Greenwald surmises:

“It’s hard not to suspect that the only thing distinguishing the Boston attack from Tucson, Aurora, Sandy Hook and Columbine (to say nothing of the US “shock and awe” attack on Baghdad and the mass killings in Fallujah) is that the accused Boston attackers are Muslim and the other perpetrators are not. As usual, what terrorism really means in American discourse – its operational meaning – is: violence by Muslims against Americans and their allies.”

FWIW, I have agreed in the past and have done a little media analysis of my own.

Though I still tend to agree, a discussion with a colleague this afternoon raised another question: How much of initial assumption (particularly before the media knows anything about the suspects) is predicated on the type of weaponry involved?

So first off, let’s make a set of assumptions that may or may not be factually accurate:

• Those who commit violence with bombs have spent considerable time thinking about and preparing their crime.
• Those who commit violence with guns may have spent time thinking/preparing, but may have simply “snapped.”

Personally, I think there’s an overarching Islamophobia (or, more accurately, fear of Muslims) that pervades this discourse, leading us to assume that shooter Nidal Hasan Malik was a terrorist immediately, even though early evidence indicated that he could have been a terrorist or may have just snapped.  But apart from that, or if we were to ignore the racist element or remove cases involving Muslim perpetrators from the dataset, would it be possible to make reasonable assumptions about whether a given crime was terror based solely on the weaponry used?

Ali Abunimah wrote a good analysis of whether the crime fits the official US definitions of terrorism, highlighting passages in the definition as such:

Title 22 of the U.S. Code, Section 2656f(d) defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

Both definitions of terrorism share a common theme: the use of force intended to influence or instigate a course of action that furthers a political or social goal. In most cases, NIJ researchers adopt the FBI definition, which stresses methods over motivations and is generally accepted by law enforcement communities.

With that definition in mind, it probably wouldn’t make any more sense to use weaponry as an early indicator than it does one’s religious background, given examples like the murder of Dr. George Tiller (terrorism by the above definition), or the murder of Holocaust Memorial Museum security guard Stephen T. Johns by a white supremacist (probably terrorism, though I’m not sure it was ever defined as such).

And pre-planning doesn’t always indicate terrorism as defined by the FBI either: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned meticulously for their murder spree, and yet they were never labeled terrorists (interesting side-note: Slate has published an analysis asking if the Tsarnaev brothers’ relationship was like that of Harris and Klebold).

That said, it strikes me that I can’t think of a case where bombs were used that was not deemed terrorism.

I am no expert on any of this (though, let’s be honest, are most of those who call themselves “terrorism experts” these days actual expert?), so I don’t want to run my mouth further, but I’d be curious if anyone could point me to some previous writing or thinking on this question.

I am, I suppose, a bit of a digital native in that I started blogging at 19, in 2001, one year after I sold my first piece of (online) writing.  (Incidentally, I often think of my college years sometimes as sort of muddled, but in retrospect, it’s pretty clear what I wanted to do: write.)  I joined Facebook in September 2004, just a few months after I graduated from university, and Twitter in 2008, when I was 26. I suppose nativism can be relative.

Generation Catalano, Generation XY, whatever.  If culture is just comprised of references, traditions, relations, then I stick to my guns that we are in-betweens.

Millennials are commonly categorized by a few things: materialism, a desire for wealth, digital nativism, anti-competitiveness, and helicopter parents. Of course, that’s a shallow assessment, but that’s how generational definitions work. Much has been written about the Millennials (or “Digital Natives,” or “Generation Y”) and I’ve read much of it. And the more I read, the less I relate.

The thing is, digital natives are often described as having grown up online. They are faster than their parents at adapting to new technologies, they “natively” understand how to use them. When I read Palfrey and Gasser’s Born Digital—which defines this generation as starting with those born in 1980—the truth was, I couldn’t relate. I think I even left a comment on an internal wiki as such: that I felt they generation they were describing actually started somewhere around 1985; that is, those young people likely to have been born with a wired computer in their home, who probably got a mobile phone in high school. Not me.

And then there’s the generation prior, Gen X: They were all the rage when I was a kid reading teen magazines. They were the ones challenging the norms, watching MTV, philosophizing, slacking off. I knew I was on the far end, if included at all, but I nevertheless related to the media of the time.

This morning, after reading Clinton’s piece—a perspective I can relate to—I looked up the age ranges of each generation, just to check. Turns out, I’ve been (sort of) right all along.

Generation X is defined, variously, by the following age ranges:

• 1961-1981
• 1965-1982
• 1963-1980
• 1963-1978

Generation Y, on the other hand, is said to begin in either 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, or 1983.

