Category: Politics

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The late-night comedian responds to criticism of his recent monologue about his son and healthcare in this country:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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