Bloggers’ Delight - Will the war become the breakthrough Webloggers have been waiting for? Homeground war blogs such as the Agonist, by Sean Paul Kelley, are garnering a global readership and altering the perception of reliable sources for breaking news on the conflict.
See also Blogging the War: A Guide with links to general war blogs, blogs for troops and with military themes, and war blogs from reporters and media organizations.
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has launched an anti-piracy campaign on university campuses similar to the well publicized one undertaken by the RIAA here in America. The estimated size of the UK piracy market for 2001 is documented by the industry in this chart.
For additional perspective on the CD burning controversy, see Downloads Save The Music Business, a report from Forrester Research that states, "Labels are in trouble, and it's not from file sharing. To tap into $2 billion in new revenues, they must let people find, copy, and pay for music on their own terms."
From Edward Felton's Freedom to Tinker, this page, State Super-DMCA Bills and Laws, provides a chart listing legislation introduced in nine states (AL, CO, FL, GA, MA, MD, MI, SC, TN, TX) that would preclude corporate and personal use of firewalls, routers and encrypted e-mail.
See also this related posting from LawMeme about an April 2 public hearing for the Massachusetts DMCA legislation "to establish a crime of illegal internet and broadband access and establishing penalties therefor," House Bill No. 2743. From CNet, see DMCA critics decry state-level proposals, and from Politech.com, see this posting that quotes language from the Michigan (this amended section takes effect March 31, 2003) and Colorado legislation.
A press release from the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes that a March 28 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California reversed in part the court's March 22, 2002 order against Taxes.com directing the company to change content critical of its competitor J.K. Harris that appeared prominently in search engine results.
From the Direct Marketing Association, this State Do Not Call List includes web links and or telephone numbers, as applicable, for 27 states. Also see this alert, California Do-Not-Call Registry Is Merging with the Federal List.
Lawyers Use Metatags to Help Their Web Sites Pop Up on Internet Searches.
From Harris Interactive, a recent poll: Most People Are "Privacy Pragmatists" Who, While Concerned about Privacy, Will Sometimes Trade It Off for Other Benefits.
The ABA TECHSHOW® 2003 is April 3-5, 2003 in Chicago. There will be a wide range of presentations, including From Bulletin Board to Blogs and Where Everybody Knows Your Name: Identity Theft and Other New Fears. More on the conference later in the week.
From FindLaw's website, Special Coverage, The War in Iraq, links that include: International Humanitarian Law (Law Of War), Other Treaties, Conventions and Protocols, and Coalition Rules For Embedded Journalists.
Barry Steinhardt, Director of the Technology and Liberty Program at the ACLU, is profiled in this CNN article. He states that "these are extraordinarily difficult times for civil liberties."
The General Services Administration (GSA) issued a final rule, published in today's Federal Register establishing a new policy for the registration of .gov domain names, over which GSA has had jurisdiction since 1997. Such action now requires approval by cabinet level CIOs.
From Robert J. Ambrogi, lawyer and blogger, Top Sites: In Search of Ethics on the Internet is a review of state, association and lawyer sponsored sources of conduct codes and ethics opinions.
The Society of Professional Journalists launched a new website, Reference Guide to the Geneva Conventions. The site provides links to the History of the Geneva Convention, Full texts of the Conventions, and an alphabetical look-up feature to locate definitions for language and phrases from the conventions, as well as their associated deep links in the documents themselves.
The Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property postponed their March 27, 2003 Legislative Hearing on H.R. 1417, the Copyright Royalty and Distribution Reform Act. See my previous posting on the demise of music webcasts as well as Declan McCullagh's March 27 article.
From the SWALL Bulletin Spring 2003: The Legislative Reference Library of Texas recently launched a new website. It provides links to content in the following four areas: Legislative Information, Research Tools, What's New, and Citizen Resources.
The EU launched a new free website providing news on legal issues and practices of member states. The site site is accessible in eleven languages, including German, French, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, English and Italian. (Thanks to DC for the link.)
See also this site from EuropeMedia Network, that provides daily updates focused on 11 telecom and Internet-related topics from EU member countries, and offers several search options: keywords, news by country, news by sector and headline news by country.
From the New York Times, A Trail of Cookies? Cover Your Tracks provides useful suggestions and links to resources that can facilitate your anonymity on the web and assist in protecting your privacy from the onslaught of third party advertising.
