Law

Tomorrow night on PBS’s Frontline is “Spying on the Homefront”: FRONTLINE addresses an issue of major consequence for all Americans: Is the Bush administration’s domestic war on terrorism jeopardizing our civil liberties? Reporter Hedrick Smith presents new material on how the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program works and examines clashing viewpoints on whether the president has violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and infringed on constitutional protections. In another dramatic story, the program shows how the FBI vacuumed up records on 250,000 ordinary Americans who chose Las Vegas as the destination for their Christmas-New Year’s holiday, and the subsequent revelation that the FBI has misused National Security Letters to gather information. Probing such projects as Total Information Awareness, and its little known successors, Smith discloses that even former government intelligence officials now worry that the combination of new security threats, advances in communications technologies, and radical interpretations of presidential authority may be threatening the privacy of Americans.(Via the Electronic Frontier Foundation.)

Today’s the day that providers of VoIP and broadband Internet in the United States must comply with CALEA, mandating that they supply a way for law enforcement to eavesdrop on any communications carried over those mechanisms. I suspect many VoIP providers are in compliance but that fewer broadband Internet providers are, since the draft standard for CALEA for data over broadband Internet only came out in March. (And if you’d like to read the standard, it will cost you $164 for the PDF or $185 for a paper copy.) Bob Hagen at the Global Crossing blog points out some free tools that can be used to protect your privacy.

The LaClair family and the Kearny Board of Education have settled their dispute regarding David Paszkiewicz’s proselytization in U.S. history class, as reported in the New York Times: The Kearny Board of Education in New Jersey and the parents of Matthew LaClair, a 17-year-old junior at Kearny High School, settled their dispute on Tuesday night about a teacher who proselytized in class. The settlement will include training for teachers and students about the separation of church and state and a public statement by the board praising Matthew for bringing the matter to its attention. ...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit yesterday against Uri Geller and his company Explorogist Ltd. for filing a DMCA takedown notice against a YouTube video posted by the Rational Response Squad. The video depicted an excerpt from the Nova program “Secrets of the Psychics” which featured James Randi showing how some of Geller’s feats could have been done with magic tricks. The video includes about three seconds of footage owned by Geller, which clearly falls under fair use guidelines. To quote from the EFF’s press release: “We’ve seen a rash of people abusing the DMCA lately, attempting to take down legitimate criticism and commentary online,” said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. “To allow thin-skinned public figures like Uri Geller to abuse this system forces critics to remain silent and creates unfair hurdles for free speech to thrive online." The filings in the case may be found at the EFF’s website. Here’s the video, and a bonus video. UPDATE (August 6, 2008): This lawsuit has been settled. There was a monetary settlement and Geller’s company has agreed to license the footage for noncommercial use under a Creative Commons license.

70 D0 87 F2 02 2E 37 96 EB 84 B3 1B B5 92 10 E7 This 128-bit integer was used to encrypt a copyrighted haiku, and all rights to decrypt that haiku with this integer have been given to me. You may not use this 128-bit integer for any purpose; if you distribute it or publish it you are in violation of the DMCA's restrictions on circumvention. (Actually, I've probably blown it by publishing this number--but there are others which are mine and which you also may not obtain or distribute. And that goes for you, too, AACS LA.) You can get your own 128-bit integer and read the haiku for yourself at Ed Felten's Freedom to Tinker blog. Einzige (2007-05-08): Is only the hexidecimal version yours, or do the base 10 and base 3 (and base x) versions also belong only to you? ...

Einzige has a great post at his blog titled “Making Fortunes* in Foreclosures (* Once you’ve discarded your ethical compass)" which describes the details of how some sleazy real estate gurus make money off of gullible homeowners in distress. Historical Comments Einzige (2007-04-28): Thanks, Jim!

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington points out that there are millions of emails missing from the White House servers (the official ones, not the Republican National Committee ones): Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today has released a report, WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act, detailing the legal issues behind the story of the White House e-mail scandal. In a startling new revelation, CREW has also learned through two confidential sources that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over five million emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005. The White House counsel’s office was advised of these problems in 2005 and CREW has been told that the White House was given a plan of action to recover these emails, but to date nothing has been done to rectify this significant loss of records. ...

With the FBI being directed to focus its attention on counterterrorism, its investigations of fraud, identity theft, civil rights violations, and crime in general have plummeted: – Overall, the number of criminal cases investigated by the FBI nationally has steadily declined. In 2005, the bureau brought slightly more than 20,000 cases to federal prosecutors, compared with about 31,000 in 2000 – a 34 percent drop. – White-collar crime investigations by the bureau have plummeted in recent years. In 2005, the FBI sent prosecutors 3,500 cases – a fraction of the more than 10,000 cases assigned to agents in 2000…. ...

Scott Adams’ lame arguments for copyright are taken apart by Kevin Carson at the Mutualist Blog. There are good arguments to be made for some form of copyright protection, but Adams doesn’t make them. I guess it’s not just the subject of evolution where Adams goes off the rails. Historical Comments Kevin Carson (2007-04-11): Thanks, Jim.

EFF filed a lawsuit against Viacom for abusing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to cause the takedown of a YouTube video clip called “Stop the Falsiness” which used video from The Colbert Report within the boundaries of fair use. Viacom has issued a pretty solid response (PDF)–that they issued no such DMCA notice, and if they had, YouTube should have notified the user who submitted the clip and given them a chance to file a counter-notice. Viacom further stated that they found the clip elsewhere, reviewed it, and agree that it constitutes fair use of their content and should be put back up. (YouTube has put the clip back up.) This is not good news for YouTube–this is further evidence that they are taking down content without receiving DMCA notices, which means that they are exercising editorial control over their content, which places them at greater risk of failing to successfully defend their claim to be protected by the DMCA’s “safe harbor” protections. Other such evidence comes from Mark Cuban, who has been issuing DMCA subpoenas to YouTube users who have used his content (movies produced by his companies such as HDNet). He has also issued takedown notices for some such content, while explicitly choosing not to issue takedown notices for others–because he wants the promotion from YouTube, just not wholesale theft of his content. Yet YouTube has taken down clips that he has specifically chosen not to issue takedown notices for. This looks like a misstep for the EFF. UPDATE (March 28, 2007): As noted by commenter Jamie, there apparently was a DMCA notice issued by BayTSP, which was hired by Viacom to send out DMCA notices on its behalf, so Viacom may not be in the clear. ...