care Reconciliation Act’ →

Senate Republicans have unveiled their version of the House bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. As usual, Vox’s Sarah Kilff has broken things down very nicely:

The bill asks low- and middle-income Americans to spend significantly more for less coverage.

The bill would roll back the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of the Medicaid program, which currently covers millions of low-income Americans, and include additional cuts to Medicaid. It would rework the individual market so that enrollees get less financial help to purchase less generous health insurance with higher deductibles.

Here are some “highlights” of this bill:

  • It defunds Planned Parenthood for one year.
  • The most wealthy Americans will see a large tax cut.
  • Medicaid expansion ends in 2021, keeping millions of low-income Americans from receiving funds.
  • If you purchase a health insurance plan with high deductible, your tax credit will be smaller under the new law.
  • States will be able opt out of Obamacare’s marketplaces entirely.
  • The individual mandate is gone, which will lead to an increase in prices and healthy people who don’t want insurance will exit the market.

Here’s Kliff again:

The replacement plan would make several changes to what health insurers can charge enrollees who purchase insurance on the individual market, as well as changing what benefits their plans must cover. In aggregate, these changes could be advantageous to younger and healthier enrollees who want skimpier (and cheaper) benefit packages. But they could be costly for older and sicker Obamacare enrollees who rely on the law’s current requirements, and would be asked to pay more for less generous coverage.

The Senate’s version makes little changes in terms preexisting coverage. The House’s bill gutted those protections, putting the future of families like mine in serious jeopardy.

However, it’s not all good news there. The Senate versions removes lifetime caps, meaning a cancer patient could be cut-off by their insurance company in the middle of their chemotherapy, or the day before an important MRI.

Back to Vox:

The Senate bill still requires insurance companies to accept all patients, regardless of how sick they might be or what preexisting conditions they have. Building a health insurance system without an individual mandate or any replacement policy runs a significant risk of falling into a death spiral, where only the sickest people buy coverage and premiums keep ticking upward.

Both the House and Senate versions of this new healthcare bill — penned entirely by Republicans with no input from Democrats — will cause harm to the sick and poor of our nation while lining the pockets of the wealthiest Americans. Those in Congress responsible should be ashamed of themselves.

House to Vote on American Health Care Act →

Sarah Kliff at Vox:

The bill would likely cause millions to lose health insurance coverage. We don’t know how many because the latest version of the Republican plan has not yet been scored by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to estimate how many people it would cover and how much it would cost. The most recent score for the bill, before new amendments offered in recent weeks, found that 24 million more people would be uninsured by 2026.

Still, even without the CBO score, we have a very good sense of how the bill would work, whom it benefits, and whom it disadvantages.

TL;DR: If you are sick or elderly, you’re going to be in trouble. The bill:

  • Allows states to opt out of pre-existing conditions. The definition of “pre-existing conditions” is being expanded to include sexual assault.
  • Would create high-risk pools for the sickest citizens, but doesn’t include near enough funding to keep these from collapsing.
  • End Medicaid expansion in 2020 and remove $880 billion from the program.
  • Could bring back lifetime caps on insurance coverage.
  • Includes an exemption for legislators’ insurance.
  • Is being voted on before the public or CBO have had a chance to review.
  • “Essential health benefits” (including prescriptions, hospitalization, pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care, counseling, physical rehab, oral and vision care for children and more) could be made optional, even for those on plans purchased by their employer.
  • Does not include the setup of cross-state purchasing, even though Trump has promised it would multiple times.
  • Cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
  • Drastically increase costs for older enrollees.

This bill is shameful, and the Republicans who back it should be voted out of office in 2018.

On Jimmy Kimmel’s Healthcare Plea →

Alex Abad-Santos at Vox, recounting Monday’s episode:

Kimmel told a heart-wrenching story about his newborn son, who was born a little over a week ago with a congenital heart disease that could have killed him. Kimmel’s wife Molly McNearney (who’s the co-head writer of Jimmy Kimmel Live) gave birth to William “Billy” John Kimmel on April 21. Everything seemed fine at first, but a nurse heard a murmur in his heart and noticed that he didn’t look right.

I’ve embedded the video below. You won’t be able to make it through without tearing up.

At the end of it, Kimmel made a passionate argument about the state of healthcare legistlation in America:

We were brought up to believe that we live in the greatest country in the world. Until a few years ago, millions and millions of us had no access to health insurance at all. You know, before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease, like my son was, there’s a good chance you’d never be able to get health insurance, because you had a preexisting condition.

[…]

If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make. I think that’s something that whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right? No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life. It just shouldn’t happen. Not here.

‘Nobody has to use the Internet’ →

John Brodkin at Ars Technica:

A Republican lawmaker who voted to eliminate Internet privacy rules said, “Nobody’s got to use the Internet” when asked why ISPs should be able to use and share their customers’ Web browsing history for advertising purposes.

US Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) was hosting a town hall meeting when a constituent asked about the decision to eliminate privacy rules. The person in the audience was disputing the Republican argument that ISPs shouldn’t face stricter requirements than websites such as Facebook.

These people have no real understanding of the things they are legislating.