My weekend column, about some unsettling signals around Trump’s tariffs on Canadian manufacturing. www.thestar.com/business/why...

Europe says it wants tech sovereignty, write Cecilia Rikap and Vali Stan. But if the European Commission truly wants Europe to “act independently in the digital world”, they argue, it should start by freeing itself from Big Tech’s epistemic capture.

America is destroying itself. It’s no surprise | Stephen Marche

⚠️ Nearly 50 cities terminated their Flock camera contract after their involvement with ICE - but they remain on. While officials believed it had been deactivated, their updated terms say they retain a perpetual license to use surveillance data and continue to sell it.

NEW BLOG FOR YOU Google's energy consumption numbers in their new climate report are mind-blowing. 2 years ago they flipped from linear to exponential growth, and their climate impact is blowing out, too. A WILD testament to the obscene bloat and waste of GenAI: ketanjoshi.co/2026/07/01/g...

I have a piece in @thestar.com today about the digital sovereignty we are searching for 🔎 www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Each week Shield Managing Director @vassb.bsky.social is also sitting down with Gloves Off host Stephen Marche and SCP's @jonshell.bsky.social to have a free-flowing conversation about Canadian sovereignty, and our strategy. Watch Cross Check Ep. 1 here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=arQG...

Check out gloves-off.ca to subscribe to the podcast and find all sorts of extra material. Host Stephen Marche and his team have been doing great work! We're really excited for you to listen.

🇨🇦 Happy Canada Day!!! 🇨🇦 Canada is a great country, but we also need to work to keep Canada strong, sovereign, resilient and prosperous. We're exploring these ideas in a collab with the Gloves Off podcast this summer! canadianshieldinstitute.ca/updates/glov...

I am [also] @gandersocial.ca now(!) as: Vass.

Foundations of Digital Sovereignty - Chapter 8 "Building Sovereign Canadian Compute" If we want to embed Canadian governance and support Canadian growth, we need to build publicly-anchored digital infrastructure. Here's how we do that: canadianshieldinstitute.ca/updates/buil...

James Neufeld sat on the feds' AI task force. His Edmonton company, Samdesk, has sold its crisis-alert software to global corporations and Canada's allies. He's very frustrated with how little the "Buy Canadian" philosophy seems to mean to his own government. thelogic.co/news/samdesk...

Surveillance pricing is often treated as a novel problem requiring new solutions. But Canada already has precedents that prohibit unfair, discriminatory pricing and protect the public, writes Emily Osborne of the Canadian Shield Institute. Now it just needs to apply them.

A WIRED timeline shows how dozens of governments, companies, and other organizations across Europe are moving, or planning to shift, away from US Big Tech.

Canadian PM says the Anthropic ban shows the dangers of "over-reliance on certain models", and compares the risks to those that led to the 2008 financial crisis (Bloomberg) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

If DND/CAF had secret cloud, this would be less of a concern. Except we also currently rely on US secret cloud and cloud based command and control in NORAD. Once again, government simply doesn't understand cyber or information infrastructure. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Foundations of Digital Sovereignty: Chapter 6 If Canada is serious about increasing our sovereign cloud capacity, government procurement is by far the most powerful tool at our disposal. canadianshieldinstitute.ca/latest-updat...

Under the second Trump administration, the language of sovereignty has become more explicit in American tech policy, writes Konstantinos Komaitis. The shift reflects a willingness to treat digital infrastructure, AI, and data governance as instruments of geopolitical leverage and national power.

Consumer surplus is one of the great benefits of free markets. AI could kill it.

SignalTrace "links devices that regularly travel together, correlating them to license plate." It is a surveillance product that will sweep up and add all sorts of Bluetooth and other data to license plate readers, linking specific devices—and people—to cars.

[email protected]'s Laurent Carbonneau thinks Canada should stop treating procurement as a race to the cheapest contract and start treating it as a way to build markets, scale firms, and reward real domestic value creation. Here's how he thinks Canada could be doing procurement better:

This was fun to write. It's early days for agentic commerce, and the terms of the market matter. Also: Truman Show references.

AI-generated music is starting to permeate streaming services—and musicians and the streaming industry may have limited tools to fight the slop, @willgottsegen.com argues in The Atlantic Daily.

On the Tech Policy Press podcast, Justin Hendrix spoke to Mozilla CTO Raffi Krikorian about his "owners not renters" thesis: that the central AI question isn't open vs. closed, but whether we own AI or lease it from a handful of companies with their own incentives. Plus: his experience with Mythos.

John Deere won't let farmers repair their own tractors. The US Air Force can't fix its own fighter jets. These absurd situations stem from copyright protections designed to stop people from recording movies on VCRs 40 years ago, extended onto new technology.