On March 24, I posted about Cal State's significant problem with their computer system and data privacy, and follow-up with this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education indicating that the university administration has determined it would be a good idea to address the issue now. "Cal State officials plan to have PeopleSoft, the company that created the software, update the database system so that students' birth dates and the first five digits of their social security numbers are blocked out. "
EPIC continues to expand its challenge to the CAPPS II System by documenting objections to the progam that impact European airline passengers, in a statement (pdf) submitted to the EU Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs for a hearing held March 25.
See also this announcement today: Spain proposes data on all airline passengers to be sent to law enforcement agencies and for extra checks on all foreign nationals entering the EU.
A new report from Consumers Union, The Internet Tax You Don't Know You Owe: Thousands of conflicting regulations lead to confusion, inconsistent taxation online.
The OMB is withholding support for the CAPPS II Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System due to lack of demonstrative evidence that the system will actually diminish acts of terrorism. Not surprisingly, opposition to the system has again been communicated by a coalition of advocacy groups led by EPIC via a letter to the Select Committee on Homeland Security.
From Bob Helmer, news about his new website, Daily Whirl, that offers readers headlines from several dozen legal news and information sites that use xml syndication. The list of available sites is growing, and readers may create a customized page of links for daily viewing.
According to this FTC press release, the Do Not Call registry will be made available over a phased-in eight week period via a toll-free telephone number in June and online in July, to better manage the anticipated demand. Consumers who register can expect their names to be removed from telemarketing records by October 2003. See my previous posting on the enacting legislation here.
The IRS reponded to a complaint about privacy violations by H&R Block involving consumers who use the company's Free File service. The agency contends that the service "...provides consumers with enhanced security and privacy protections."
On March 21, I posted this entry, Executive Order on National Security Info to be Rescinded. On March 25, the President issued Executive Order 12958, Amended, Classified National Security Information. "...the national defense has required that certain information be maintained in confidence in order to protect our citizens, our democratic institutions, our homeland security, and our interactions with foreign nations. Protecting information critical to our Nations security remains a priority."
See also, Presidential directive changes 'tone' of classification rules, and this New York Times Editorial, Secrecy: The Bush Byword.
Iraq rebuilding contracts awarded: "The first contracts for rebuilding post-war Iraq have been awarded, and Vice President Dick Cheney's old employer, Halliburton Co., is one of the early winners...President Bush Tuesday asked Congress for $489.3 million to cover the cost of repairing damage to Iraq's oil facilities, much or all of which could go to Halliburton or its subcontractors under the terms of its contract with the Army."
This United States Patent and Trademark Office proposed rulemaking seeks to implement a "beginning-to-end electronic processing of patent applications." The use of paper in the application process will be replaced by an imaging system to scan all documents and produce digital image files.
From the Boston University School of Law Library, via the Big Ear, Links and citations to articles and reports related to international law and the crisis in Iraq.
Jim Calloway offers brief reviews and recommendations for 15 legal blogs, including beSpacific, in this article, Of Blogs, Bloggers and Blawgs.
The House Government Reform Committee, Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census oversight, held a hearing, "Data Mining: Current Applications and Future Possibilities," on March 25. Witness testimony included discussion of concerns associated with privacy issues and the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program as well as the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II). EPIC submitted comments to the committee by letter, which included the following statement: "We write to call your attention to the growing practice of federal agencies purchasing commercial databases for law enforcement purposes. It is our view that these activities violate the intent of the Privacy Act and should be suspended." For more information on the hearing and quotes from specific testimony, look here and here.
Currently available online only in OpenBook format, a free pre-publication version of Who Goes There?: Authentication Through the Lens of Privacy, Stephen T. Kent and Lynette I. Millett, Editors, Committee on Authentication Technologies and Their Privacy Implications, National Research Council. The report provides analysis of and recommends guidelines for the development, implementation and deployment of authentication systems that include passwords, public-key infrastructures (PKI), smartcards and biometrics.
"The Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) announced the first set of uniform standards for the electronic exchange of clinical health information to be adopted across the federal government."
The Washington State Senate passed SB 5242, requiring libraries to offer filtering software for minor access to the internet, by a vote of 36 to 13. The bill has been referred to the House Technology, Telecommunications & Energy Committee.
