Partly due to our outreach efforts in Iran and strategies but most important it's really the need that it indicates for affordable coverage among these Virginian adults the state of Maine is also in the process of expanding Medicaid since January Maine has unrolled roughly 30000 people that's less than half the number to sign up by 2021 for n.p.r. News I'm back in poly in Richmond Virginia the Federal Reserve has moved to cut short term interest rates for the 1st time since the 2008 financial crisis and a widely anticipated move the Fed announcing a quarter of a point rate cut today Wall Street's reaction not positive but I was down 333 points 226864 The Nasdaq fell 98 points the s. And p. 500 down 32 points this is n.p.r. . Government leaders in Bosnia are denouncing the president of neighboring Croatia for claiming that Bosnia has been taken over by militant Islam Matthew algea reports from Syria as well the comments of deep in the political divide between the 2 Balkan nations on a state visit to Israel Croatian president Kalinda grab a Qatar of it reportedly told Israel's president that Bosnia is quote now controlled by militant Islam which is dominant in setting the agenda her comments were reported by The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday Bosnian officials fired back one member of Bosnia's 3 person presidency called the Croatian president quote very unstable and accused her of repeating lies which spread Zina phobia relations between Croatia and Bosnia have been strained ever since Croatia an e.u. Member state tightened its border with Bosnia last winter leaving thousands of migrants hoping to enter the e.u. Stranded in Bosnia for n.p.r. News I'm Matthew while Geo in Sarajevo Health and Human Services secretary Alex a czar says he and President Trump are working on a plan that would allow the importation of lower priced prescription drugs into the u.s. From Canada is our made his comments during an interview with the business news channel c n b c as a candidate trumpet backed the idea of allowing Americans to import prescription drugs the also recently back a Florida law allowing state residents there to gain access to medicines from Canada going to futures prices move higher today or was up $0.53 a barrel to end the session at $5858.00 a barrel in New York I'm Jack Speer n.p.r. News in Washington. Support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include the levels and foundation committed to improving lives through invention in the u.s. And in developing countries and working to inspire and the naval the next generation of inventors more information is available at levels and dot org. What the Fed's going to do isn't really in doubt what's up in the air for a lot of people is what it's going to mean the interest rates affect on many different aspects of the economy that actually affect individuals directly. Your Federal Reserve questions are answers makes the marketplace marketplace coming up next for on k c b x public radio from the Salinas Valley to the been Turco. This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross if you ever get the creepy feeling you're being monitored when you use your computer smart phone or smart speaker or guest Jeffrey feller is here to tell you you are valor writes a consumer oriented technology column for The Washington Post he's been investigating the ways our browsers and phone apps harvest personal information about us even while we're sleeping and he discovered that Amazon had kept 4 years' worth of recorded audio from his home captured by his Alexa smart speaker including family conversations about medications and a friend doing a business transaction Jeffrey Fowler joined the Post in 2017 after 16 years with the Wall Street Journal writing about consumer technology Silicon Valley national affairs and China he writes as technology column from San Francisco he spoke with Fresh Air's Dave Davies Well Jeffrey Fowler welcome to Fresh Air You have a recent column The headline is I found your data it's for sale what kind of personal data did you find available for sale on the Internet. I found all kinds of things that normal people would consider secrets and that corporations spend a lot of money millions and millions of dollars to try to keep out of the hands of their competitors and criminals I found people's flight records I found people's records from their doctors prescribing them medications I found people's tax documents that they were thought they were only sharing with their tax preparer and they were available with one click I could have opened them up and downloaded them right and where did this data come from it came from their web browsers and what we discovered along the way is that there is a giant hole in people's web browsers that we're installing ourselves they're called Extensions these are these little apps little programs that you add into Chrome or into Firefox that you know are supposed to help you do do things on the web more easily like keep track of your passwords or you know maybe get discounts on certain websites a lot of them do that but it turns out a surprisingly large number of them have a side hustle in your data and they were in the business of watching everything you did on the web sending it out somewhere else and then that site was sending it on to someone else who then made it available for sale so when we click on the I agree box after not reading the long thing what does that allow the add on to harvest from us it allows to add on to look at every web page you go to they can read the contents of the page they can also look at the exact address at the top of the page that's all the letters that appear after survey h.t.t.p. That you see and that actually contains a lot more secrets than you might realize for example it might contain your user name or your password or in the case of pages that we saw on this system for sale from doctor's offices it contained the name of the doctor and even medication that was being renewed I have to say I. As a technology journalist knew that extensions were a risk but I had no idea how much of a risk they were until I heard from an independent researcher a guy named Sanjay Dali who runs his own web hosting service and found some of his customers data for sale and kind of became a half a year long investigation for him to figure out how this happened what he showed me actually was data coming from the Washington Post's own newsroom for sale on the Internet Wow Before we get to how this ends up for sale let's get to the mechanism of how it gets into the wrong hands so we install and an extension on our browser it's by some company whatever