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Online privacy regulated by Reagan Era law from 1988 designed to protect video rentals

By Jonathan Cohn, Assistant Professor of Digital Cultures, University of Alberta In 1988, after United States Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s videotape rental history was leaked to the press, Congress realised the threat that new technologies, through the clandestine buying and selling of personal data, had to the well-being of all citizens. They acted to fix the problem with the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), a law that forbids the sharing of video tape rental information to anyone. While a law focused on videotape rental information may seem esoteric and anachronistic, debates at the time of its writing show...

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Good Guy with a Gun: How pulp fiction became a deadly American fantasy

By Susanna Lee, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Georgetown University At the end of May, it happened again. A mass shooter killed 12 people, this time at a municipal center in Virginia Beach. Employees had been forbidden to carry guns at work, and some lamented that this policy had prevented “good guys” from taking out the shooter. This trope, “the good guy with a gun,” has become commonplace among gun rights activists. Where did it come from? On December 21, 2012, one week after Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,...

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Milwaukee moves forward with a pilot study for dockless electric scooters

Following Governor Evers signing into state law the authorization for local governments to regulate the rental and operation of dockless scooters, the City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works (DPW) launched a pilot study. Dockless scooter systems are privately operated and consist of self-service electric scooters made available to users on a short-term basis. Dockless scooters do not require a permanent or fixed location to reserve or return a scooter. “This pilot is yet another example of the City of Milwaukee exploring opportunities to create a more robust, holistic transportation network,” said Commissioner of Public Works Jeff Polenske. “In...

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Westown blooms with completion of epic mural by Emma Daisy Gertel

Downtown Milwaukee officially welcomed one of its largest and most ambitious mural projects, with a ribbon cutting ceremony on July 19, along the west wall of Dunkin’ at 622 W. Wisconsin Avenue. Titled “Westown In Bloom,” the 80’ wide by 50’ high mural was painted by local artist Emma Daisy Gertel, and commissioned by the Milwaukee Downtown BID #21 and the Downtown Placemaking Task Force. Gertel was selected from a pool of nearly 60 applications from around the globe. The high-impact canvas on northeast corner of James Lovell Street and Wisconsin Avenue featured an urban garden as its subject,...

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Milwaukee’s Latino community welcomes LULAC 2019 National Convention with gala celebration

Potawatomi Hotel hosted the Wisconsin Celebration VIP reception on July 10 for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), kicking off the Civil Rights organization’s 90th Annual National Convention and Exposition in Milwaukee. LULAC is the oldest surviving Latino civil rights organization in the United States. It was established in 1929 by Hispanic veterans of World War I, who sought to end ethnic discrimination against Latinos in America. According to Pew Research, Hispanics will be for the first time the largest racial or ethnic minority group in the electorate in the 2020 election, making their participation even more...

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Refusal by Legislators to expand Medicaid budget is costing Wisconsin money and lives

The Medicaid budget approved by the legislature this week will cost state tax taxpayers far more than the budget recommended by the governor, yet will accomplish far less to improve access to health care. Ideological opposition to expanding Medicaid is costing Wisconsin a lot of money. The legislature’s budget reduces total Medicaid spending from all sources by almost $1 billion, compared to the governor’s budget. Even though it adds more than $320 million of state general purpose revenue, state tax dollars, to the Medicaid increase proposed by the Governor, the legislature’s budget captures almost $1.3 billion less from federal...

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