prisons

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen explains in a TEDx talk why Germany has lower crime and far fewer prisoners than the US, and what American criminal justice could learn from German prisons.

Justice Antonin Scalia's opening statement at a 2011 Senate Judiciary hearing on the role of judges. He argues that the Constitution's separation of powers is what protects liberty, and that gridlock is by design.

Dan Geer's Black Hat 2014 keynote argues that cybersecurity is a matter of power and policy rather than wishful thinking. He covers surveillance, the vulnerability market, software liability and privacy as the capacity to misrepresent yourself.

Bill Gurley's talk at the All-In Summit 2023, titled 2,851 Miles after the distance between Washington and San Francisco. He describes how incumbents use lobbying and regulation to entrench themselves, followed by a conversation with the hosts.

Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig argues that US democracy is corrupted by money, since a tiny fraction of the population effectively funds who gets elected. He says fixing this must come before addressing issues like climate change or student debt.

Law professor James Duane explains why you should not talk to the police even if you are innocent, drawing on case histories of wrongful convictions. It is a short version of the argument in his book on the right to remain silent.

Johann Hari's TED talk arguing that addiction is driven largely by disconnection and environment rather than chemical hooks alone. He draws on his personal experience with addicted relatives and on research and policy examples from around the world.

Jason Scott of textfiles.com tells the story at DEFCON 17 of being sued for two billion dollars by a scammer who plagued him and others for over a decade. The talk is tragic and funny, covering what he learned about misleading schemes.

Lawrence Lessig's 2011 Berkeley book talk based on Republic, Lost, arguing that money in politics creates institutional corruption in Congress. He calls it his favorite version of the talk.

Karl Fogel's 2006 Google Tech Talk traces copyright from a 16th-century English censorship law to a distribution monopoly. It then surveys alternative economic bases for creation and distribution.

Cory Doctorow's DEF CON 31 talk describes how platforms decay in a pattern he calls enshittification. He lays out a plan to stop it through antitrust, interoperability and fixing the law.

Larry Lessig's TED talk argues that copyright law chokes creativity, drawing on John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights and the ASCAP cartel to make the case for reviving remix culture.

Susan Crawford talks at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center about her book Captive Audience. She argues that deregulation and consolidation left a few telecom companies in control of American internet access, so people pay too much for slow service.

Rowan Atkinson's speech at the launch of the Reform Section 5 campaign in Parliament in 2012. He argues against criminalizing insulting words and for answering speech with more speech.

Deviant Ollam gives a long talk on risk and preparedness: get a lawyer, passport, locksmith and other resources before you need them. It covers practical steps to build defenses against serious problems in life.

Rowan Atkinson speaks against the word 'insulting' in the UK Public Order Act, as part of the Reform Section 5 campaign. He argues for robust free speech and against the slippery slope of criminalizing offense.

Copenhagen's bicycle ambassador Mikael Colville-Andersen argues in a TEDx talk that bicycle helmets threaten bicycle culture. He says they distract from road design and make cycling look dangerous.

A five-minute TED talk by Rob Reid, who introduces Copyright Math, applying entertainment-industry piracy loss claims to produce absurd totals such as an $8 billion iPod.

Nina Paley's TEDxMaastricht talk arguing against copyright and for copyleft and free culture. She argues that restricting ideas harms creativity and that culture belongs to everyone.

Eben Moglen of the Software Freedom Conservancy speaks at the 2009 Law of the Commons Conference about free and open software as a model for a new intellectual commons. The talk covers the legal and social case for sharing knowledge.

A Black Hat USA 2017 briefing by the prosecutors who caught Russian carder Roman Seleznev. It covers the electronic evidence collected, the international trail, and how he was located and arrested.

Former bank regulator William Black explains how fraud, including liar's loans, was committed from inside banks and drove the 2008 financial crisis.

Deviant Ollam's DEF CON 17 talk explains how legally checking a firearm in luggage can be the most secure way to fly with valuable tech. It covers firearm transport rules and luggage locks.

Lawyer and musician Damien Riehl argues that music is math with a finite number of melodies, and describes how he and programmer Noah Rubin generated every possible melody and released them under CC0 to avoid accidental infringement claims.

A Johns Hopkins Foreign Affairs Symposium debate between former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden and constitutional law professor David Cole, moderated by Major Garrett. They argue over NSA surveillance, its constitutionality and the balance between privacy and security.