they then harvest the data then what do they do with it they've either use it for themselves there's actually a lot of companies that are in the business of that sometimes they call it marketing analytics trying to figure out what people are doing on the Internet Amazon has a very large business doing this with a company called Alexa and Amazon's case so they only keep it for themselves they don't sell that and share it to other people and they anonymize that data so that people who might tap into it can't see the exact page that you gave where was looking at but not everybody in this in this sort of shadowy business is so ethical and so we found this data through the research of the independent researcher I mentioned Sam Dali we found it for sale on a site called Nacho analytics It was buying it from perhaps some other party who perhaps was getting it from some other party it's really hard to connect these dots because the companies won't talk about who they're getting their data from and then you know putting it all for sale down to the individual pages that people were clicking on on a site called Not joining us right so you went on to not show analytics and what did you find. On not to analytics you could pay starting at about $40.00 per month to look at the web pages that people were surfing on individual domains so places like npr dot org or. Or or even one Dr dot com which is Microsoft's cloud storage service and when you pulled up those pages you could see the exact u r L's pages so and then search through them and search through the metadata so that's things like the titles and the address of the computer that they were using to surf there you could see all of this information and search through it and in some cases things that appeared to be tax returns or medical records right yet for example of so we went to one Dr dot com and typed in tax and that pulled up a bunch of documents based on the title of the page that appeared to be tax returns now I did not want to further dig into anybody's privacy so we did not actually click on those links but we could have to see them so if you wanted to look for a specific person on Nacho analytics you could find well I'll take the case of what we found from the Post newsroom so I asked this researcher Sam's Dolly to see if he could find any data from the the post internal network that's Wash Post dot com So he pulled up the pages he could see being served there and there we saw someone logging into our internal networks and not even something that's public to the world and it turned out to be one of my colleagues Nick and we saw his username so then I quickly called up Macon I said Hey Nick did you know that your data is for sale on the internet and he's like what and I said Well I think the problem is an extension that you've got running on your computer and we looked through them together and sure enough there was an extension there that looked really innocent but was sending out every page that he was he was visiting now not to analytics that provided all this information for a fee you talk to them I assume what have they said that they didn't do anything wrong and they may have a point that their business is not necessarily illegal and I think it's really telling. About sort of the state of the economy of the Internet economy that what they're doing is actually considered pretty common so they said that before they put data for sale on not going to Linux they would scrub it for personally identifiable information but as we saw when we looked through the data together clearly they were not doing a very good job of doing that because we found lots and lots and lots of secrets that were still available in the data when I also as well as this researcher Sam did all they contacted Google and Firefox they mediately shut down some of the extensions that were doing this leaking so that I believe cut off some of the data supply for not too analytics because a few days later not just said it was essentially pausing it's a business that would no longer take new customers and it had suffered a data outage and so couldn't even provide data for people who already paid for it but again I'm just a little puzzled by what kinds of extensions like for example when I tracked after I read your story on my my Google Chrome browser I had several extensions that allowed me to access Google Documents those are Ok. Those are made by Google itself so you know I think with each of these cases you have to ask do I trust this company we should have a conversation about whether you should trust Google that's a whole other topic but with a lot of other people Vero are many other kinds of of extensions in there I'll take the example of the one that my colleague at The Post was using it was called hovers him he'd read about it on the website read it and it's for people who use Reddit a lot and want to quickly be able to enlarge the photos on the Reddit website he installed it didn't think twice about it it was just sitting there running and when he pressed certain keys it automatically enlarge the photos on on any page turns out they had a side business in taking every web page he was going to and selling it on the Internet are ad blocking extensions a good idea to do they track you they can be good or they can be bad and this is one of the problems with these extension add on stores it's really hard to know what these guys are up to I have seen evidence of some that are really really good and some that are just collecting your data and you know you can't really tell just from the reviews or from the sort of the presence in in those stores what they're up to you know what other kinds of software is is frequently in the business of tracking you is actually v.p.n. And other kinds of security software sometimes antivirus software even you'll think these are the companies that I trust to protect my privacy and security but they may be paying for it by taking data about what you're doing on your computer and selling it including the big well known names in security yes some very big names in the antivirus and v.p.n. World may be providing the services that they that they offer but may also be in the business of collecting data about what you're doing on your computer. Writes a consumer oriented technology column for The Washington Post we'll continue our conversation after a short break this is Fresh Air Now tonight on concert Craig Russell explores the upcoming concert of the choir residents the voices of opera. And the final concerts in festival summer season. Concert tonight at $630.00 here on c.b.s. Serving south. Its 370. This is Fresh Air and we're speaking with