The IRS Free File program has generated usage far beyond agency expectations, with 53 million taxpayers anticipated to file eletronically this year according to CNN. However, there is a flip side to this free web service. A coalition of advocacy groups (EPIC, Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America, National Consumer Law Center, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group) in a joint letter to Pamela F. Olson, Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, contends that free file services offered by H&R Block violate user privacy by collecting and using personal data provided by taxpayers to cross-market them for other affiliated and third party services. The coalition communicated similar privacy related concerns about free file services to the agency last year.
From the International Herald Tribune, Being Googled: Web search tool is not without critics, this article touches on how this high profile company, that responds to 200 million global requests daily, successfully deflects criticism concerning its indexing, privacy and data collection policies. There appears to be more interest in whether the company will go public any time soon. To track information on this issue, see Google IPO Watch, Finance, and Business Operations.
A new study from Zeichner Risk Analytics LLC, State Implementation of Cyber-Security Requirements (pdf) identifies 36 states that have failed to prepare for and implement appropriate cybersecurity measures as required by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 to protect critical financial and information infrastructure from cyberattacks.
New from the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. (LLSDC), Selected Congressional Research Service Reports on Congress and its Procedures. This resource also provides numerous links to other sources of CRS reports on the web from government, asssociation, commercial and academic sources.
The Command Post is a community blog with authors around the world who provide brief, predominently unbiased and continually updated information on a range of war related news and issues. Worth a look!
Also, be sure to check-out the National Journal's Iraq Coverage. Important information updated on this site daily includes: U.S. Military Deaths, U.S. POWs, Iraqi POWs, Iraqi Civilian Deaths, links to bill status and summarys of Iraqi bills introduced and passed, links to national polls on public support for the war and for the President, the price of oil (barrel) and of gas (gallon).
Data Mining: Results and Challenges for Government Program Audits and Investigations, by Gregory D. Kutz, director, financial management and assurance, before the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations, and the Census, House Committee on Government Reform. GAO-03-591T, March 25.
Announcement from EPIC's website, March 24: "In a legal memorandum (pdf) filed with the federal court in Washington, EPIC and the American Civil Liberties Union challenge the Justice Department's refusal to disclose basic, statistical information concerning implementation of the controversial USA PATRIOT Act. For background information and copies of DOJ and FBI documents that have been obtained, see EPIC's PATRIOT Act FOIA Litigation page."
Rob Truman, Head of Electronic Information Services, Boley Law Library, Lewis & Clark Law School, alerted me to his resource guide, War on Iraq, that includes links to news sites, government and defense related information, as well blogs devoted to war coverage. Rob is updating this well designed and useful site frequently, and it merits a visit.
Copyright Versus Consumers' Rights: How Companies are Using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Thwart Competition, March 25. From the article: "Unlike in prior DMCA disputes, the object of Lexmark's DMCA claim is not to prevent piracy of a copyrighted work. Instead, it is to prevent rivals from offering cheaper cartridges for Lexmark's printers. This is not copyright protection, but profit protection."
The Marion Brecher Citizen Access Project (CAP), from the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, is a "comparative guide to state laws controlling citizen access to government meetings and records." The project provides a growing database of information on public records that uses a 'sunshine' index rating scale (to indicate the level of public access) to categories of laws that are searchable by individual state, along with links to capsule explanations of specific provisions of the laws. Users may also choose to compare ratings for a specific law across all states, or review the treatment of specific provisions for each state.
Digital Democrats, An Online Analysis of the Presidential Candidates, is an in-depth survey (92 pages, pdf) of how the websites of the eight declared candidates (Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman, Carol Moselely Braun and Al Sharpton) are leveraging the online forum for the purposes of fundraising, communicating with voters and organizing their respective campaigns.
The Wall Street Journal reports on how American troops in the Gulf are using e-mail, personal web sites and blogs, such as LT SMASH, to communicate directly with family, friends and others. Although there are over 500 reporters in the region, the Internet has changed the dynamic of the flow and content of information from a war zone by adding the real-time, first person perspectives of those directly involved. In an interesting response to the availability of this information, and sometimes disinformation, the article states, "The Army is considering incorporating blogging into its secure network where troops communicate with each other and their families. If such a system were put into place, the general public would no longer have access to such blogs."
See also, Web logs convey 'raw stuff' of Iraq war (USA Today, registration req'd) that highlights some of the popular war blogs such as Warblogging.com, a well designed, obviously partisan site published by the pseudonymous George Paine since 2002. It includes commentary, photos, and links to articles in major news sources. In addition, Dan Gillmor's article Web offers varied perspectives on war coverage urges readers to access non-mainstream news sources to gain greater perspective on the war.
