Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

Microsoft Clears the Air About Fighting CLOUD Act Abuses Five of the largest U.S. technology companies pledged support this year for a dangerous law that makes our emails, chat logs, online videos and photos vulnerable to warrantless collection by foreign governments. Now, one of those companies has voiced a meaningful pivot, instead pledging support for its users and their privacy. EFF appreciates this commitment, and urges other companies to do the same. Microsoft’s long-titled “Six Principles for International Agreements Governing Law Enforcement Access to Data” serves as the most clear set of instructions by a company to oppose the many privacy invasions possible under the CLOUD Act. (Dropbox similarly published CLOUD Act pushback earlier this year and it advocated for many safeguards.) Quickly, Microsoft’s principles are: The universal right to notice Prior independent judicial authorization and required minimum showing Specific and complete legal process and clear gr...

The Game is Rigged: Congress Invites No Consumer Privacy Advocates to its Consumer Privacy Hearing The Senate Commerce Committee is getting ready to host a much- anticipated hearing on consumer privacy —and consumer privacy groups don’t get a seat at the table. Instead, the Committee is seeking only the testimony of big tech and Internet access corporations: Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Charter Communications, Google, and Twitter. Some of these companies have spent heavily to oppose consumer privacy legislation and have never supported consumer privacy laws. They know policymakers are considering new privacy protections , and are likely to view this hearing as a chance to encourage Congress to adopt the weakest privacy protections possible – and eviscerate stronger state protections at the same time. The upcoming hearing at the Senate Commerce Committee may be the launch pad for this strategy of undoing stronger state laws. It is no coincidence that, in the past week, two leading in...

EFF Helps Launch Anti-SLAPP Task Force ‘Protect the Protest’ Aboard the Arctic Sunrise, a working icebreaker that has sailed to the Arctic Circle, the Congo, and the Amazon Rivers under Greenpeace’s stead, EFF joined several civil liberties and environmental rights groups to send a message: no longer will we be bullied by malicious lawsuits that threaten our freedom of speech. “We have the Constitution, we have our rights, and now, we have each other,” said Greenpeace executive director Annie Leonard. On September 5, EFF helped launch Protect the Protest , a coalition of nearly 20 organizations committed to fighting back against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, also known as SLAPPs. The coalition includes EFF, ACLU, Greenpeace, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. (Left to right) Mother Jones CEO Monika Bauerlein, Greenpeace executive director Annie Leonard, Rainforest Action Network director of communications Christo...

More Bay Area Jurisdictions Adopt Civilian Control of Police Spy Tech This week, two California jurisdictions joined the growing movement to subject government surveillance technology to democratic transparency and civilian control. Each culminated a local process spearheaded by concerned residents who campaigned for years. First, on Monday, the City of Palo Alto voted 8-1 to adopt an ordinance to “Establish Criteria and Procedures for Protecting Personal Privacy When Considering the Acquisition and Use of Surveillance Technologies, and Provide for Ongoing Monitoring and Reporting.” Like a handful of similar ordinances adopted across the Bay Area over the past two years, it includes several requirements. The new ordinance requires any proposed acquisition of surveillance technology to go through a public process. First, law enforcement must announce the proposal publicly, provide a formal analysis supporting the rationale, and also document potential impacts on privacy. Then...

A record capex spend of $27B in Q1 represents a hyperscale record and 80 percent increase year-over-year. Certainly, such investment is affecting the complicated web of all those involved in this growing data center market. We explored the changing role of the “value chain” when delivering at scale during a recent  7×24 Exchange panel session. The overarching takeaway: collaboration is imperative for success. 7×24 is a not-for-profit organization promoting industry dialogue around the many challenges facing those who design, build, operate and maintain mission critical infrastructures. 7×24 Exchange allows members to work together to advance the state-of-the-art by sharing best practices, lessons learned and evolving strategies to address the challenges of reliability and energy efficiency. The panel included Addam Friedl (kW Mission Critical), Bill Mazzetti (Rosendin Electric), Greg Botteon (Whiting-Turner Contracting) and Nathan Hazelwood (QTS) — representing what we call the...

There’s a common notion that most writers, philosophers or artists create their great works in isolation. We imagine the act of creativity as a solitary act by some person in some dusty study, an off-grid mountainside cabin or isolated research lab. For the rest of us, especially in technology and engineering fields, our work, our progress and success depend on collaborating with many – possibly hundreds — of people working together. We all have a practical, and even emotional, need to engage with colleagues to reach collective goals, generate ideas and share resources. Together, we learn from both success and failure. In short, collaboration is both a human need and business imperative. It is that human value of “sharing,” intersecting with an onslaught new highly networked data and AI-driven collaboration and design tools, that promises to change the role of — and business models for — electrical system designers, specifiers and engineers in future. A Global 24-Hour Connected “Kno...