Washington Post columnist Jeffrey Fowler he writes consumer oriented columns about navigating the confusing world of personal technology including computer smartphone smart speakers and so on so you wrote in June that you looked under the hood of the Chrome web browser which is commonly used and founded and brought along a few 1000 friends who were the friends. They were lots and lots of companies that are in the business of tracking everything that you do on the Internet some of them are advertising companies some of them are analytics companies that help you know figure out how to make websites run better some of them were tech giants Google and Facebook others were data brokers that are just in the business of trying to connect the dots in your digital life to build out a profile of you so that they can sell it right now these are not the browser extensions right that are specifically you download these are cookies right what exactly are cookies yet cookies are baked in pardon the pun baked into the way that the web works these days so they're tiny little files that basically tag your browser and say Yeah Jeff was here and then when you pull up another site they'll check Oh I see this cookie from before so now we can they can connect the dots think of them as little breadcrumbs that follow you around on the Internet turns out the biggest maker of cookies on the Internet is Google itself that's one of the ways that they they help track you down and build out a profile and help advertisers target you with advertising so Google also makes the most popular web browser Chrome so Chrome does not do very much to stop this this cookie behavior from happening in fact they quite actively encourage it now you've written about how these browser extensions that we get on we at least agree to download them do we agree to accept cookies in some way how does that happen or are we informed. Or is our consent sought however passively this is a really good question and this goes right to the heart of a big conversation we're having about technology right now what is consent what is being informed yes lots of websites now because of European data law put up a little notice on the bottom that says oh by the way we use cookies are you cool with that and you either ignore it or you click Ok you don't really think about it but does that mean that we really understand that you know in the course of a week that over $11000.00 times at least for me that companies are going to be able to be pushing out these requests to track and follow you around I don't really think it does I think in fact that we rely on the company that makes the web browser software chrome or Firefox to have our interests at heart right and our interest would be to not be tracked and yet Chrome is not doing that for us that's in pretty big contrast to its its much smaller rival Firefox which is made by a nonprofit called Mozilla it now as of a couple of weeks ago it changed its default settings so that when you install it it blocks those cookies by by default all the ones that are involved in tracking so in the case of my week of web surfing the 11000 cookies that are that Chrome would have let let through Mozilla let there are none Wow And. Is there an option to opt out of cookies on Google Chrome. There are options to say block all cookies in Google Chrome but that would then break some things about the way websites work not all cookies are bad some help remember for example your logon to the Washington Post website so if you turn those on it really kind of tends to sort of break your Web experience one of the things that Mozilla figured out how to do was block just the ones that are sort of not either in the business of tracking your for advertising or for marketing and allow through the ones that you want so it's about sort of seeking about balance. If you see for me this experience made me realize that Chrome has essentially become a surveillance software surveillance software for the advertising industry and for Google itself so I made a switch to Mozilla and I'm very happy I did you recently did a report on what your i Phone was doing while you were sleeping would you find I found that my i Phone is very busy while I'm sleeping talking to lots of companies that I have never heard of and sharing with it lots of personal details things like my exact address and my e-mail address and my name and that really really surprised me so what's happening here. We fill up our phones with apps and when we do that we presume that because they came from Apple's App Store that they've been vetted and they're not you know they're there they're respecting all of the privacy practices that we have come to expect from Apple because of its marketing but it turns out apps use something that are called trackers they're a little bit like cookies that you get on the web but they're they're just embedded inside the apps themselves and these trackers do lots of different things some of them help app makers just figure out how people are using the apps so that they can make them work better others belong to to data companies and advertising companies Google makes trackers Facebook makes trackers some are in there to gather data about people that are using apps so that they can sell it and that's one way app makers can can make money and these are these trackers inside the apps as long as they're on your phone they have the ability to essentially run whenever they want to including while you're sleeping at night and not even using your phone Wow Can you shut them down at night should you if you power your phone off does it does it . Inhibit this. If you if you power off your phone nothing will be coming out of your phone. Either from trackers or from calls that might come in or are go out of your phone but that doesn't really stop the problem because as soon as you power your phone back up the absolute back up and they'll get back in touch with their trackers The problem is really at the core of how apps are made and the kinds of requirements that Apple and Google and other phone you know Store app store makers were placed on them what kinds of requirements they place were failed to place indeed right now you know to get into the Apple App Store or the Google Play store you have to have your app reviewed by one of those companies they do look to make sure that you know they are that they are. That they have a privacy policy that they are generally abiding by you know the rules that they set out in in their app store guidelines but they don't really look under the hood to understand who are these other companies that they might be talking to these tracker companies