Gregory Ferenstein

Up until a few months ago, President Obama probably didn’t worry much about the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program. After all, Congress had approved it, courts oversaw it, and…

Silicon Valley is no stranger to unusual ideas, and today the world got to witness another: noted investor Tim Draper is proposing a ballot proposition to split California into six…

TechCrunch has learned about noted technology investor Tim Draper’s plan to split California into six separate states, including a Northern California slice appropriately named “Silicon Valley.”

California’s radical experiment in massively open online courses (MOOCs) is not so radical anymore. San Jose State University will scale back the number of purely online courses and restrict them…

Today, the much-anticipated findings of President Obama’s National Security Agency task force have hit the wire [PDF]. The non-binding 200 page report of 40-plus recommendations calls for the end of…

Notorious National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden wants to move to the land of sunny beaches and micro-bikinis. In an open letter in the Brazilian newspaper Floha de Sao Paulo,…

The news industry exploded today with headlines trumpeting a federal judge’s declaration that the National Security Agency’s phone data collection program was “unconstitutional”. The strongly worded anti-NSA opinion was quotation…

President Obama’s surveillance task force will reportedly recommend that a civilian should direct the National Security Agency and that it should reform its mass data collection practices. An overview of…

Google put its significant digital soapbox behind an official White House petition on privacy, reaching the difficult 100,000 signature threshold today. Google, along with a host of civil liberty groups,…

According to information once again leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency secretly targets suspects using the same tool that allows advertisers to target consumers — small files…

Before Congress’s holiday recess, Silicon Valley’s major tech companies have renewed calls for surveillance reform. Executives from Google, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, Linkedin, Twitter, and (TechCrunch parent company) Aol have put…

How does a power cord charge a cellphone? Magic, silly! According to a Pew poll, many of my fellow Americans are completely in the dark about how their world works,…

Public school children have become lab rats of policymakers who are eager to see change faster than we can study what works. Experimental reforms are often founded on the lackluster…

Microsoft’s public relations department was on encrypted cloud nine yesterday, riding a wave of high-five press reports for their swift action to protect consumers from National Security Agency surveillance. “We…

The most unproductive Congress in history is on a mini-roll: the House of Representative passed its second piece of tech legislation this week. The Google and White House-backed Innovation Act…

According to leaked documents from whistleblower and Russian residency enthusiast, Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency is tracking people’s whereabouts en masse. By collecting the location data from billions of…

The most unproductive Congress in history could not manage to update a ban on plastic guns for the era of 3D printed weapons. Today, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted…

*Editorial Note: Every year, the media generally reports international student test comparisons with the same narrative about how the US is losing at education. The new annual report out today…

Apparently, no President is above the temptation of propaganda. Yesterday, the White House released a much-anticipated report on the beleaguered insurance e-commerce website, heatlhcare.gov, proudly declaring that “we believe we…

The Supreme Court has rejected Amazon’s calls to consider their case against New York State’s sales tax on goods sold outside of its borders. By effectively upholding a New York…

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos isn’t the only one who wants to take to the skies. Most of Hollywood wants drones for making films, police want them to patrol the skies,…

Are you tired of watching expensive gadgets turn your friends into Abercrombie models? Well, my pudgy popper, we’ve got a holiday gift guide that’ll give you five more ab packs…

In an era of Google Glass, Siri, and Snapchat, small businesses will still have to enroll for some new health insurance plans by paper or phone. The White House admitted…

I feel like when people freak out about the unknown threat to mass government surveillance, they’re secretly worried a clandestine agent will reveal their naughty web-surfing habits to friends and…

Eight Democratic senators are finally asking the Obama Administration to let startups act as an alternative to the malfunctioning healthcare website, Healthcare.gov. “There are long-term advantages to providing Americans multiple…

I wore a calorie counter armband from BodyMedia that told me I was burning over 3,000 calories a day. If that were true, I would be emaciated enough to play…

As the federal government struggles to regain hope that it can get enough consumers to buy health insurance, it is piloting an option for consumers to purchase insurance outside of…

A slim majority of Americans want airlines to ban passengers from making phone calls during flight, according to a *CrunchGov Poll. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Federal…

“I believe there’s a real chance that we can eliminate censorship and the possibility of censorship in a decade,” Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said recently at Johns Hopkins University. “The solution to…

One of the original architects of the Internet wants to remind us that privacy is a relatively new concept. “Privacy is something which has emerged out of the urban boom…