The ACLU's March 24 press release expressed disappointment over the Supreme Court's order yesterday to reject their request to review the November 18, 2002 decision by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review upholding the DOJ's use of wiretapping and interception of e-mail and other communications as provided by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. See also Attorney General Ashcroft's statement.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a press announcement on Operation LIBERTY SHIELD, which "is a comprehensive national plan designed to increase protections for America's citizens and infrastructure while maintaining the free flow of goods and people across our border with minimal disruption to our economy and way of life." Under the topic CyberSecurity, the plan calls for pro-active monitoring of the "Internet for signs of a potential terrorist attack, cyber-terrorism, hacking, and state-sponsored information warfare."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched a Breaking News page to notify readers about specific digital rights related issues that the organization is tracking.
Via Copyfight, this link to The Media Institute's "new online forum for the discussion of the many issues surrounding copyright and intellectual property in the digital age," the Copyright Colloquium.
LexisNexis announced on March 24 that the company is now providing its subscribers and the public with access to breaking news and developments concerning the war, via this website: Free News From LexisNexis on Iraq. Subscribers are also given access to a Hot File with a wide range of additional news sources on the war, and others can obtain temporary password access. The site provides resources in these topic areas:
S.692, A bill to require the Federal Trade Commission to issue rules regarding the disclosure of technological measures that restrict consumer flexibility to use and manipulate digital information and entertainment content. Sponsor: Sen Wyden, Ron [OR] (introduced 3/24/2003). See Wyden's press release here.
Today's Search Day highlights a low cost resource on market data from subscription-based Dun & Bradstreet, called ZapaData (requires free registration). This site would no doubt prove useful to those conducting competitive intelligence research, with access to a database of 14 million business records from which company reports are compiled. The site also offers free SIC code summary reports.
Via the DoD DefenseLINK website, you will find numerous interesting links to policies and guidelines that circumscribe what information may be posted online for public access by agency webmasters and content providers. Topics addressed include security policy, findability, privacy, accessibility, copyright, and specific memos and directives concerning clearance procedures.
In what can only be described as a huge step backward in the fight against ID theft, the Sacramento Bee reported that the California State University's computer system has for some years had a "glitch" that allows users to view the social security numbers and personal data of students and employees. State Senator Debra Bowen, a strong advocate for consumer privacy, is quoted as saying, ""Students and employees of the CSU have the right to expect their private information will be kept private and not be made accessible to everyone that can get into the system."
Slow Start for Long-Awaited Easing of Copyright Restriction describes the challenges faculty are facing in their efforts to properly comply with copyright requirements for distance learning stipulated by the TEACH Act. The article includes a helpful guide for professors, Copyright Checklist for Online Courses, produced by North Carolina State University.
On March 21, in Case No. 02-2705 and No. 02-2707, State of Missouri v. American Blast, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit issued an opinion that upheld "Provisions of 47 U.S.C. Sec. 227(b)(1)(C) [Telephone Consumer Privacy Act of 1991 (pdf)] regulating unsolicited faxes satisfies the constitutional test for regulation of commercial speech and did not violate defendants' First Amendment rights; there is a substantial government interest in protecting the public from the cost shifting and interference cause by the unwanted fax ads, and the means Congress has chose to address those harms directly and materially advances the governmental interest; district court erred in finding the provisions unconstitutional and the case is remanded for further proceedings."
The Clinton Presidential Center website, still under construction, includes the following statement: "Since President Clinton had the honor of being the first president of the Internet age, this site will function as the first truly virtual Presidential Library. It will encourage users to search for information, communicate through chats, create a dialogue and participate in moderated sessions on a wide variety of subjects." Currently included are links to a speech, press and photo archive. The site designers will be well advised however to improve the accessibilty of the site, which currently uses a non-scalable, tiny white font against a dark blue background, making it difficult to read.
The featured research center on the Library of Congress Today is the Law Library of Congress. It is worth noting this especially useful collection and the expertise of the professionals who work there: "The mission of the Law Library is to provide research and legal information to the U.S. Congress, U.S. Federal Courts and Executive Agencies, and to offer reference services to the public. It contains the world's largest collection of law books and other resources from all countries and provides digitized information with online databases and guides to legal information worldwide."
See this posting from CNN's Kevin Sites that states his war blog, begun March 9, ended on March 21. I had alerted readers about this unique blog on March 17.
