【おすすめ本】孫崎 享 『米国一極支配の終焉と日本の選択』―ポスト冷戦〝後〟の日本外交を問う=森原 康仁(専修大学教授)

6 hours 26 minutes ago
 本書は冷戦後の米国一極覇権が、すでに解体過程に入っており、日本も対米依存を前提する思考から脱却すべきと主張する。著者は非西側諸国の台頭、米中の軍事バランスの変化、米国の取引主義的外交などを例に挙げて、米国の覇権が経済・軍事・外交の各領域で相対化していると論じる。 本書の強みは、日本の安保論議がしばしば「中国脅威論」と「日米同盟強化」に収斂する中で、その前提を問うている点にある。特に安保条約が米国の自動参戦を保証していないこと、台湾有事の際、日本が前線化する危険を指摘している..
JCJ

LGBT Q&A: How Can I Wipe Online Data That Points To My Queer Identity?

6 hours 34 minutes ago

This Pride, we’re answering all your digital rights questions in season two of our initiative, LGBT Q&A

You Asked: Is there a way for me to wipe data about me online that could point to my queer identity?

EFF’s Answer: You cannot protect everything all the time, but there are ways to wipe information about yourself online. 

Most information available about you online will typically be found in two places:

  1. The site where you voluntarily posted the data, such as your pictures and videos on social media, comments in user reviews and forums, and even classified postings for items you’ve sold.
  2. A data broker. These companies collect personal information, repackage it, and sell it to the highest bidders. This information often includes your address, phone number, details about your family members, and more. 

So you might not want this information out there, especially if it points to your queer identity. 

The best time to take steps to protect yourself is before anything bad happens, because once this information is in the hands of bad actors you have fewer options.

To see what information people might find about you online, you can look for it for yourself. This is as simple as opening up a search engine and entering your name, nickname, handle, avatar and seeing what comes up. It can also be worth searching for your address, phone number, and email addresses to check what's out there.

Do this in a private browsing window or a separate browser than the one you normally use to ensure you’re not logged into any accounts that might skew the results, like a Google account. 

It’s also best to try to make a lot of your information hard to find in the first place—and we’ve got you covered on how to do this. 

  1. Establish a strong security baseline: use unique passwords (a password manager helps simplify this) and set up two-factor authentication for your online accounts to add an extra layer of protection when logging into your accounts.
  2. Add our install-and-forget tracker blocking tool, Privacy Badger, which lets you browse in peace and stops the sorts of web trackers that compile information about your habits for advertising purposes and for data brokers.
  3. Remove your advertising ID on your phone to help prevent some tracking there, too (directions for Android or iPhone). This way less information about you is available for purchase, making it harder for corporations to profit from your online activities.
  4. Ask data brokers to delete your personal data. You might spend the time doing it yourself. If you’re in California, you can use the Privacy Protection Agency’s tool for this. You also might use professional services like EasyOptOuts and Optery to help minimize the information available about you online from data brokers and similar sources.
  5. You can remove yourself from Google results by heading to the “Results about you” page, then entering your information. Once set up, you’ll get notifications if some new types of information about you appear in Google Search. Just remember that this will not remove the information from the internet, it just won’t show up in Google’s search.

You also should consider auditing your digital footprint on public-facing social media and forums. Different people have different tolerance for risk when it comes to announcing who we are and what we are doing in these online spaces. You can make a list of every social media or forum account you’ve had over the years, and review the public-facing content about you, including your name, contact information like email addresses or phone numbers, and pictures that might show your home or workplace. You can also review the account settings to ensure you’re comfortable with the privacy options and that you’ve got strong login credentials.

For more in depth advice check out our Surveillance Self Defense guide on managing your digital footprint.

Paige Collings

EFF and Allies: X’s FTC Petition to Waive Privacy Violation Order Should be Rejected

7 hours 22 minutes ago

X Corp. should not be able to escape privacy compliance because it changed its name. 

On May 15, X Corp. filed a petition before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to set aside or modify an order issued in 2022 requiring the company to report regularly to the FTC for its violations of user data. The order or “consent decree” is a result of misleading the platforms’ 140 million users by using private information given to secure accounts, like phone numbers and email addresses, for targeted advertising. It also fined the company $150 million for the infraction. As part of an open comments period, EFF and allies including Demand Progress Education Fund (DPEF), National Consumers League (NCL) and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) call on the FTC to reject this petition.

