Welcome to the personal website of writer Skylar Baker-Jordan

Tag: edward snowden

  • ’tis better to give than recieve. That’s crap. But here’s a present anyway.

      Last week, I published my Christmas wish list, and kindly expected y’all to deliver. What can I say? Greed is good. Boris says so. Still, they say the greatest gift is giving. This is, of course, rubbish, as the greatest gift is cash so I can avoid returning whatever hideous or useless gift you […]

  • Gareth Williams, GCHQ, and the crisis of confidence

    So Gareth Williams killed himself in some unexplainable sex game gone wrong. He slipped into a bag, padlocked himself inside from the outside (huh?), and within three minutes suffocated. There was no DNA left on the locks, or in the bath in which he was found. In a Security Services safe house. Well that’s that. […]

  • What if Britain had a First Amendment?

    There’s been so much talk about the importance of a free press and free speech lately that I feel as though I’m at a salon with Milton and Locke. In light of the Royal Charter regulating the press and furor around the Guardian’s reporting on and release of classified GCHQ intelligence documents , there’s been […]

  • The UK has a st…

    The UK has a strong history of democracy, and while targeted surveillance may play an important role in protecting national security, in doing so it should not erode the very values it seeks to protect. An excerpt from a letter, signed by 70 leading human rights organisations, to David Cameron over what they perceive as eroding press […]

  • While the NSA a…

    While the NSA and GCHQ appear to be the worst offenders — at least according to the documents that are currently public — we cannot forget that mass surveillance is a global problem and needs a global solution. Edward Snowden, from his “Manifesto For the Truth,” published in Der Spiegel. Just me, or is he […]