Do check-out J-Log, Journalism Topics and News, Media Views (via JD's blog), for postings on topical issues that include Ethics and law issues in journalism and views about the media's monitoring of the war in Iraq.
From the Pew Internet Project, this new report: Online campaigners, citizens, and portals in the 2002 elections, "The Internet seems to offer a great two-way conduit for campaigners and citizens, with plenty of room for third parties to provide context and commentary as well. Some are making good on the vision of a lively online political discourse pegged to elections. But at the milestone of the 2002 midterm elections, the evidence shows that political cyberspace was populated mostly by tentative campaigners and wandering citizens. The major portals of Web traffic played a late, mild, yet remarkably sophisticated role in the proceedings."
Kenote Systems announced that the company will provide regular reports on the performance of the communications networks that comprise the Internet backbone, as well as on major government and commercial sites, during the course of the war with Iraq.
Keynote reports that for the week of March 10-14, the government websites that performed best were as follows: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, The Library of Congress, FBI, Government Printing Office, Centers of Disease Control, Supreme Court, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. House of Representatives and the White House.
From the Technology eReport, published by the ABA General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section, a brief but interesting article on the growing implemention of innovative technology applications in the courtroom:Trends in the Electronic Courtroom.
According to this article in today's New York Times, the Bush Administration is well on its way to removing declassified government documents on national security from the public domain, as well as implementing a new policy to prevent such documents acquired in the future from reaching public view. A final order is expected in April which will rescind portions of President Clinton's Executive Order 12958 (pdf) of April 17, 1995, and "treat all information obtained from foreign governments as subject to classification and end the requirement that agencies prepare plans for declassifying records."
From the Westlaw® press release: "Using a new database directory that works much like the Internet's most popular directories, users can quickly and easily find their way from one set of databases to another, pinpointing the information they need in seconds. "
As I previously posted, Tara Calishain of Research Buzz fame authored a new book, Google Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools. Marylaine Block reviews it here. See also this review, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Google...
Microdoc News offers links and short reviews of the Top 5 Mapping Tools of the Internet, a timely resource given current events.
Reporters' Log: At war in Iraq: "The BBC's unrivalled team of correspondents is bringing you news from the Gulf and reaction from around the world. On this page BBC News Online logs their impressions and personal experiences as they watch events unfold."
The Federal Trade Commission issued a press release announcing their complaint (pdf) against 30 Minute Mortgage, Inc., which used this and other websites to spam and then scam consumers to obtain their financial data. The company is charged with violations of the FTC Act, the Truth in Lending Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the FTC's Privacy Rule. Also see the FTC's Stipulated Order of Preliminary Injunction in this matter.
Censorship Reaches Ridiculous Extremes is a commentary on the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) by prolific writer Kari Lydersen.
InternetNews.com reports that the legal battle by the RIAA to obtain the name of a Verizon ISP customer alleged to have pirated music using a P2P application has escalated with the issuance of more subpoenas demanding the names of other persons accused of copyright infringement. See RIAA Wins Battle With Verizon Over Customer Data for background on this case.
The FCC will hold a public hearing May 8 on the topic of compliance and oversight for the fraud-ridden e-rate program for libraries.
EPIC has obtained a copy of an Internal FBI Guidance on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (pdf), dated 1/23/03, that provides detailed information in response to the question, "What do I have to do to get a FISA?" i.e., the steps necessary to obtain authorization for electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. See also my recent posting on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Report by Senators Leahy, Specter and Grassley.
From EPIC: "Current policies for the .COM/.ORG/.NET top-level domains require the publication of personal information, such as a registrant's mailing address, email address, telephone number, and fax number. EPIC's WHOIS Privacy Issues Report (pdf), issued as ICANN considers new policies for WHOIS data, recommends that WHOIS policies follow the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Privacy Guidelines. The OECD Privacy Guidelines reflect an international consensus on privacy protection for transborder dataflows that directly implicates WHOIS policies and practices."
See also ICANN's March 11 press release that discusses WHOIS data security and accuracy, and refers to the Final Report of the GNSO Council's Whois Task Force Accuracy and Bulk Access. Also see EPIC's new resource on WHOIS and Privacy.
The start of the war against Iraq has generated a huge spike in web traffic to military sites, along with associated bottlenecks, which have impacted access to sites that include the U.S. Army Home Page and the UK Home Office's site for terrorism information and advice. Commercial sites such as Yahoo News are also reporting a three-fold increase in traffic.