The 2022 order was a renewal of an order stemming from a previous violation. Back in 2011, Twitter (now X) reached a settlement with the FTC after the regulator found Twitter had failed to secure users’ personal information, resulting in exposure of that data to hackers. The settlement banned the company from misrepresenting its data protection measures, required it to set up safeguards on user data, and regularly report its security posture for twenty years. The renewal updated the expiration of X’s obligations to 2042, but if the FTC accepts X's petition, it would end much sooner.

In arguing to set aside the order, X remarks that since the order in 2011 it has “built an entirely new privacy and information security program staffed by new personnel operating under new leadership with a … philosophy grounded on the importance of privacy and information security.” 

These sweeping assurances that corporate restructuring led to a fundamental change in X’s policy and practices around user data should be met with a healthy dose of skepticism, given evidence to the contrary. For example, the company’s quiet rollout integrated its AI model Grok with the platform in 2024, trained (without meaningful consent) on X user data. The company was also subject to a massive data breach in 2025. Even if a rotation of leadership led to prioritizing privacy and information security, our letter highlights that this would not be sufficient grounds to remove the order, “because the FTC orders bind the corporate entity. Those obligations do not dissolve when the employees who negotiated or administered it depart.”

X argues that its entry into the AI space should be reason not to continue the oversight, claiming that “terminating the Order is critical to advancing American leadership in artificial intelligence.” Here again, broad-stroke claims that the guardrails in place “[diverts] engineering resources from innovation to compliance paperwork” ignores the dangers that AI introduces to user data. Far from being a reason to waive the order, clever attacks on models trained on user data has the ability to supercharge the types of secondary use violations that led to the 2022 order renewal. After all, an entire art has been developed around engineering LLM prompts to reveal the data a model was originally trained on.

Our response to X’s petition debunks many claims the company uses in its arguments. For example, there’s little evidence the order placed an undue financial burden on X. In our letter, we note that the compliance cost is merely “a rounding error against the $200 billion valuation of X Corp. following the xAI merger.”

Strong safeguards on our information require eagle-eyed oversight when that data is abused and misused for profiteering ventures. X’s actions not only showed us this in the past, but continue to do so in the present day. We and our civil society partners urge the FTC to take the clear, sensible path and reject X’s petition.

Bill Budington

[B] ウィシュマさん映像開示訴訟 遺族側、国に非開示理由の説明求める

1 day 2 hours ago
名古屋出入国在留管理局で2021年3月に死亡したスリランカ人女性、ウィシュマ・サンダマリさんの死亡前の監視カメラ映像の全面開示を求める訴訟の口頭弁論が6月25日、東京地裁で開かれた。この訴訟で遺族側が求めているのは、ウィシュマさんが死亡するまでの監視カメラ映像約295時間分の全面開示である。これまでに国側から提出された映像は約5時間分にとどまっており、遺族側は、死亡に至る経緯を検証し、ウィシュマさんに何が起きたのかを知るため、全映像の開示を求めている。(岩中健介)
日刊ベリタ

【月刊マスコミ評・出版】『週刊文春』の独走が続く‥‥=荒屋敷 宏

1 day 6 hours ago
  週刊文春』が高市早苗首相陣営の「中傷動画」問題で独走を続けている。6月18日号で第6弾となった。新証言に加えて、未公開LINEの内容の一部を掲載した。 同誌が5月7・14日号から追及を続ける「中傷動画」問題とは、昨年10月の自民党総裁選と今年12月の衆院選で高市陣営がライバル候補や野党を中傷する動画の作成を依頼し、SNSで拡散していた問題だ。  首相の公設第一秘書・木下剛志氏が動画の作成を依頼し、起業家の松井健氏が作成・拡散を担当したとの疑惑がある。選挙中のSNS対策をめ..
JCJ

Why gender diversity matters in technology

1 day 9 hours ago
The absence of women and gender-diverse people in tech design and decision making can be dangerous. This editorial was written for Global Voices’ Spotlight series “Gender Diversity”, which offers…
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)