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Electronic Frontier Foundation Unveils ‘Atlas of Surveillance’

Andrew Orr ·

The EFF unveiled the Atlas of Surveillance today. It’s a database of surveillance tech used by law enforcement across the country. Anyone can use it to see what spying technology their state’s LE uses. You can download datasets, too.

We specifically focused on the most pervasive technologies, including drones, body-worn cameras, face recognition, cell-site simulators, automated license plate readers, predictive policing, camera registries, and gunshot detection. Although we have amassed more than 5,000 datapoints in 3,000 jurisdictions, our research only reveals the tip of the iceberg and underlines the need for journalists and members of the public to continue demanding transparency from criminal justice agencies.

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SiriusXM Buying Stitcher in $325 Million

Charlotte Henry ·

Satellite radio platform SiriusXM is continuing its push into podcasts buying Stitcher. The deal is worth $325 million, according to The Verge.

Stitcher is not only a popular podcasting app with a premium, ad-free subscription service, but it’s also a network that, combined with its other entity Earwolf, produces shows like Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. Scripps also combined Stitcher with Midroll Media, a podcast ad company that sells ads for other shows like The Dream and Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness that it acquired in 2015 for $50 million. The Sirius deal will give it ownership of all these companies, which, in some cases, could be redundant with what it already owns and operates. For one, Sirius owns Pandora, which it acquired in 2018 for $3 billion. Pandora, of course, is a popular place to listen to music and podcasts and also has its own exclusive content deals, like one with Marvel that was signed last year. It also owns AdsWizz, a podcast ad technology company that places ads in shows.