and what sorts of data are they sending to them they don't do that vetting for us and unfortunately we as consumers can't really see that either to figure out what my phone was doing while I slept at night and also during the day I had to hack my phone I went to a guy who used to work for the n.s.a. His name is is Patrick Jackson even now works for a technology company called Disconnect and he showed me how to do something called a man in the middle attack on my i Phone that basically kept a copy of all of the data going in and out of my phone while I slept at night so that we could look through it together that's the level I had to go through to figure out what kind of data was flowing out of my phone and what trackers were running I couldn't learn any of that from you know from Apple software or from reading the privacy policies of these come. Bunny's So I understand this so when an app is permitted to be sold in the. The i Phone store does Apple require them not to use trackers and some people just aren't honest about it or do Apple's rules permit them to include trackers in the apps that you download. Until very recently Apple's rules permitted them to use whatever trackers they wanted if if you had given an app permission to collect your location and it does pop up a thing thing can we collect your location if you if you've given it that they could share that with whatever trackers it wanted about 2 weeks after my story came out in The Washington Post about what my 500 while I It was sleeping Apple announced that it was going to now ban trackers in children's apps so ones that work you know targeting you know people under the age of 13 they said they would no longer allow them to use 3rd party trackers that is an admirable move in many ways but then my question is why is it Ok in adult apps they're not in kids apps and what kinds of information is the tracker transmitting about it could really be a wide range of things you know when I looked you know underneath the hood just while I was sleeping apps that I saw using trackers included things like weather dot com or the Washington Post website had trackers there was another one that's a popular app for kind of like checking with police scanners called citizen it was sending its trackers a lot of information including my exact g.p.s. Coordinates in my e-mail and in that case that violated its own privacy policy and it later changed that after I called them but but still it was happening. We're listening to the interview Fresh Air's Dave Davies recorded with Geoffrey Falla who writes a consumer oriented technology column for The Washington Post they'll pick up where they left off after a break and critics are Ryan McDonald will review the final season of the Netflix series Orange Is The New Black I'm Terry Gross and this is. The new of our Family Foundation supports w.h.y. Wise fresh air and its commitment to sharing ideas and encouraging conversation support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from Progressive Insurance comparing car insurance rates from multiple insurers so shoppers going to evaluate options in one place now that's progressive comparisons available at progressive dot com or 1800 progressive . And from Home Advisor committed to helping homeowners find the right pro for their home projects homeowners can get matched to local pros read reviews and check project cost guides at Home Advisor dot com. This is going to American life was 12 when she was taken captive by members around the captor for years and one refuge was this book. Kept in secret the novel Little Women. In 868 seem to have all kinds of parallels for her exact situation being told to be a certain kind of. This American Life to morrow afternoon it to here on Central Coast public radio. Join Rob Kimball tonight from $8.00 to $10.00 for classical showcase to bring you music of the 20th and 21st centuries as well as the silver screen that's classical showcase on Central Coast public radio. Or on demand any time. Now back to Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross let's get back to the interview Fresh Air's Dave Davies recorded with Washington Post technology columnist Geoffrey Fallon Valer has been investigating ways our computers smartphones and smart speakers collect our personal information and what they do with it Valor has covered digital technology and Silicon Valley for years when we left off Valerie was describing how some Phone apps have trackers that collect our data which is often then sold to marketing and advertising companies one example Fowler found was food delivery apps like Rob caviar and door dash. You found one food delivery app called Jordache sends data to 9 different trackers Yeah this one was pretty shocking to me again think about this from the perspective of all of us you know you put an app on your phone like door dash and you think Ok door dash is here when I open door dash I have a relationship with Jordache with this company that's going to have someone bring food to my house you don't think that you're going to have a relationship with 9 other companies including Facebook and Google who get to know now and keep a log of every time you're hungry and open this app and you know want to order some pizza none of that is disclosed to us this is all lost in this and this murky world of data and that's sort of been the impetus behind the whole series of stories I've been doing for the post I kind of call it The Secret Life of your data just kind of looking under the hood at all the things all the data about us that's being passed around and traded and sold that we don't normally have a way to to understand or see because if we don't know where our data is going how can we even begin to hope to protect our privacy and just one understand the relationship a food delivery app would be would give dead or to 9 trackers because each of them pays the most a couple fractions of pennies for it or want it there might be a variety of reasons so for example one tracker might be in the business of just giving data back to Jordache to say like this is how your app functions this is the areas of the app that people spend the most time on these are the areas where people swipe around the most it might also help them combat fraud I guess there's a problem with people setting up fake phones to put in fake orders so they say they want to be able to tell whether your phone is literally physically moving using the gyroscope in it to see if it's it's a real human on the other end of it that's another. Kind of tracker there's also trackers in there for advertising companies so Google and Facebook are in there and says oh well