Today’s Links: September 27, 2012

OPINION

LYLE DENNISTON: “How much privacy does the Constitution guarantee for the blood’s chemistry?”
“It is clear, under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, that government analysis of an individual’s blood or other bodily fluids is a ‘search’ that can only be conducted within limits. Indeed, the court remarked in a blood search case in 1966 that ‘the integrity of an individual’s person is a cherished value in our society….Search warrants are ordinarily required…where intrusions into the body are concerned.’ But it was also in that very case – Schmerber v. California – that the court ruled that police can sometimes direct that a blood sample be made, in a drunk driving case, if there is an emergency situation that justifies the failure to first get a search warrant.”

THE ECONOMIST: “Seeing the back of the car”
“‘I’ll love and protect this car until death do us part,’ says Toad, a 17-year-old loser whose life is briefly transformed by a ‘super fine’ 1958 Chevy Impala in “American Graffiti”. The film follows him, his friends and their vehicles through a late summer night in early 1960s California: cruising the main drag, racing on the back streets and necking in back seats of machines which embody not just speed, prosperity and freedom but also adulthood, status and sex. […] But in the rich world the car’s previously inexorable rise is stalling. A growing body of academics cite the possibility that both car ownership and vehicle-kilometres driven may be reaching saturation in developed countries—or even be on the wane, a notion known as ‘peak car.'”

NAT HENTOFF: “Colleges Keep Suppressing Free Speech”
“Most of the purported news we get about our nation’s higher education is about the ponderous tuition debt that accompanies many college graduates. But Americans are entitled to know how many of our colleges and university administrators are censoring and punishing the free expressions of students and, yes, professors — whether they are liberals, conservatives or independents.”

NEWS

INNOVATION – Pornoogle: Yes, a search engine just for porn
“I bring news that tomorrow will see a search engine exclusively for pornography. Yes, tomorrow.”

FCC – FCC Chair Defends Regulations, Calls FCC a ‘Cop on the Beat’
“Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski defended his agency’s role in regulating broadband Internet, saying that the FCC needed to act like a ‘cop on the beat.'”

LANGUAGE – Chinese internet users to overtake English language users by 2015
“In May 2011, there were 565 million English internet users, compared to 510 million Chinese users, representing 27 per cent and 24 per cent of total global internet users, respectively. The report predicts that if current growth rates continue, Chinese will overtake English as the main language used by internet users in 2015.”