Wiretapping the Web provokes a visceral reaction for more than one reason. First and foremost, like any electronic surveillance, it’s a massive invasion of privacy by the world’s most powerful government. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, in 1928, “As a means of espionage, writs of assistance and general warrants are but puny instruments of tyranny and oppression when compared with wiretapping.” A wiretapping law can incidentally create a terrible innovation policy. “Build your system this way” has rarely yielded good results, and never when Congress is involved. Finally, some technologists believe that a Web-tapping law will create new Internet security risks, because it would force firms to build backdoors into their systems, which malicious hackers could then exploit.

E-Commerce in India at Turning Point

By Shailesh Chitnis

 A ripple of mergers and closures among India’s e-commerce websites that began last year is threatening to become a wave, as these companies find it harder to get fresh funding.

Why Eric Holder's Excuse for Spying on Reporters Isn't Enough

Conor Friedersdorf

IRS, DOJ, and Benghazi Expose Limits of Obama’s Big Government Vision

Obama looks to government as the first solution. It's in his DNA. And now that DNA is producing rogue genes.

Jay Carney Holds on as Winds Buffet White House

  by Eleanor Clift

The way Washington reporting works, much of it revolves around the White House and the perception that the leader of the free world should be controlling most everything that’s worth paying attention to. President Obama is not following the script, and it was left to his press secretary, former reporter Jay Carney, to explain to a packed briefing room Tuesday why Obama is not taking a more forceful stance to combat the scandals— including one that reporters take very personally—engulfing his presidency.

In discussing her double mastectomy, she has challenged the celebrity industry – and done all women a service

Jolie may not be the first, she has done something that is – by any standards – pretty extraordinary and brave, even on top of having a preventive double mastectomy. She is certainly the highest-profile woman to make such an announcement in a long time, and she is arguably one with the most at stake. For a young, beautiful actress to announce that she has had her breasts removed is, as career moves go, somewhat akin to a handsome leading man announcing he is gay, and that is disgusting and ridiculous on both counts. Ultimately, she has challenged not just her own public image but also the wearisome cliche of what makes a woman sexy, and how a woman considered to be sexy talks about her body.

Jimmy Connors won't go quietly

 He was tennis's most scatalogical champ and King of the Five-Set Comeback. He's known for boasting he was loved for it all because "I spilled my blood and guts out there." And there's no disputing that. The real tension in the question "Who is Jimmy Connors?" -- the first vulgarian to crash tennis's gates back in the 1970s, or just another compulsively driven sports great who believed all's fair in competition? -- should be settled with the publication of his autobiography, at long last, at the age of 60. Even its title, "The Outsider," gives away the answer.

Connors is exactly who we thought he was.

Opening a conversation on women’s health.

Angelina Jolie Is Still a Woman

Eleanor Barkhorn

 This is a big deal. Angelina Jolie is sexy. Her body parts—her legs, her breasts, her hair, even her blood—have been on display throughout her career, subject to discussion and speculation. That she can lose the part of her body most closely associated with female sexuality and still feel fully female is an astonishing statement. Yes, she's a celebrity and can afford the finest reconstructive surgery in the world, a level of care that's out of the reach of most people (a fact she acknowledges). Nevertheless, the message is clear: A woman is still sexy, even after she has her breasts removed and reconstructed. It's hard to imagine a person who can say that with more authority than Jolie.

How Bing Crosby and the Nazis Helped to Create Silicon Valley

The Second World War had just ended. Americans were picking over the technological remains of German industry. One of the things they discovered was magnetic tape; the Nazis had been using tape recording to broadcast propaganda across time zones. It was a remarkable invention. Previous sound-recording technologies had used wax cylinders or discs, or delicate wires. But magnetic tape was remarkably fungible: it could be recorded over, cut and spliced together. Plus it sounded better.  Meanwhile, engineers interested in tape, having learned what they could from what the Nazis left behind, made their way to Crosby and showed him what the new magnetic technology could do. His interest was more than piqued; he handed fifty thousand dollars to the men from the Ampex corporation, which at that time was just a half-dozen people. The machines they delivered went into use in 1947, and a new Crosby show, edited by tape splicing, was broadcast—the first radio show to use the new technology. Suddenly audio—recorded media—was flexible. It could be cut and pasted, rearranged, and edited.

The only 'political circus' is all the controversies in the Obama administration

Tea partiers join a club including the Communist Party, Christian schools—and Mother Jones.

By Tim Murphy

John F. Kennedy: In 1961, Attorney General Robert Kennedy teamed up with United Auto Workers president Walter Reuther to produce the "Reuther Memorandum," which proposed curtailing the influence of far-right groups in two ways. The first was the enforcement of the Federal Communication Commision's "Fairness Doctrine," to limit their use of the airwaves. The second was the IRS, through an initiative called "The Ideological Organizations Audit Project," which explored the political activities of conservative nonprofits. The program eventually expanded to the other of the side of political spectrum, but according to the 1976 Senate investigation, that was mostly a facade of nonpartisanship.

How do students best pick up languages? Martin Williams talks to academics, teachers and multi-lingual speakers

Language pedagogy has come a long way since the days when repetitive grammar-translation methods were regarded as the only way to learn. Today, task-based approaches are widespread in British schools, emphasising communication and the practical uses of language.

"I hardly ever use a textbook - I use Twitter much more," she says, describing lessons where pupils discuss tweets written in French. "ICT allows them to collaborate with others. So they can work together, but it gives them a choice of medium. And because they know how to use computers, it creates a comfort zone where they can focus on the language."

Is Obama Worse For Press Freedom Than Nixon?

 James Goodale defended the New York Times during the Pentagon Papers. But Nixon had nothing on Obama, writes the First Amendment lawyer—and that’s bad news for freedom of the press.

Obama has indicted six leakers, more than any other president in history.