It’s a short list of stories this week, because USA Today elected to run this weekend’s column on Monday instead of today (they figure it will get more readers then than today, which seems fair enough to me). Next week will be busier: I’ll be in San Francisco from Wednesday through Saturday for Google’s I/O conference.

5/19/2015: The NSA’s Bulk Surveillance is Nearing its Expiration Date, Yahoo Tech

This column was a hairball to write–between recapping two years’ worth of breaking news about the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance and then trying to summarize the key differences between possible reforms of that, I had a draft balloon to about 1.5 times my usual word count.

5/23/2015: May 23, 2015 — Josh Centers and Rob Pegoraro, Tech Night Owl

My conversation with Gene Steinberg about Comcast’s customer-service initiatives, NSA reform, EMV credit-card security and more was repeatedly interrupted by my coughing fits. I feel bad about the extra editing work I inflicted on my host, and I wish I knew what could escalate a slight scratchiness in my throat so badly.