Author Archives: bhaggart

Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Entry 1: The 2018 Auditor General of Ontario Report

Posted on July 15, 2019 by bhaggart

Previous Master Innovation and Development Plan liveblog entries available here I highly recommend the Auditor General’s Waterfront Toronto report for those of you looking to understand how we ended up with Sidewalk Labs’ controversial smart city proposal. What emerges from … Continue reading →

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Liveblogging Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan, Entry 0: The Dark Tower of annoyingly long smart city reports

Posted on July 15, 2019 by bhaggart

On June 24, 2019, after 20 months of sordid twists and turns – high–profile resignations, the CEO who oversaw the whole thing forced out by the Waterfront Toronto Board, accusations of improper tendering processes, a data company hired to implement … Continue reading →

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Evaluating scholarship, or why I won’t be teaching Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Posted on February 15, 2019 by bhaggart

I’ve been trying to sort out my opinion about The Age of Surveillance Capitalism since I read it almost a month ago. While I am predisposed to agree with Shoshana Zuboff’s worries about an … apocalyptic isn’t too strong a … Continue reading →

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Facebook hires privacy critics: What’s the opposite of “cautious optimism”?

Posted on February 1, 2019 by bhaggart

It’s been fascinating to watch American digital-rights activists react to Facebook’s hiring of three prominent privacy-focused lawyers, particularly the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Nate Cardozo (the other hires were Open Technology Institute’s Robyn Greene and Nathan White from Access Now). Overall, … Continue reading →

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Want to understand current Canada-US relations? Look at the 1930s

Posted on June 19, 2018 by bhaggart

One of the reasons it’s hard for Canadians to understand fully the threat posed by Trump and deeper currents in US politics is that Trump has ripped up the rulebook that has governed the Canada-U.S. relationship for over seventy years. … Continue reading →

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