That puts a whole lot of us right on the cusp.  Having been born in mid-1982 myself, I can see why: While “my generation” grew up watching the Real World and worrying about AIDS, many of us also got online at an early age (for me, 11) and owned mobile phones in high school (I was 17, but it was a total brick). While we embraced Slacker and Reality Bites, its protagonists were actually our older brothers and sisters.  But while we use Facebook, it wasn’t released until after we graduated from university.

Thankfully, I’m not the first person to present this conundrum.  In an article featuring danah boyd, Fast Company references what it calls Generation Flux, while Slate cheekily refers to us in-betweens as, alternately, “Generation-I-Watched-Saved-by-the-Bell-in-its-first-run,” “Generation Jem,” and “Generation Catalano” (and being just two years younger than the fictional Angela Chase, I totally get that one).

Does any of this really matter?  When I asked on Twitter this morning, I found a large number of people that felt that generational divisions are just “marketing BS.”  In large part, I agree, and yet as a member of the in-betweens (or, as I’m going with from now on, Generation Catalano), it resonates with me that two of the best shows of our generation—My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks—were cancelled because they “failed to resonate with the broader population,” according to Slate writer Doree Shafrir.  It may not matter when you’re a part of something, but it matters a little when you feel alienated from all of it.

As Shafrir writes, “This urge to define generations is also about a yearning for a collective memory in an increasingly atomized world, at least where my generation is concerned.”  Indeed, it is.  In the US, I relate to my age peers through the television we watched as kids and teens (on its first run, that is), through the video game systems we owned (Coleco Vision then GameBoy for me), and through the age at which we first used the Internet.  Globally, it’s some of the same things, plus music, the fall of the Berlin wall, the start of the Euro.  We are solidly in between, searching for something that we may not find.

Finally: “Generation Catalano is never fully comfortable with its place in the world; we wander away from the periphery and back again.”  I think that sounds about right.

A Tuscan sunset

I’m on another of those journeys where I wake up some mornings not really knowing where I am.  The only difference is that I’ve been given a little more space to breathe: thanks to the delightful coincidence of being invited to three German government-related conferences spaced at least a week apart each, I’ve been able to steady myself in between by basing myself in Florence, where a friend with a couch lives.

It is from there (well, Fiesole to be precise) that I type this while listening to the sanguine sounds of a new friend’s band while attempting to catch up on a weekend’s worth of email that inundated my inbox while I was in Istanbul.

Something has shifted in me this trip, and while I can speak to all sorts of excitement and professional opportunity that’s come about from some of the wonderful connections I’ve made of late (particularly at Mobilize! in Berlin last week), I’m not sure I can put a solid finger on the rest.  Some of it, I know, comes from a comfort that I feel around the activists scene(s) here, some of it from deeper conversations shared over wine and/or beer and or/rakı, but some of it is not, as of yet, placeable.

One thing that I am acutely aware of, however, and that is weighing on me is that today, April 1, would have been my father’s 61st birthday.  It occurred to me this morning whilst wandering through a cute little market in the village center, where these lovely wooden carvings were being sold…something I would’ve bought for him back when.

Since September, a pile of his writings that my mother salvaged from his laptop have sat in my inbox, awaiting my eyes, and today, I finally read a few of them.  And one broke my heart a little:

I can be convincing, charming, entertaining, intellectual, ignorant, funny, friendly, gregarious, pensive, fun ,reliable, trustworthy, kind, generous, brave, loyal , courteous, kind, and interesting. But I can’t be myself, I don’t know how because there is no “me”. Never has been a me. I can be whatever I think anyone wants; an actor, a tough guy, a sensitive guy, a musician, a teacher, a trustworthy salesman. Anybody, but I have never been able to be myself. Ever felt like you were the only one in a crowded room? I always feel like that. I am whoever I’m with. And on my own I’m a lost soul.

And being this way makes me believe I’m the only one that IS this way.

I wasn’t privy to these before his death, so there’s no point in wishing this, but I do, I wish he’d told me that while he was still here.  Because, in some sense, understand.  And I wish I didn’t.

Part of the journey of no regrets, as I’ve come to call it, is finding balance in purpose, happiness, and reflection.  Ensuring that it’s not just one or the other.  Ensuring awareness.  And hearing my father’s voice today, in a sense, brings me a step closer.

Last Friday, Creative Commons, Wikimedia, and EFF hosted a small gathering in honor of our friend, Bassel (Safadi) Khartabil, who remains in prison in Syria a year after his arrest. The event, one of many held the world over, was intended in solidarity, and to draw attention not only to Bassel’s plight, but the plight of so many other Syrians being held without cause. I was particularly honored that my friend Usamah Mohamed was able to drop by; that’s him in the front center, and I’m joined by my EFF colleagues Danny O’Brien and Maira Sutton. The other folks—if not CCers or Wikimedians, or, y’know, babies—are concerned friends of the community.

