Weekend Reads 11/24/18

The Snowden Legacy, part one: What’s changed, really?

In the meantime, the threat to privacy has evolved as well—especially as the mass adoption of smartphones has placed a trackable, network connected device within reach of billions of people on the planet. The Snowden leaks (and other revelations since) have even emboldened other states to engage in more explicit forms of mass surveillance. Seeing a threat from encryption, the US and other members of the Five Eyes group (the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada) have agreed to look at ways to require backdoors to secured communications again.

Ocasio-Cortez takes on the Amazon fight in New York

The instant outrage that greeted Governor Andrew Cuomo's and Mayor Bill de Blasio's announcement that Amazon would come to Queens appeared to take both politicians by surprise. Critics of the deal point to the absence of a meaningful oversight role for the New York City Council, Amazon’s anti-union record, its talks with ICE about facial recognition technology, out-of-control gentrification and the deal’s inclusion of a helipad.

There’s Just One Problem With Upcoming Evangelical Summit on Sexual Violence

For example, the evangelical church traditionally condemns any sexual activity outside of marriage, and those interested in sexual activity are often told they have broken desires for sex. But trauma experts agree that when a young person demonstrates age-inappropriate sexual behavior they may be attempting to process trauma from childhood sexual abuse. Since any sexual activity before marriage is considered inappropriate, the lack of engagement with experts here risks repeating the very same errors the summit is attempting to correct.

Black Friday is starting earlier than ever — and companies like Walmart and Lululemon weren't ready

According to Bob Buffone, chief technology officer at web optimization software company Yottaa, companies' problems were likely rooted in not having the infrastructure to handle the traffic.

"If you have not load tested your site at five times normal traffic volumes, your site will probably fail," Buffone told Business Insider on Thursday.