Big Brother

Water Wars Were Supposed to Be Here by Now. AI May Have Other Plans.

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Twenty years ago, military planners and policy experts warned that the wars of the future would be fought over water. The wars never came—at least not in the way we expected. Today, however, a new competitor is entering the fight for one of humanity’s most precious resources: artificial intelligence. As massive data centers consume vast amounts of power and cooling water, rivers, lakes, and aquifers are becoming strategic assets once again. The future battle for water may not involve tanks and soldiers, but corporations, regulators, and communities struggling to determine who gets access to the fuel that powers the digital age. Perhaps the water warriors of the early 2000s weren’t wrong. They were simply ahead of their time.

The Surveillance State and the Tyrannical Bird

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The Founders built a system based on an assumption that now sounds almost quaint: government power would be limited by reality. Communication was slow. Information was scarce. The federal government had trouble collecting taxes, let alone tracking the daily movements of its citizens. If the government wanted to watch someone in 1790, it needed a horse, a spy, and probably a tavern receipt.

From Prairie Reinvention to Permanent Record: The Death of Disappearing in Digital America

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There was a time in America when you could punch your Army captain, skip town, grow a beard, head west, and become “Samuel Whitaker, cattleman and church deacon.” Today? You can’t change your Instagram handle without a two-factor authentication code, three archived screenshots, and your ex forwarding it to your employer.

When Security Becomes Surveillance: Why America Has No Business Demanding Everyone’s Social Media History

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Every few years, Washington discovers a brand-new way to make ordinary people miserable in the name of “security.” The latest brainstorm? A proposed rule requiring visitors from 42 friendly nations—including Australia—to hand over five years of their social media history just to enter the United States.

The Double-Edged Sword of Information Technology

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Greetings my fellow Americans! Having spent 30 years of my life immersed in the world of Information Technology innovation and development (IT), I witnessed firsthand the 20th-century evolution and revolution of the machines known as computers. The very first computer on which I worked, as I was earning a degree in Computer Engineering, contained what …

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