It wasn’t okay in 1964, and it’s not okay in 2013. It wasn’t okay in Montgomery, and it’s not okay in Jerusalem.

There’s a lot of money out there these days going toward absurdist “Internet freedom” efforts to the point where my griping “don’t call it Internet freedom” in staff meetings has become somewhat of a meme. And yet whenever I get the opportunity to do something hands-on like this, I am reminded that there are great ideas, and (like this) simple but important ones being funded. And I’m glad that I have not lost the ability to be humble and listen and change things up. If and when I do, please send me packing.

I leave Cairo tomorrow morning headed for Paris, where I am going to work and waste some time (I mean, where better?) before heading to Geneva for the introduction of the Internet Freedom Fellows at the U.S. Mission. If you’d asked me a couple of years ago, I never would’ve guessed that a) the State Department would be doing something like this b) that I’d approve and c) that I’d be invited to speak at it. And yet, here I go, off to welcome some of the world’s coolest young free expression advocates to what some may deem propagandistic but what I think is an eye-opening experience well-tailored to the needs of these young activists.

After Geneva, it’s back to Amsterdam, where I’ll finish up my final module at THNK. I will be incredibly sad to say goodbye, but incredibly proud to pass the torch (along with members of the first class, including my great friend Katherine) to the third round of students, who have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. I suspect I’ll have some reflections, and some things to share about my final project, but right now my meager sleep is preventing me from digging deeper.

And last (and, frankly, probably least), I head to Austin for what may very well be my last SXSW (for a while, anyway). I’m doing a panel on export controls, calling it “the new cryptowars,” with the awesome Ahmed Ghappour, my frequent partner-in-crime Trevor Timm, and Sahar Sabet, whose story outraged me so when it emerged last year that I begged everyone I know to put me in touch with her. I will be proud to hear her retell it, and to raise the other injustices perpetrated by technology sanctions (and their advocates) on Iranians, Syrians, and others.

And then home, but only for a few days before I’m off again. It’s tiring, but exhilarating, worthwhile but exhausting. Once in awhile, I walk through a hotel or a bar and forget where I am. It happened at dinner the other night; I returned from the bathroom and told my dinner companion that I’m both happy and disappointed at how much the world all looks the same after awhile. We agreed: it was a good thing and a bad thing all at once.

66 EFF blog posts (estimated 600 words per post = 39,600)
51 published articles (est. 1,200/p = 61,200)
58 posts to this here blog (est. 500/p = 29,000)
2 book chapters (est. 5,000/p = 10,000) + 8 encyclopedia entries (10,000)
1 work-in-progress (est. 15,000)
——————-
164,800

…which is significantly less than last year and only about 500 per day. alas.

The backstory

In short: European banks have switched to EMV chip technology (that is, “chip + pin” or “chip + signature”), and American banks haven’t. In the Netherlands, this technology is so widespread that you can now find stores in Amsterdam that only take chip + pin – no cash, no magnetic strip, nothing. In Haarlem, a smaller Dutch town about 20 minutes away by train, most shopkeepers (including large chains) have banned customers from using magnetic strip cards.

My first reaction to this was annoyance at the Dutch for compromising their own tourism industry, but after a bit more processing, I began to become angry at American banks for not just getting their shit together. Speculation as to why they haven’t varies, but some pundits seem to think that it’s a matter of not wanting to confuse Americans. Well, for fuck’s sake.

In any case, with all of my frequent travel to the Netherlands, it has become imperative for me to get my hands on a chip card. Travelex offers a pre-paid one, but as I’ve never been much good with careful budgeting, I knew I needed a more permanent option. And so the research began.

As it turns out, a quick Google told me that Chase, my bank of choice (not because I actually like them, mind you, but because they’re locationally convenient and have a partnership with United, my airline of choice but not preference) offers EMV chip cards. Hoorah! So on Monday, I called them and after nearly an hour of an older customer service rep fumbling around and thinking aloud, I managed to talk to a “senior” rep, who offered two choices: Either upgrade to a bank account I can’t afford, or for free(!), accept a Disney-themed card. Begrudgingly (and while giggling), I took the latter.