For additional resources on the conflict, see the following metasites: from the Joyner Library, East Carolina University, The War on Terrorism: Saddam Hussein and Iraq and from the Journalist's Toolbox, Conflict: Iraq and the United States.
The Supreme Court released the official transcript, in PDF (59 pages), of the oral argument held Wednesday, March 5, 2003 in United States v. American Library Association. See several of my previous postings on the case here and here.
Google's Offspring: Taking Baby Steps critiques the search engine's e-commerce site, Froogle, through which users can find information about a wide range of products for sale on the web by category.
From Robert J. Ambrogi, Blawgs: More Than Just Fluff reviews several dozens sites that offer useful information to the legal community.
According to this AP report, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made some interesting statements at John Carroll University yesterday. In particular, after his speech and during a question and answer exchange he said that when the nation is at war, citizens can expect that civil liberties "...will be ratcheted right down to the constitutional minimum. I won't let it go beyond the constitutional minimum."
My previous posting on a new search engine for RSS feeds indicated the site was seeking a new name, and here it is, Feedster. See also this article, Search engines target Weblogs.
The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) published a new report, Why Am I Getting All This Spam? (16 pages in PDF), which documents the volume of spam received over the course of six months by hundreds of accounts created specifically to research this issue. Although the report offers no absolute methods for beating spam, it does provide useful insights into how users are targeted and by whom, and offers the warning that "e-mail addresses posted on Web sites or in newsgroups attract the most spam."
Hummingbird Ltd., a leading KM enterprise management portal, announced the acquisition of LegalKEY® Technologies, Inc., a provider of conflicts and records management software.
This Wired article highlights a software initiative developed by the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, called Internet Censorship Explorer (ICE). "ICE demonstrates state-sponsored content filtering and blocking by delivering the content of blocked URLs to end users. After completing a query form, ICE will attempt to access the user-specified URL or domain using proxy servers located in the designated country. ICE will then display the results returned by the proxy server." ICE maintains a database that currently identifies domains that are blocked by 14 countries (including the U.S.) Users may submit a blocked URL to add to this database, via this page.
From How Google Grows...and Grows...and Grows, "...Google is also a case study in savvy management -- a company filled with cutting-edge ideas, rigorous accountability, and relentless attention to detail."
Worth a read, this interview with colleague Robert Clough of Search Engine Guide reviews how he started the company, the services it offers, and his perspectives on the search engine industry.
As mentioned in my previous posting on PoliticalWeb.com, this site is offering a wealth of analysis on campaign related data. Newly available is this resource, 2002 Campaign Web Sphere Analysis, which details how "candidates for House, Senate and Governor used the Web in the 2002 campaign to facilitate civic engagement, establish connections to other political Web sites through links, and provide various types of information to site visitors."
The MemoryHole has posted logs, in Excel, of FOIA requests received by the Department of Defense for 2001, 2002, and 2003, Jan & Feb. There is no indication as to what percentage of all requests made to DOD this data represents, however, the site will regularly update this resource.
Tim Rozgonyi, Assistant Technology Systems Editor, Pittsburgh Gazette, has published a useful and timely annotated list of links, Iraq, War on Terrorism. Links are arranged by the following categories:
Brown University temporarily terminated Internet access for 67 students after they were identified as having downloaded files using P2P applications through the campus network. See also this Message to the Brown Community on Illegal Downloading of Music and Videos and Your Vulnerability, which links to the Using Computing Resources at Brown University guidelines.
According to a new survey by Nielsen//NetRatings, almost 45 percent of Internet users accessed federal government websites in February 2003, which accounted for a 26 percent increase in web traffic from December 2002. The Treasury Department's site experienced a 176 percent increase in traffic in the past three months (although not clearly indicated, I believe this refers to IRS.gov), the largest surge in users of all the federal agencies, followed by NASA and the Department of Education.
From InfoWorld on March 14, four useful articles on KM:
See Md. libraries to connect with patrons via the Internet for news about the new AskUsNow! 24/7 live online interactive service. Maryland is the second state to launch an Internet chat-based reference service for patrons, that also uses e-mail follow-up if required. New Jersey's service has been available for over one year.
According to this article in the March 18 Chronicle of Higher Education, an important conflict has been identified between the Teach Act (2002), which lifts specific copyright restrictions for the purposes of distance learning, and the DMCA (1998), that has a provision preventing the circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works.
