For more than a decade, the recording industry has been complaining that online copyright infringement is devastating the music industry. And it's true that the revenues of conventional record labels have plunged in recent years. But if you look at the bigger picture, things don't look so grim.
Think piracy is killing the music industry? This chart suggests otherwise.
Here’s how phone metadata can reveal your secrets
The National Security Agency’s surveillance program, now being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, only collects metadata about Americans’ phone calls—who they call, when, and how long the calls last. In defending the program, the government has cited a controversial 1979 Supreme Court decision that held that phone records are not protected by the Fourth Amendment because consumers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their calling records.
Here’s what can go wrong when the government builds a huge database about Americans
The National Crime Information Center database, maintained by the FBI, provides law enforcement agencies across the country with information they need to do their job, including information about outstanding arrest warrants, gang memberships, firearms records, and much more. According to the AP, it serves 90,000 agencies and receives 9 million data points every day.