Weekend Reads: The Relay Box Attack

West Midlands Police believe it is the first time the high-tech crime has been caught on camera. Relay boxes can receive signals through walls, doors and windows but not metal. The theft took just one minute and the Mercedes car, stolen from the Elmdon area of Solihull on 24 September, has not been recovered. @BBCWest Midlands Police believe it is the first time the high-tech crime has been caught on camera. Relay boxes can receive signals through walls, doors and windows but not metal. The theft took just one minute and the Mercedes car, stolen from the Elmdon area of Solihull on 24 September, has not been recovered. @BBC

There’s rising worry that corporations are taking over America. But after reviewing a slew of the bids by cities and states wooing Amazon’s massive second headquarters, I don’t think “takeover” quite captures what’s going on. More like “surrender.” Last month Amazon announced it got 238 offers for its new, proposed 50,000-employee HQ2. I set out to see what’s in them, but only about 30 have been released so far under public-record acts. @The Seattle Times

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Carpenter v. United States on November 29th. Carpenter centers on whether law enforcement needs a warrant to access 127 days of historic cell-site location information (CSLI). The case is important because of the great quantity of demands for location information now being made by law enforcement, because the location information that is sought is very revealing, and because law enforcement often obtains such data without obtaining a warrant, which increases the likelihood that sensitive location information about innocent people is collected. @The Center for Democracy and Technology

It’s amazing how congressional Republicans have been singularly unable, since winning the White House and both houses of Congress, to advance any major legislative priorities for their voters, but still quite able to advance legislation that most Republican voters would oppose — if they learned about it.
Republican leaders are sponsoring three bills that would expand the U.S. surveillance state under the guise of improving education and government efficiency. A grassroots opposition letter lists and summarizes the bills, the second of which passed the House last week… @The Federalist

Are the very large, very successful tech megaplatforms a problem that needs solving? Are they suppressing competition, innovation, free speech, democracy? I’m skeptical that case has been proven to the extent a strong public policy response is required ASAP. And I am equally skeptical of the solution set being offered by those who are quite comfortable that the anti-tech case has been proven. Break ‘em up! Regulate the heck out of them! (Sotto voce: Nationalize them.) @ The American Enterprise Institute