On September 12th, the European Parliament will vote on whether to include Article 13 with the new Copyright Directive, and if they do, they will destroy the internet.

Michael Froomkin writes, "We Robot, now heading into its 8th year, is lots of fun — and it's also the leading North American conference on robotics law and policy. The… Read the rest of the article: Papers sought for We Robot: Miami's eighth annual conference on robots and the law

Bruce Schneier (previously) has spent literal decades as part of the vanguard of the movement to get policy makers to take internet security seriously: to actually try to make devices and services secure, and to resist the temptation to blow holes in their security in order to spy on "bad guys." In Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World, Schneier makes a desperate, impassioned plea for sensible action, painting a picture of a world balanced on the point of no return.

Top Shelf has reprinted the first volume of Anne Opotowsky and Aya Morton's groundbreaking 2011 book His Dream of Sky Island, an indescribably gorgeous graphic novel set in British-ruled Hong Kong: it's a tale that ranges over cruelty and dignity, love and venality, unspeakable crimes and unstoppable bravery.

In Gregory Scott Katsoulis's All Rights Reserved, we had a thrilling YA adventure in a world where ever word is copyrighted and every person over 15 wears an unremovable surveillance cuff to bill them for their speech; in the sequel, Access Restricted, we follow the surviving heroes outside the claustrophobic confines of the Portland dome and into the wider world, to DC, the wastelands beyond, and finally to Tejico, the semi-colonized, semi-independent nation made up of Mexico and Texas, where a way out of this terrible world may be found.

John Varley is one of my all-time favorite authors, whose "Eight Worlds" stories and novels have been strung out over decades, weaving together critical takes on Heinlein and other "golden age" writers with mindfuckingly great technological/philosophical speculation, genderbending, genre-smashing prose, and some of the most likable, standout characters in the field.

Sandman Slim is Richard Kadrey's runaway success antihero: a wisecracking sorcerer who's half-divine, erstwhile king of Hell, slayer of demons, stealer of cars, leader of armies, smoker of foul cigarettes — and now, in volume ten of the longrunning series, Hollywood Dead, Sandman Slim enters a battle whose stakes are higher than ever, because of how very personal they've become.

Ken "Popehat" White, a former US Attorney turned criminal defense attorney, notes that the Republican outrage about "flipped" prosecution witnesses is awfully self-serving (given that Trump's bagman Michael Cohen and… Read the rest of the article: Law and Order Republicans have suddenly discovered the undeniable injustice of "flipped" prosecution witnesses

Harvard grad student Zainab Merchant is detained and invasively searched every time she flies; she's tried extensively to end this harassment, applying for Global Entry and Precheck, writing to her… Read the rest of the article: TSA racially profiles Muslim woman, makes her show her bloody sanitary towel

There's one thing that Democratic and Republican leaders agree on: that left-wing policies like Medicare for all are bad news for the Democratic policy — the only people who disagrees… Read the rest of the article: The Democratic Party is surging thanks to leftist policies, but its leadership are convinced they have to stop it

For the second time in two years, America's prisoners have staged a mass, coordinated strike, demanding an end to slave labor for incarcerated people, channels for redress of grievances, an… Read the rest of the article: Prisoners in 17 states are on strike, demanding an end to prison slavery and basic human justice

Lyft has teamed up with the Urban League, Voto Latino, the Urban League and the National Federation of the Blind to offer free and half-price rides to the polls for… Read the rest of the article: Lyft will give free and half-price rides to the polls on election day

Austin Kleon, explaining why artists and people who love them should be single-issue voters and why that issue should be Medicare for All: "Bad health care has killed more American… Read the rest of the article: "Bad health care has killed more American artists than I can list"

Paul Manafort's money-laundering conviction makes a convenient peg to hang Buzzfeed's investigation into shell companies in the UK off of; and what their excellent reporting reveals is a playground for… Read the rest of the article: Britain is a money-launderer's paradise, Part LXII

For many of us, the Cliven Bundy story started when a fringey rancher got a bunch of his militia pals to flex their white privilege by threatening to shoot federal… Read the rest of the article: Bundyville: a bingeable new podcast that delves into the apocalyptic cult of Cliven Bundy

Mozilla's annual fellowships fund 10-12 months' of work by people who "put individuals in control of their personal data," "help connect the unconnected," "keep artificial intelligence accountable," and "make scientific… Read the rest of the article: Meet the astounding Mozilla fellows for 2018

Gnat sent in a tip about The Hit Points, who use "bluegrass instruments used to make beautiful music from classic video games (Street Fighter, Legend of Zelda, Mario Brothers, etc.)"… Read the rest of the article: The Hit Points: foot-stomping video-game bluegrass covers

Wickr, a private, secure messaging company, has teamed up with Psiphon (previously), a spinout from Citizen Lab (previously) to allow its users to communicate even when they are behind national… Read the rest of the article: Wickr announces a firewall-circumventing tool to help beat national censorship regimes

Zeynep Tufekci (previously) leads Tech Review's politics issue with the best overview of the forces that have combined to make the internet so hospitable to totalitarians and racist pigs.

Onavo (previously) was an Israeli startup that Facebook bought; the company has made a series of apps that masqueraded as utility software while gathering competitive intelligence that Facebook used to… Read the rest of the article: Apple removes Facebook's deceptive, surveillant VPN from the App Store