they put them in there just so that they could see whether their advertising was working because Jordache does a lot of advertising with Google and Facebook but the cost of all of this is that all of these different kinds of companies get to know every time you're opening door dash and any time a company has data about you who's really making sure that they're using it appropriately Who's making sure that they're going to delete it soon enough Who's making sure that their they have good security and it's not going to get stolen and sold off somewhere and do these trackers slow the apps down or cause further battery drain or or do they do they impose data charges on us. I guess the other piece of app trackers is that they do a whole bunch of bad things for our phone over the course of a week I found 5400 different trackers activated on my i Phone yours might be different I may have more apps in you but that's still quite a lot if you multiply that out by an entire month it would have taken up 1.5 gigabytes of data just going to trackers from my phone to put that in some context the basic data plan from 18 t. Is only 3 gigabytes so imagine how fit your data plan is just eaten up by tracker companies who you don't want running anyway so it's not only eating up your data but then every time it pings the network that's another hit on your battery life too so it's really this stuff really isn't in our interest either from our privacy or from just keeping our phones running you know and sometimes when we're browsing and we want to go to a site or fire up an application we get a screen that says Do you want to sign in using Facebook. What have no you don't Ok . Why. Because you're giving Facebook the ability to then track every time you're using that website or every time you're using that app and I'm sure that that Web site and app then have lots of other tracker pixels or cookies or software baked into them that send other information to Facebook about what you're up to Google does the same things you off sometimes get a button do you want to sign in with Google same problem these companies are in the business of data they might tell everybody that they don't sell our data but it is certainly very valuable to them actually that's why they don't sell it because they want to keep it for themselves because they then use all this information about what apps you're using what you're doing and then what websites you go to where you are physically with your phone like where you are in the world according to your g.p.s. Coordinates they they put all of that into their dossiers on each of us to so that companies can target us with advertising so if I'm going to sign into a music service like Spotify and I sign in with Facebook does that mean Spotify then has access to all my Facebook data and my friends data. Not necessarily it used to be that Facebook was a lot more open about sharing. Your Facebook data and your friends' data with apps they shut down a lot of that a couple of years ago and that's the problem they got got into with Cambridge analytic as well that they were allowing apps to collect data about your friends and then pass that along so Facebook has gotten a lot. A lot more controlling with its data again they'll say That's for privacy but it's really because they realize that data is too valuable they want to keep it for themselves so they can charge companies to to market to you through them. You know we have some columns that are on very specific topics that are that are really interesting and one of them you write about how to handle robo callers on your cell phones and you mentioned getting the Do Not Call list but there are some fightback apps that people pay for that that really get aggressive on this you know explain this yeah there are some apps out there that beyond just blocking bad calls that they actually will try to torture robo collars so they intercept the calls and they listen briefly to see if they detected as being a robo collar and if they do and set of passing the phone call on to you they'll stay on the line and they use artificial intelligence to try to keep think that you know the person or the robot on the other end on the line by sort of teasing them sometimes they'll have like a Donald Trump impersonator voice that talks to them or somebody snoring or somebody just talking a lot and then for kicks they will send you they'll send you a recording of what happened afterwards All right so if you're really into. If you're really into it you write about smart speakers like Alexa and their potential to be conducting surveillance and I guess it's worth noting Alexa is owned by Amazon whose chair Jeff Bezos is the owner of the paper that you work for The Washington Post How much is our Alexis smart speakers recording of our. First I'll note yes the post is owned by Jeff Bezos but I'm happy to report that I am at liberty to criticize Amazon as much as I'd like including by digging into what Alexa is really getting up to so I think one thing that a lot of folks do not realize about smart speakers with a Lexus or with Google's assistant or Siri is that by default they're keeping the recordings of everything that you say so that means that you sort of think like Ok . Well but it only records when you call out the name you call out a Lexus or call that Siri Well actually that's not the case it records whenever it thinks it hears one of those one of those calls to action so I did an experiment where I went back to 4 years of recordings that Alexa has made of me and my family at home because again they're all kept there by default and I spent a couple of days listening to all of them and when I did that I found you know all of these strange fragments of my life so things you would expect like setting the spaghetti timer or asking to hear a song that was in there but there were also lots of times dozens of occasions where Alexa was recording snippets of conversation or television just kind of randomly on its own for example it seemed to kind of go off a lot in its own whenever I was watching Downton Abbey not a lot of a lot of people with that particular posh British accent in the collection and also went off when my family members were talking about medication it went off when a friend was doing a business transaction and listening to this archive which any of the listeners can do themselves if you go to Amazon dot com slash Alexa privacy you'll be able to dig into your collection as well listening to this really made me think differently about what Alexa has become in our lives it's it is yes it an assistant but it is also an eavesdropper and it is collecting this information