Thinking I was all set, I began to deal with the KLM issue, which is: When you book a KLM flight online, the website defaults to the country that you’re in, and only offers you flights originating in that country. That is, in order to book a flight originating in Amsterdam from the US, you have to switch to the Netherlands country page (which, thankfully, is at least offered in English as well). So I did, and was able to book my flight to Geneva just fine…until I got to the payment page, where I discovered that my choices were to pay by bank transfer or iDEAL (a Dutch payment system) for free, or with a credit card for a fee of 7,50 EUR. Since Chase charges me for international bank transfers, I took the credit card option. I then complained loudly to @KLM on Twitter who, to their credit, responded with an attempted explanation. But ultimately they (implicitly) agreed with my conclusion: Their system privileges Dutch customers.

7,50 euros poorer, I came to work today expecting my Disney card + chip in the mail. And lo, the package had arrived…but when I opened it, I was loathe to discover that the card did not, in fact, have a chip. So I called Chase: As it turns out, I got banksplained*. Even though I said the word “EMV chip” about a hundred times, the “senior” customer service agent interpreted it as some other technology, which the Disney card supposedly has. So back to the phone with Chase, where I was told by another “senior” customer service agent that the only Chase card with a chip is in fact a credit card. Well okay then – on to the next rep, who (after attempting to send me to several nonexistent URLs and acting sheepish about it) tells me the only one offered is the JP Morgan Palladium card…which comes with a $595 fee. Ugh! So I do a little of my own research, only to find that Chase offers several reasonably-priced credit cards with a chip. Marriott Rewards card (with no foreign transaction fees, thankfully) it is.

The art of travel spending

Problems solved, right? And yet, I’m feeling incredibly annoyed, and duped, and somewhat shocked at the ineptitude of Chase’s agents. So, I’m going to attempt to reframe this, and offer a few lessons on the art of international travel spending (or rather, saving). Here goes:

• You need a credit card with no foreign transaction fees.  And if you’re traveling mostly to Western Europe, you might as well make that a card with a chip + no foreign transaction fees.  NerdWallet has a list of all of the chip cards available, but the best one I was able to find was, in fact, the Marriott Rewards card with chip: $85 annual fee (waived for the first year), no foreign fees, plus Marriott rewards.  
• Better yet, of course, is a good card with airline rewards.  I go with the United Club card, which has an insanely high annual fee ($395) that I argued to get waived for the first year (which is not as hard as you’d think), but is worth it in the end because of the lack of foreign transaction fees and the 1.5 miles per dollar (not to mention all the free airport lounge drinking).  If you are actually loyal to an airline as I am, then the math is worth doing.
• And of course, your mileage program itself is a money-saver.  I flew to Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm from SFO, round trip, last year on miles alone.  It is absolutely worth signing up for every single mileage program out there (though not typically worth doubling up within an alliance – i.e., don’t do both United and Lufthansa, as both are Star Alliance).  Also, within Star Alliance, note that Aegean’s program gets you to Star Alliance Gold faster than any other airline’s.  You’re welcome.
• Think about exchanging your money beforehand at your bank.  I never used to do this, but after my most recent trip to the Netherlands (in which I removed 250 euros—the max daily limit—three times, incurring excessive fees on both ends), I’m reconsidering.  If you withdraw cash at your own bank, then exchange at your own bank (with no extra fees incurred), you do actually save money.  Of course, if you lose cash, you’re fucked, so be cautious with this one and only do it if you know you’ll need actual paper money (which I knew I would).
• Don’t use your US phone abroad!  David Sasaki has some great tips here, and this is what I do: I have an unlocked Samsung Galaxy Nexus that I use with T-Mobile when I’m in the States.  When I’m abroad, I either buy a local SIM card and flip it as soon as I get off the plane, OR I use a generic, refillable European SIM (you can buy these at numerous sites, this is the one I have).  Sometimes you will save money, sometimes you will not, but you will never be surprised by a bill reaching into the thousands of dollars.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  Any additional tips?  Do share them below!

This blog has been with me since February 2008, nearly five years ago. And quite appropriate, really: I started it just before I started my job at the Berkman Center.  I was at the WeMedia conference with a group from Global Voices—the first time I’d met anyone from the network—and having a conversation with Solana Larsen in the backyard of our Miami rental about my desire to turn my hobbies into a job.  Shortly after, she connected me with Ethan Zuckerman, who offered to pass my CV around…and did, later connecting me to my future employers at the Berkman Center. (I am obviously, infinitely grateful to both of them.)

It was only yesterday, in redoing my blog, that I realized how much had happened in five years.

This week, I was able to help someone the way Solana and Ethan helped me.  And requests like that come by me every so often, and I always try my best.

Today, writing this, I looked back for those emails, and was reminded that, after thanking Solana for sending off that message so quickly, she emailed back to say: “If I don’t do it straight away it’s less likely to ever happen.”

A nice reminder for busy lives.