The Information-Gathering Paradox

… The Internet industry, having nudged consumers to share heaps of information about themselves, has built a trove of personal data for government agencies to mine — erecting, perhaps unintentionally, what Alessandro Acquisti, a Carnegie Mellon University behavioral economist, calls “the de facto infrastructure of surveillance.” Nearly five months after […] Read more »

The Reselling of the President

Richard Wolffe’s account of the 2012 election [“The Message: The Reselling of President Obama”] is a fine behind-the-scenes campaign-trail book that makes me wonder about the future of behind-the-scenes campaign-trail books. … Yet “The Message” is actually most interesting when Wolffe descends from the executive suite to the “boiler room,” […] Read more »