and not giving us the power to tell it to stop now Amazon does give you an option that you can go in and delete past recordings but you can't tell it just don't keep the recording and the 1st place and they keep everything forever. They keep everything forever what's interesting is we were talking before about how these tech companies sometimes give us false choices and this is again one of these fall. Choices Amazon says it needs all of this data to make Alexa smarter improve its artificial intelligence and yet arch rival Google actually now by default does not do this it does not keep the recordings from Google assistance or its smart speakers or its or its phone based assistant It does not keep does by default it deletes you have we'd have to go in and tell it that you want it to keep those so here you know who's right do you really have to keep it Amazon I think not and the reason they're doing it is because they can get away with it because most of us haven't noticed and haven't spent the time to kind of dig into into the details we're speaking with Jeffrey Fowler he writes a consumer oriented technology column for The Washington Post we'll take a short break here then we will talk some more this is Fresh Air. Central Coast public radio k.c.b. X we sure into an end of our morning 9 till noon for an eclectic mix of music on the morning cup. 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And from the Main Office of Tourism with wild landscapes and rugged coasts to inspire original lifestyles and authentic adventures main offers travelers an opportunity to discover their very own main thing visit Maine dot com This is Fresh Air and we're speaking with Washington Post columnist Geoffrey Fowler he writes consumer oriented columns about navigating the confusing world of personal technology including computers smart phones and smart speakers Alexis seems to listen to an awful lot does Siri do the same thing on our i Phones Siri does do the same thing on our i Phones and on the home Pod which is their home speaker so I have a corner of my living room where all of the virtual assistants live together have all of the connected speakers I'm sure someday they'll start talking to each other but I watch to see which ones go off at random times I have to say the Apple one goes off quite frequently maybe even more than the others Apple's policy is it keeps the recordings of everything that it that it hears it does not give you the option to tell it not to keep the recordings but they anonymize it so they don't associate it with your individual account in your name Amazon still associates it with who you are so when you say that the Apple device goes off more frequently it starts recording more frequently or seems to that's right last night I was watching a t.v. Show and in the middle of it Siri on the home Pod perked up and said Sorry I can't answer that question and no one had asked a serious question Does this make you want to disconnect Alexa I have to say after doing this reporting I now keep my Alexa speaker on permanent mute there is a button on the top the physical button you can press that so. As don't record and don't activate when you hear the name Alexa but that of course sort of defeats the purpose of the device so again I just think this is really bad product design on the part of of Amazon they shouldn't put us in a situation where again the choice is don't use the technology or give into to do this kind of surveillance thing I would add is that this project of listening to my Alexa recordings made me wonder I wonder what all the other ways are that Amazon is eavesdropping on my home because anybody with one of these smart speakers probably knows that like oh you can hook them up to connected devices in your home right you can connected up to light bulbs and thermostats and doorbells and all sorts of things I mean I had certainly done that I'm a technology journalist and I review all this stuff in my house is filled with gadgets and so I went down the path of trying to figure out Ok well what other data from my home other than just me and my family's voices is it keeping and I found I mean anough that would make that you know the East German police blush see this kind of data for example my Nest thermostat was collecting in 15 minute increments over the last 6 or 7 years not only have the temperature in my home but also whether there had been a person that passed in front of it so there was this perfect record of every time there had been someone in my hallway for years and years and years that was being sent both to Google and to Amazon because Amazon's requirement is if your gadget connects in with Alexa that they get to keep a copy of all this data too and then it started multiplying so yeah there was the thermostat but there's also my garage door it was doing the same thing then there was my connected lights literally Amazon was getting a record every time a light switched on and off in my house and how did you discover that Amazon had these records of your thermostat changes and when people were walking down the hallway. I started asking so I went to the companies that make make these devices and I said hey can you tell me what what data you're collecting and who you're sharing it with some of them would not answer that question and that my frustration with that really animated what's become a year long project by me to sort of see if I can look under the hood and figure out what data is being collected and who it's being shared with and I've been looking at that in all sorts of things connected devices in our home our web browser and I've got even more more and more projects coming down the pike but some companies did answer some just pointed me to their privacy policies which didn't really specify what they were up to so it's really quite difficult for us as consumers to understand physiques life of these devices in the data they're collecting and who they're sharing it with and I think that's a big problem. There's a lot of talk of Congressional regulation of digital media are you seeing things that encourage. There's a lot of talk in Congress but not a lot of action when it comes to data and privacy you know we see a lot of individual members of Congress writing letters or holding hearings but there's been little effort to really turn that into legislation that could even get to the point of being voted on right now we see Congress also interested in these big questions about whether these tech companies are too big right and that they need to be broken up for antitrust reasons which at the end of the day is also about data because the reason why they're so big and