Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. Additionally, he has a tech entrepreneur background and loves good whisky and fast motorcycles.
What you're saying unencrypted today can and will come back to hunt you in twenty years by a different government with different values. Once you realize this, do you really…
Policymaking and technology have diverged for the past 30 years, in the battle between an imaginary "right to incumbency" on one hand and disruptive makers on the other. Eventually, one…
When I was working in the European Parliament, there was one quote that stuck with me: "you'll never see somebody's own government listed among the threats to a customer's privacy…
Freedom of Speech is not just the freedom to say whatever you want. It's the freedom to say those words to somebody. It follows that strong encryption is not just…
The European Court of Human Rights has found that bulk warrantless mass surveillance violates basic human rights. The case was brought by Roman Zakharov against Russia, and is binding on…
As you start using bitcoin, you start questioning the nature of money - or the nature of central bank money, anyway. If you go deeper down the rabbit hole, you…
It didn't take long after the Paris terror attacks for police state hawks to demand more police powers. Bans on encryption have been suggested, as well as regulation of bitcoin…
Politicians in several countries have proposed restrictions in privacy and liberty in the form of increased surveillance powers following the Paris terror attacks. This is not just wrong and harmful,…
It seems Google does record audio from microphones all the time, despite attempts to play down the situation. The "hotword" searching - when you initiate a search by saying "Ok…
It was too conspiratorial to be true - links showing stories on the United States Drone Assassination Program weren't showing up on Twitter if you were accessing Twitter from United…