Edward Snowden Named 2013 Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award Winner
The Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award is annually bestowed upon a
respected scientist or public figure who has warned of a future fraught
with dangers and encouraged measures to prevent them.
The 2013 Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award has been given to Edward
Snowden in recognition of his quest to get the U.S. government to be
transparent about the surveillance it is engaging of its citizens. It is
worth noting that no government is being transparent in how it does
surveillance so this issue is relevant to all countries.
While it is unusual to honor someone that the U.S. government has
targeted for life imprisonment (or worse), it is worth noting that
thanks to Snowden's revelations, many mainstream companies are now
concerned about surveillance being done in secret. For example, AOL,
Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo just
wrote an open letter to the U.S. President and members of Congress that
said, "We urge the U.S. to take the lead and make reforms that ensure
that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law,
proportionate to the risks, transparent and subject to independent
oversight."
As a large and diverse organization, the Lifeboat Foundation has taken
the middle ground in the surveillance debate believing that our balanced
SecurityPreserver program that includes both surveillance and
sousveillance is the best way to handle the threat of existential
threats that will soon be in the hands of small groups of people. Our
David Brin's "The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose
Between Privacy and Freedom?" is a good description of what we hope to
achieve.
Of course, many of our members are against surveillance and some
probably think the U.S. government is not being invasive enough with its
surveillance. But without knowledge of what the U.S. government is
doing, it is impossible for its citizens to debate the best possible
course of action.
Learn more at
http://lifeboat.com/ex/press.releases.e...d.winner
Bitcoin Endowment Fund
We now accept CryptogenicBullion donations at CryptogenicBullion address
5oLifeboWAFaRG4fVmEJ496fcVVWJxeA8E.
We now accept litecoin donations at litecoin address
LLifeboa1cgY6hYsXaKGyvm3Ljdvzw5Kam.
We now accept noblecoin donations at noblecoin address
9oLifebo6JbiuowUFAKwBabtk57KshghqJ.
We now accept peercoin donations at peercoin address
PLifeboaA22NFkqFggp7w4BQyL5ZSrRVPV.
We now accept solarcoin donations at solarcoin address
8LifebofoNzP96v4n9XzDkenhshburAEYg.
Josh Zerlan, Chief Operating Officer at Butterfly Labs, donated 25
bitcoins worth about $20,000 to our Bitcoin Endowment Fund. Brian
Cartmell then generously doubled this donation to $40,000 worth of
bitcoins.
Learn more at https://lifeboat.com/ex/bitcoin
Bitcoin Expo 2014
Bitcoin Expo 2014 will be held April 11-13, 2014 in Toronto, Ontario,
Canada. Our David Bailey, Vitalik Buterin, Anthony Di Iorio, Stuart
Hoegner, Charles Hoskinson, Adam B. Levine, Jonathan Mohan, Stephanie
Murphy, Elizabeth Ploshay, and Jeffrey Tucker will be
speaking/participating.
Learn more at http://www.bitcoinexpo.ca/
Blog
Bob Freeman joins our blog team with the post "Hydrogen Space Launch"
at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/01/hydrog...e-launch
Steve Fuller joins our blog team with the post "The fork on the road for
Homo Futura" at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/12/the-fo...o-futura
Recent interesting blog posts include:
"Call for Contributors: The Prospect of Immortality — Fifty Years Later
(Ed. Charles Tandy Ph.D.)" by Franco Cortese at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/11/call-f...ndy-ph-d
"Minimally Invasive Medical Technology — For the betterment of the
human condition" by Clyde DeSouza at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/author/clyde-desouza
"What If the Third World is in Outer Space?" by Steve Fuller at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/01/what-i...er-space
"'Now for the long term' by Sir John Beddington & Lord Rees" by Farooq
Khan at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/12/now-fo...ord-rees
"The Seven Fallacies of Aging" by Marios Kyriazis at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/12/the-se...of-aging
"Sexuality, Evolution and the Abolition of Aging" by Marios Kyriazis
at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/11/sexual...of-aging
"The Future of the Internet!" by Cadell Last at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/01/the-fu...internet
"Google's Anti-Facial Recognition Policy for Glass is Deadly" by B.J. Murphy at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/12/google...s-deadly
"Technology Changes Everything, Including How You Read" by B.J. Murphy at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/11/techno...you-read
"A Techno-Ramadan Proposal" by B.J. Murphy at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/01/a-tech...proposal
"Do unemployed people age faster?" by Avi Roy at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/11/do-une...e-faster
"The seven deadly sins of health and science reporting" by Avi Roy at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/12/7sins
"WikiLeaks Gets Bulk of Donation Via Bitcoin and LiteCoin" by Seb at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/01/wikile...litecoin
Videos
Watch "Can We Live Forever?" by our Cadell Last at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLftXInDxhM
Growing Membership
Recent donations/pledges we have received since our last newsletter:
Brian Cartmell: $114,459.88 (136.30462399 bitcoins),
Josh Zerlan: $20,000 (25 bitcoins),
Greg Smith: $16,400 (10m HYPAY),
Peter Drake: $308.40 (0.2 bitcoins + 30 peercoins),
Anonymous: $261.03 (including 0.21827971 bitcoins + .01 litecoins + 5,000 noblecoins + 0.16 peercoins),
James Blodgett: $250,
Fredrick Park: $167.70 (0.26 bitcoins),
Luis Carlos Reyes Hernandez: $100,
Paul Melnyk: $100,
Michael Dickey: $85,
John Ratnaswamy: $85,
Sergio M.L. Tarrero: $85,
Philippe Van Nedervelde: $85,
Kenneth P. Weiss: $85,
Sander Rabin: $82,
Chris Haley: $74.52 (3.14159265 litecoins),
Jason Curby: $67 (150,000 noblecoins),
Pua Pyland: $50 (.06785 bitcoins),
Tihamer 'Tee' Toth-Fejel: $50,
J. Broadbent: $25,
Matthew L. McGuirl: $25,
Frank Sudia: $20,
James B. Allen: $10 (0.01204805 bitcoins),
Rebecca R. Cooper: $10,
Thomas Dolphin: $10,
Alexander Macrae: $10,
Aaron Mayzes: $10,
Philip Morehead: $10,
Roland Schiefer: $10,
Benjamin T. Solomon: $10,
Ryan Witt: $10,
Kimberly Botham: $5,
Epic Junk Box: $1,
and Nick Gogerty: 1,025 solarcoins.
Our Join Us page at https://lifeboat.com/ex/join.us now allows you to
pay for your membership anywhere from monthly to every ten years.