Canada has unveiled its long-awaited national AI strategy, but experts say key questions around regulation, privacy, and accountability remain unanswered. Can Ottawa translate its AI ambitions into public confidence? https://thewalrus.ca/canada-ai-plan/

The "AI For All" strategy delivered today by Prime Minister Carney and Minister Solomon this morning gets a 6/10 on our Sovereignty Score. This much-anticipated document presents ambitious targets for AI adoption, infrastructure, and governance. But the devil is in the details.

The EU is launching a "long game" strategy to reduce its reliance on US digital technologies. The plan includes investing in European companies, boosting AI and cloud infrastructure, and encouraging national tech strategies. #digitalsovereignty #News

Today, @thewalrus.ca has published an excerpt of my book with @amaramarasingam.bsky.social on the Canadian far-right, Blood and Soil. You can read it for free here: thewalrus.ca/what-three-e...

Today we're publishing Chapter 5 of our policy series on digital sovereignty. This week we're looking at cloud security, and the way that foreign powers can interfere with Canadian data. canadianshieldinstitute.ca/latest-updat...

Hong Kong AI drug discovery firm Insilico Medicine & Human Longevity Inc. are stepping up the quest to harness AI to extend human life. The two cos. will collab on building AI models to identify disease risks earlier, accelerate discovery of therapies. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... #AI

You skipped Amazon. You supported an independent maker. Except… Amazon may have still packed, stored and delivered your order. A new analysis explains how Amazon’s logistics network has quietly become the invisible backbone for Etsy shops, Shopify brands and other “small business” purchases:

🇪🇺 Meet EuroOffice, Europe’s bold alternative to Microsoft 365, promising sovereignty and control It is based on OnlyOffice and offers a near-like-for-like experience as Microsoft for free. Something for everyone to check out, not only Europeans.

Rising stablecoin use could cement dollar dominance, ECB's Schnabel says reut.rs/4x1WXLg

This week, in Chapter 4 of Foundations of Digital Sovereignty, we're talking about the value of data, and the role of governance in the digital economy. We need to reframe the terms of how data is used, to protect Canadians from exploitation: canadianshieldinstitute.ca/latest-updat...

Book banning is no longer a fringe political issue. PEN Canada president Ira Wells says the push to remove books from schools and libraries is being driven by a broader sense of cultural panic—one now reshaping education policy in Alberta and beyond. https://ow.ly/mrvz50Z2XGo

A new, Mike-free episode today. Cara and Vass Bednar talk about surveillance pricing, consumer protection, and the future of digital markets in Canada. Watch here: www.youtube.com/watc...

When billion-dollar AIs break down over puzzles a child can do, it's time to rethink the hype | Gary Marcus

Hundreds of thousands of workplaces use software to monitor employees. Now, a new study has found that many of these tools share data not just with employers, but with digital advertising platforms and data brokers as well. Read more from @laurenfeiner.bsky.social:

Intellectual property is a key governance structure for the 21st century digital economy. If Canada is going to meaningfully assert our digital sovereignty, we need a better national IP strategy. Read Chapter 3 of Foundations of Digital Sovereignty: canadianshieldinstitute.ca/latest-updat...

What data shapes the price you see? Surveillance pricing can draw on your browsing, location and habits to estimate what you’ll pay. Can consumers spot it, and stop it? @jeyantvo.bsky.social talks with @vassb.bsky.social (@canadianshieldinstitute.ca)

Key sections of the US Constitution deleted from government's website | TechCrunch techcrunch.com/2025/08/06/k...

Insightful and sobering column from @acoyne.bsky.social on the motivation for the U.S. to pause the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, and how we might not have seen the half of it yet. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

Surveillance pricing uses your data to predict what you’ll pay. Ontario’s opposition wants it banned, but Premier Doug Ford says no. How can consumers protect themselves? @jeyantvo.bsky.social asks @vassb.bsky.social (@canadianshieldinstitute.ca) tonight at 8pm | Producer: Mike Attenborough

NEW: Alberta separatist group’s controversial voter ID app has links to US Ambassador, MAGA influencers and wealthy Michigan Republicans US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra told @pressprogress.ca he was ‘not aware’ an American-made app he previously promoted was used to help an Alberta separatist group

Traditional trade deals liberalise trade. So what about an anti-trade deal, that that manages the rise of trade barriers instead? Read my op-ed for @nytopinion.nytimes.com with @chadpbown.com here: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/o...

Surveillance pricing isn’t competition. It’s companies using your data to decide what you specifically are willing to pay, writes Renjie Butalid. Ontario doesn’t need to “let the market decide,” it should draw a line before the practice becomes normalized.

My first story for @theatlantic.com is about how ed tech slop is taking over American classrooms. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

"Almost every facet of contemporary online rightism can be refracted through the prism of gender" www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...