so powerful and had made billions of dollars because they have control over so much data about our lives the thing that actually gives me the most hope is what I see happening in the States so California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act which is going to take effect in January and it is I think going to become the closest thing that we have to an American privacy law of course it only applies to the residents of California but there are so many residents of California a lot of companies are going to have to sort of essentially comply with it for everyone and it really it's about disclosure which is I think the where this all needs to start you know when this law takes effect that these companies even if they're not tech up and any company that collects data about you it's going to have to be able to say you know answer the question that at some of the questions I posed before what's being collected Who is it being shared with tell me if it's being sold give me the chance to say no you're not allowed to sell it I'm actually super excited when this law kicks in are you have plans for January 1st 2020 to send a lots of requests letters to companies as a California resident to tell me what data they're collecting what they're doing with it well Jeffrey Fowler thanks so much for speaking with us My pleasure. Jeffrey Fowler writes a consumer oriented technology column for The Washington Post he spoke to Fresh Air's Dave Davies coming up Soraya MacDonald reviews the final season of Orange Is The New Black This is Fresh Air. What the Fed's going to do isn't really in doubt what's up in the air for a lot of people is what it's going to mean the interest rates affect on many different aspects of the economy that actually affect individuals directly. Your Federal Reserve questions our answers on Marketplace marketplace coming up next at 4 on k.c.b. X Public Radio serving the central coast from Salinas to. Linguist Gretchen McCulloch's new book breaks down the rules of internet language take l.o.l. a Colleague says now l.o.l. Doesn't always mean laughter if I say I hate you lol now I'm joking so it's fine I'm not laughing out loud while I think you I'm undermining my message and saying I hate you but I'm not serious about the book because Internet and analysis of the 2nd Democratic presidential debate this afternoon on All Things Considered from n.p.r. News all things considered airs at 430 right after marketplace here on Central Coast public radio k c b x. This is Fresh Air One of the most influential t.v. Shows of the streaming era has ended last Friday Netflix dropped the 7th and final season of Orange Is The New Black the series depicted life inside a women's prison and launched the careers of some of its star Latina and black actresses critics are Ryan McDonald says the final season feels just as vital as the 1st when I realized that large parts of the final season of Orange Is The New Black would be set in an immigration detention center I seriously began to mourn the fact that after 7 seasons the show was finally ending. That's because this season is just as urgent and just as radical as its 1st in doing something few other shows do you it takes the plight of poor and minority women seriously it doesn't shy away from the inhumane horrors inflicted upon them in prisons and detention centers and it does all of this in a way that is smart compassionate detail oriented and in direct conversation with events happening in the world at large it's also filled with a surprising amount of humor after it debuted in 2013 creator and showrunner Jenji Kohan said on fresh air that she used the show's star character Piper Chapman as a quote Trojan horse you're not going to go into a network and sell a show on really fascinating tales of black women and Latino women and old women and criminals but if you take this white girl this sort of fish out of water and you follow her in you can then expand your world and tell all those other stories but it's a hard sell to just go in and try to sell those stories initially the show adapted from Piper Kerman memoir of a year spent in a women's prison ushered in a new era of television it was the 2nd original series Netflix produced after house of cards each episode was structured in such a way that you just had to watch the next one immediately that helped turn an Internet streaming service into a real television network and a perennial contender for Emmys the women of Lichfield correctional became legitimate stars but the power of Orange Is The New Black always lay in its setting and its focus it actually got people to think about difficult challenging subjects like recidivism and solitary confinement is torture. The show's 6 season was its weakest it blew up familiar longstanding relationships and double down on the guard sadistic behavior but the final season in many ways is a return to what made it great when we last saw Piper played by Taylor Schilling she was leaving prison in the new season piper now working as a waitress is having a hard time navigating life on the outside in this scene she meets with her probation officer played by Elisa joy Powell so how's the job going oh fine good. Tips could be better think if I could pick up a dinner shift they would improve so you can pick up any dinner shift curfews 11 finishers go to 1 am yeah I guess you can pick up any dentist Yes. I got offered a job at a better restaurant. But they serve alcohol again that's not where I'm just going right down that has gone Ok. For me I didn't realize that early release meant I was responsible for all of my monitoring and testing vs you know makes it really hard for people to get back on their feet you got a check for me. Is it Ok if I pay double next week I haven't got my latest paycheck and the money I do have I really need for a bus so that I can go visit my niece to not make me regret a proven that I am a visit Ok you play man or you can be in violation of your probation Orange Is The New Black showed us how prisons routinely ignore and violate the rights of trans people with the character of Sophia burst that played by Laverne Cox Cox became the 1st openly transgender person to be nominated for prime time Emmy. And they gave us a look inside a women's prison the show expanded its view and ours with its signature flashbacks to their lives before incarceration it continually built out the stories of its ensemble cast to show how poverty sexual abuse and racism provide the building blocks that doomed so many women the character of Suzanne Crazy Eyes Warren played with such depth and sensitivity by the Duba will long be remembered for the sense of innocence