NSA spied on journalists, other Americans 24/7 | Capitol Hill Blue
Topic: Civil Liberties
8:37 am EST, Jan 22, 2009
Tice, appearing on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, says Americans were targeted under the pretense of profiling them for elimination from the NSA's high-tech surveillance programs but -- in fact, the agency was keeping tabs on the day-to-day lives of American citizens who have no connection with terrorism.
Tice specifically identified journalists as a target of the expanded NSA spying but said others groups were targeted as well.
(Unfortunately for non-subscribers this essay is currently behind the paywall.)
The fact that I even had to look this up is a testament to the absurdity of our intellectual property system:
A work that was created on or after January 1, 1978, is automatically protected from the moment of its creation and is ordinarily given a term enduring for the author’s life plus an additional 70 years after the author’s death...
Works Originally Created before January 1, 1978, But Not Published or Registered by That Date
These works have been automatically brought under the statute and are now given federal copyright protection. The duration of copyright in these works is generally computed in the same way as for works created on or after January 1, 1978: the life-plus-70 or 95/120-year terms apply to them as well. The law provides that in no case would the term of copyright for works in this category expire before December 31, 2002, and for works published on or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright will not expire before December 31, 2047.
Unfortunately, this is still confusing. This work was created by an author who died in 1910. 1910 plus 70 is 1980. So, this work ought to be in the public domain. Therefore it is a disservice that it has been placed behind the New Yorker's pay wall, and you've the right to republish it in full on MemeStreams.
However, this is where it gets odd. The law provides that in no case would the term of copyright for works in this category expire before December 31, 2002. So, its not 1980, its 2002. I guess.
But it gets even more bizarre. If the work was published sometime between 1978 and 2002, apparently the term of copyright would not expire until 2047. Thats lifetime of the author plus 135 years! Presumably because the New Yorker waited until 2008, the copyright expired in 2002, which is lifetime of the author plus 92 years. Doesn't it seem counter intuitive that by waiting to publish this the New Yorker shortened the length of its copyright protection? No less counter intuitive, perhaps, than the notion that intellectual property rights ought to be held for centuries in the first place.
Do we need to get a lawyer in order to find out whether or not we can republish this thing?
The question of free speech online isn’t just about what a company like Google lets us read or see; it’s also about what it does with what we write, search and view.
Google’s claim on our trust is a fragile thing. After all, it’s hard to be a company whose mission is to give people all the information they want and to insist at the same time on deciding what information they get.
“We’re at the dawn of a new technology. And when people try to come up with the best metaphors to describe it, all the metaphors run out. We’ve built this spaceship, but we really don’t know where it will take us.”
This a long article that touches on a number of things including Joe Lieberman's request that YouTube remove jihadist videos even if they were protected by U.S. law as well as the Global Network Initiative about which I need to do more reading.
American Civil Liberties Union : Constitution Free Zone
Topic: Civil Liberties
8:32 am EDT, Oct 23, 2008
Using data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders.
The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This " Constitution-Free Zone" includes most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.
My understanding is that they cannot perform a border search when they are not at the border unless its fairly clear that you did cross the border. This ACLU information suggests otherwise but doesn't substantiate that suggestion as far as I can tell.
What's Really At Risk At A Federal Obscenity Trial? About Four Years In Prison
Topic: Civil Liberties
11:10 am EDT, Oct 6, 2008
We know that if you publish pornographic material on the Internet, federal prosecutors can choose to bring trial against you almost anywhere in the nation. And if Paul F. Little's (a/k/a "Max Hardcore") prosecution is any guide, figure a conviction means about 4 years in the pen, minimum security.
But then, you can argue he got off easy -- the 20 counts of obscenity Little was convicted of carried a potential penalty of 100 years.
There is very little press coverage of this sentencing other than some commentary by Glenn Greenwald. I don't agree with Greenwald. He includes pictures of Abu Ghraib and somehow neglects to mention that people were sentenced to long prison terms over than incident, a fact (among several others) which undermines his point. I didn't read a lot of the attached thread but no one seems to pick up on that. There is, however, a lot of noise about the pornographer in question being a really bad guy who does really bad things and who needed to go down.
I don't know anything about this guy or his porn. However, he wasn't convicted for assaulting or abusing actresses. He was convicted for making consensual porn with adults. He was convicted of obscenity, something that hasn't happened in this country for many years, AFAIK. Something which has been used in very recent history by moralists as a weapon to attack disfavored ideas and groups of people.
