If The Vision He Laid Out Friday Prevails, Mass Surveillance On Innocents Will Continue And We'll Never

Claim on “Attacks Thwarted” by NSA Spreads Despite Lack of Evidence

The agency, President Obama, and members of Congress have all said NSA spying programs have thwarted more than 50 terrorist plots. But there’s no evidence the claim is true.

 The NSA has publicly identified four of the 54 cases.

A Science Icon Died 17 Years Ago. In His Last Interview, He Made A Warning That Gives Me Goosebumps.

His dark prediction about the future has become our present.

Jefferson:  It wasn't enough to enshrine some rights in the constitution and the bill of rights, the people had to be educated and they had to practice their skepticism in their education otherwise we don't run the government- the government runs us.

We live in an age based on science and technology with formidable technological powers.

If we don't understand it, by we I mean the general public, if it's something that "oh I'm not good at, that I don't know anything about it", then who is making all the decisions about science and technology that are going to determine what kind of future our children live in?  Just some members of congress, but there's no more than a handful members of congress with any background in science at all.

Digital Citizenship

I’m working on organizing faculty/students/staff who would be interested in promoting awareness of Digital Citizenship elements.  

I’ve created a wiki to organize resources and information about events.

I want to create a calendar where each month starting in September on of the 9 elements is highlighted.  I thought it would be a good idea to see what kind of days/events are already “celebrated” and then match them up.  For example, since National Cyber Security month already exists in October  I would make October the month of “Digital Citizenship:  Security” awareness.  

The only problem is trying to find days/months that match up with all of them.  It’s not quite working out!  I found this great calendar with a listing of many, MANY events which I thought would solve my problem.  When sorted, it seems to have made the problem worse.  I’m worried that I’ve missed some.  It’s also difficult choosing which topics would be best for which month since there are multiple days/weeks/months that would match.

Help!  If you know of specific months/days that correspond to the 9 elements of Digital Citizenship, please share!

This is what I have so far.  I’ve enabled commenting (shortcut key is Ctrl-Alt-M)

Highlighted Topics/Events are choices that I feel are a good fit.

Any help would be much appreciated!  I will be updated the wiki with the plans for events and resources, stay tuned!

Writing for Wikipedia event 10/26/16

The importance of play

Play is more than just fun (TED video)

Children today are suffering a severe deficit of play (article)

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

Arthur C. Clarke

Say what now? #Snowden

Here's Why The Washington Post Is Wrong About Edward Snowden via Fortune

Why is this so surprising and/or controversial? Because theWashington Post was one of the primary outlets that worked closely with Snowden, published multiple stories based on his leaks, and in fact won a Pulitzer Prize for a story about the program that the editorial board says should not have been publicized.

In effect, the newspaper’s editorial board is arguing that the coverage that won it the Pulitzer also “disrupted lawful intelligence-gathering” and therefore was largely indefensible even by the standards usually applied to whistle blowers.

WashPost Makes History: First Paper to Call for Prosecution of Its Own Source (After Accepting Pulitzer)

THREE OF THE four media outlets that received and published large numbers of secret NSA documents provided by Edward Snowden — The Guardian, the New York Times, and The Intercept –– have called for the U.S. government to allow the NSA whistleblower to return to the U.S. with no charges. That’s the normal course for a news organization, which owes its sources duties of protection, and which — by virtue of accepting the source’s materials and then publishing them — implicitly declares the source’s information to be in the public interest.

But not the Washington Post.

Long Hiatus

I’m slowly getting back online...  Over the last 6 months I haven’t been online much other than posting to IG and infrequently on Fb with the random moment on Twitter.   I am very lucky to be here and I’m very thankful to be on my way to a full recovery...  I’ll be sharing more on that in a future post and in the introduction to my next book... 

I’ve spent the afternoon making a few updates to my site:  kristen.education.  You’ll see a new header and I’ve also added some of my “secret” pages to the “Curation” page.  

My next project is going to be signing up for Star Wars Virtual Half Marathon.  I’m going to ask friends and family to sponsor me and donate the money to a Kidney Charity.  

Stay tuned!