A journalist says Google identified (and then fired) one of his sources by looking at his email in gmail.

It is not a good idea to use an email account run by a big company.

The tobacco industry is using various countries as proxies to attack Australia's requirement for plain packaging of cigarettes.

The article speculates that they are trying to drag the cases out because they expect to lose in the end, but meanwhile the WTO enables them to intimidate other countries.

It will be good if they do lose, but the WTO will have done substantial harm in this case even so. Just one of the ways the WTO harms most people (while it helps businesses). The WTO should be abolished.

The US government wants any federal judge to be allowed to authorize searching any computer.

This means the FBI could go forum-shopping, bringing all such requests in whichever district has the judges most likely to say yes and least concerned with upholding the fourth amendment.

Peter Buffet describes the "charitable-industrial complex" as a system of conscience laundering for rich people that create suffering with one hand, while alleviating part of it with the other hand.

A Cuban who worked for the CIA (but was a double agent, really working for his own country) says that the CIA specifically promoted right-wing student movements in Venezuela.

He believes that this process started before Chavez was elected; that the goal was to shift Latin American universities from left-wing influences to right-wing influences.