After the election in 2004 the Bush administration demanded that obscenity prosecutions be dusted off in order to hand a bone to the conservative base who reelected him. This is one of those prosecutions. It was a success. One of two things will happen from here. Either a new president will put an end to this project, or it will continue to expand, including a greater scope of ideas into the realm of prohibition until it again becomes a serious threat to freedom of expression.
I expect that a McCain/Palin presidency would allow this program to expand. I'm not sure about an Obama/Biden ticket. It seems the sort of thing that the Biden/Clinton wing of the democratic party would strongly support but it might not end up on Obama's priority list. So, its worth paying attention to. It might end here, but it might not, and if it doesn't, it will inevitably become a serious problem.
Supremes Mull Whether Bad Databases Make for Illegal Searches | Threat Level
Topic: Civil Liberties
12:15 am EDT, Oct 6, 2008
If a false entry in a database leads to a unconstitutional police search that reveals illegal drugs, does the government get to hold it against you?
That's the question the Supreme Court will tackle on Tuesday in a case civil liberties groups such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center argue will have broad implications in a world where we are constantly being evaluated against databases and watch lists that are riddled with frustratingly persistent errors.
"In these interlinked databases, one error can spread like a disease, infecting every system it touches and condemning the individual to whom this error refers to suffer substantial delay, harassment, and improper arrest," EPIC director Marc Rotenberg argued in a friend of the court brief (.pdf).
New Border Search Policy Far Broader, New Documents Reveal | Threat Level from Wired.com
Topic: Civil Liberties
2:52 pm EDT, Sep 23, 2008
Old Policy:
The U.S. Customs Service must guard the rights of individuals being inspected to ensure their personal privacy is protected. Therefore, as a general rule, Customs officers should not read personal correspondence
New Policy:
In the course of a border search, and absent individualized suspicion, officers can review and analyze the information transported by any individual attempting to enter, reenter, depart, pass through, or reside in the United States.
Same old fucking excuse:
DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa says "The decision to change standards reflects the realities of the post 9/11 environment."
Our Constitution, Dershowitz writes, “was designed with the ‘reactive state’ in mind.” But now the state has taken on an ever-more-important preventive function, stopping terrorism before it can occur. Our legal system, however, has not caught up with this new function.
Torture warrants, Dershowitz insists, are one way to shine law’s light on this darkness, especially if one believes there are times when torture should be permitted.
“We need to develop a jurisprudence for the emerging preventive state. … Black holes in the law are anathema to democracy, accountability, human rights and the rule of law.”
How realistic is the specter of nuclear terrorism? Are these changes necessary to prevent it, or is this just facism feeling around for a rationalization? It seems to me that surveillance is more central to this preemptive law enforcement system than torture. Does Dershowitz also think we should have warrantless surveillance warrants?
New bill would tighten rules for DHS border laptop searches
Topic: Civil Liberties
9:37 am EDT, Sep 17, 2008
Customs and Border Patrol agents can grab your laptop, BlackBerry, or external hard drive without needing so much as a reason, but a new bill introduced last week to Congress would at least put some limits on how border searches could be done.
"I was deeply concerned to learn about the lack of protections individuals' have when their electronic equipment is randomly seized," said Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), who introduced the bill. "With the passage of the Border Search Accountability Act of 2008, Americans will be able to travel with more peace of mind knowing that their data will be further protected and that there are stringent accountability measures in place for safeguarding their personal information."
Note what her bill will not do—make searches more difficult.
This isn't what we really want, as it doesn't attempt to set any limits on searches. It does add more transparency to the process, and that is a good thing. It should be supported.
Sanchez's bill would bring more routine to the search process. The bill requires the government to draft additional rules regarding information security, the number of days a device can be retained, receipts that must be issued when devices are taken, ways to report abuses, and it requires the completion of both a privacy impact study and a civil liberties impact study. Travelers would also have the explicit right to watch as the search is conducted.
Sanchez also wants data about the searches, which would have to be turned over to Congress once per quarter. Specifically, she wants to know how many searches are being done, where they take place, and the race and nationality of those being searched.
The Department of Homeland Security actually issued search rules over the summer; while they were the first rules made public on the process, which had started to look quite ad-hoc, they still came in for criticism from groups like the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. ACTE, which doesn't like have executive laptops pinched whenever someone travels overseas, complained in early August that devices could basically be kept indefinitely, the data could be shared with foreign governments, and no data destruction procedures were spelled out.
This is unlikely to make it out of committee in any form before the end of the current congress. The situation is getting much needed attention though.
