Unsurprisingly, the World Food Prize was given to genetic engineers. The Food Sovereignty Alliance says their work goes in the wrong direction for ending hunger.

Corporatizing National Security: What It Means.

If the NSA stopped outsourcing its work, some abuses would be prevented, but we must also limit what the NSA can collect about us.

Companies are withdrawing ads from Facebook to pressure it to block mysogynist material, including photos of women who have been attacked.

I expect I would find those photos unpleasant to look at, and I would prefer to avoid them. I understand that advertisers don't want their ads shown next to those photos.

However, if commercial pressure makes Facebook delete certain material, that would be censorship. When a single company is as powerful as Facebook is, its decision to refuse to publish something qualifies as censorship.

In other words, it is wrong for the range of material you can publish to be decided by what companies want to have their ads appear next to.

GCHQ, the UK equivalent of the NSA, is recording phone calls and emails as well as metadata from undersea cables.

The system of oversight is more loophole than substance.

Obama says that the "Privacy and Civil Liberties Board" will keep massive surveillance in check, but that board seems to have been stacked with people who won't try very hard — if it does anything at all.