she brought to the show and for her continued faith in other people even after years of being treated shabbily but the show's most memorable moment was the heartbreaking death of puce a Washington played by Samir a wildly in season 5 percent I was tackled and suffocated to death by a guard recalling the real life death of Eric Garner who was killed when a New York police officer put him in a chokehold along with Wiley in Aduba Orange Is The New Black turned Cox Danielle Brooks who plays tasty Longo who plays Diana interrupted nice little stars Brooks was nominated for a Tony for her role in a revival of The Color Purple on Broadway and recently played Beatrice in a public theater production of much ado about nothing the show also resuscitated the career of Kate Mulgrew and reminded us of the many talents of Natasha Leone who is able to parlay her success into a new project Russian doll the mission of Orange Is The New Black became the mission of its actors to make sand out who plays warden Joe computer oh co-produced documentary about Khalif Browder The New York teen who died by suicide after being released from a 3 year stint on Rikers Island which included 2 years in solitary similarly Cox produced a documentary about c.c. MacDonald a woman who was imprisoned for assault after defending herself when she was attacked for being trans. Orange Is The New Black became more than a riveting t.v. Show it became a force for good now it's got one more shot and it's focusing our attention on Latina immigrants and asylum seekers this season shows how they are being treated with even less grace and humanity than the tiny doses meted out to the women of lips field for 7 seasons Orange Is The New Black Gay Voices to the voiceless it's left me wondering now that it's ending Who in Hollywood will pick up the baton Sariah not be a MacDonald writes for the e.s.p.n. Website the undefeated tomorrow on fresh air I'll talk with comic actor and writer Wanda Sykes about being a comic in the Trump era and about writing material about being an African-American lesbian married to a white woman they have 2 children her latest comedy special on Netflix is nominated for 2 Emmys I hope you'll join us. Executive producer. Director an engineer. For digital media. Roberta sure directs the show. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from caring transitions a senior move resource to help families ease the stress of life's transitions offering relocation. And the resale of everyday household items locations and caring transitions dot com. And from the foundation expanding opportunities in America's cities through grant making and social investing more it org Here is a highlight from the k.c.b. X. Community calendar 45 iconic portraits showing the American farmer by celebrity photographer Paul moved around displayed at the San Luis Obispo library this portfolio was a moving glimpse into the hardships and joys of a quickly disappearing we have. More about this and many other events go to the calendar page at k.c. B.x. Dot au argy. Support for k c b x comes from Leader Lander concerts presenting the Gypsy Kings featuring Nicholas Reyes and to Anita by the live August 4th amphitheater. With special guests see me tickets are at ticketmaster dot com. Join. C.b.x. For a special evening with veteran n.p.r. Host and journalist Renee Montagne when she appears with Kelly McEvers at Cuesta college August 24th it's your chance to hear what it's like reporting for one of the most trusted news outlets in the world tickets. Oh argy. This is Casey. And Caylee s.p.x. Santa Barbara streaming at. It's 4 o'clock I'm Steve in for Tyler Pratt this afternoon it's been lots of fun thanks so much for allowing me to sit in with you marketplace comes up next. The Count personal capital cash. Learn more at personal capital dot com slash cash 3870 days that is how long it's been since the words the Federal Reserve cut interest rates today have been said on this program from American Public Media this is Marketplace. Marketplace is supported by c 3. Addressing the world's most challenging problems at the convergence of artificial intelligence. And elastic computing learn more it seems. Wednesday 31 today or as we like to call it around here the day everything changed. Ok not really I mean the Federal Reserve did cut interest rates today a quarter of a percentage point just like everybody had been guessing 1st cut in more than 10 years 3700 some days but still it's a lousy quarter point so again when I don't think asking about a quarter point is really the right question oh all right you tell me then Fed Chairman Jay Powell what the right way to look at this is I think you have to look back over the course of the year and see the committee moving away from rate increases to a neutral posture to now a rate cut Ok Any you see an economy which is actually performing pretty well growth in the 1st half of this year is about the same as it was in all of 18 and actually a little better than our forecast for growth at the end of 200-1000 odd Fair enough but look downsides we also feel like we quote growth and trade tensions are having an effect on the u.s. Economy Well yeah but Joel No what you're doing right thing is there isn't a lot of experience in responding to global trade tensions. So it is a. Something that. We haven't faced before and that we're learning by doing it is not it's not exactly the same as watching global growth where you see growth weakening you see central banks and governments responding with fiscal policy and you see growth strengthening the business cycle yet with with trade tensions which do seem to be having a significant effect on financial market conditions and on the economy they they evolve in a in a different way a translation here if I might the Trump administration's trade policies are sui generis as economists like to say one of a kind and nobody is really sure what to do about him. Ok back to chair Peller Epona thank you I'm happy to take your questions us to as it happens a lot of you e-mailed or tweeted out us because we asked you to with questions about the Fed and what we all knew it was going to do today then you Richard from Las Vegas Nevada spoke for many of you when he asked basically why he should care we've got an o. And a fed a columnist once upon a time now a professor of economics at Hamilton College we got on the phone to explain what the average American should care for a couple of reasons the interest rates affect many different aspects of the economy that actually affect individuals directly one thing that it will affect is it will affect the cost of loans borrowing costs and especially Morgan.