EPIC has launched the Online FOIA Gallery 2003, providing "scanned images of documents obtained by EPIC through the Freedom of Infomation Act, including evidence of the misuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, video monitoring of political protesters in Washington, DC, and the names and project titles of the organizations receiving funding from John Poindexter for research on Total Information Awareness."
Yesterday the U.S. Census Bureau launched a new website, Fast
Facts for Congress, that "provides highlights from Census Bureau sources of economic and demographic data for the U.S., states, counties, and congressional districts of the 108th Congress." Users may search for data by State, District, or County.
A new White Paper from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, released March 14: How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to Information and the Public's Right to Know Covering the war. Topics covered include: Military tribunals, Access to terrorism & immigration proceedings, Domestic coverage, The USA PATRIOT Act, The reporter's privilege, Freedom of Information, and The rollback in state openness.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been pursuing a high-profile campaign against P2P file sharing that stretches from college and university campuses to the cubicles of corporate America. On March 12, RIAA President Cary H. Sherman sent letters to 300 companies warning that "significant legal damages" could result from employers and employees who had already been identified via their IP addresses as having conducted music downloads using their respective corporate networks. AP reports that "the letters point out the copyright owners can collect up to $150,000 per song copied without permission, plus legal fees and profits earned by the infringer, and that the equipment used to make illegal copies can be confiscated. "
UnitedStatesVisas.gov, the "official source of information about U.S. visa policy and procedures," was launched today. Currently available only in English, the site will soon add the following five languages: French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Chinese. There are links to information on: U.S. Visa Policy, How to Get a Visa, Visa News, and How to Locate a Consular Office.
Georgia State Senator Eric Johnson spearheaded the "Know Thy Neighbor Act" in 1997 which required that the Board of Pardons and Paroles create an online database through which citizens could ascertain the addresses and respective crimes of the state's parolees. The Geogia Parolee Database is now available on the web, and users may access information by zipcode, name of parolee, or inmate number on 22,000 individuals in the system.
The Office of the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration recently issued a report, Federal Agencies' Controls Over the Access, Disclosure and Use of Social Security Numbers by External Entities (PDF), documenting problems with unauthorized access to, and dissemination of, social security numbers.
See also this March 6, 2003 speech by James G. Huse, Jr., Inspector General, Social Security Administration: Preventing and Detecting Social Security Fraud.
Johnny Sutton, United States Attorney, Western District of Texas announced March 14 that University of Texas at Austin student Christopher Andrew Phillips was charged with unauthorized access to the university's computer system and the theft of more than 55,000 records containing personal data. Sutton states: "At this point, there is no indication that the stolen data was further disseminated or used to anyone’s detriment." My previous postings on this hacking are here and here.
See also this Austin-American Statesman article that provides details on the twenty-year old computer science student who commited the largest data theft on record from a university, and the criminal complaint filed against him.
The Ninth Annual National Conference sponsored by the non-profit think tank Privacy & American Business took place in Washington, D.C. March 13-14. The draft agenda for the Privacy Practitioner's Workshop, which included more than a dozen presentations, is available in PDF here. A link to the conference speaker's page is here, and includes California State Sen. Jackie Speier (D) Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) and Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT). Unfortunately, no other conference materials are posted at this time. See also this related article from Wired, Honest, We're the Good Guys.
CNN correspondent Kevin Sites is blogging from inside Iraq, and his postings include text, audio and photos. His archives begin on March 9.
From this article in Security Focus, news that Verint Systems, "a global organization providing analytic software solutions for communications interception, digital video security and surveillance," to governments around the world, has launched a sophisticated new application called ULTRA IntelliFind that monitors telephone communications and creates a database of specified key words which are then searchable in the context of each conversation. This system is used to enhance customer service, as well as in government surveillance and information gathering activities. Our government is apparently already using other "communications interception solutions" from this company, including STAR-GATE and RELIANT.
The Harvard Journal of Law & Technology (JOLT) Symposium 2003, Copyright and Fair Use: Present and Future Prospects, was held on March 15, and comments on several sessions were blogged on Copyfighter's Musings and FurdLog. Bios for the program's participants, including Rep. Boucher, are here.
A survey of 1,000 adults conducted by FindLaw indicates that most American are aware of the growing rate of ID theft, and are taking certain precautions to protect themselves. These efforts include shredding credit card receipts and other financial documents prior to disposal, limiting access to social security numbers, and reviewing bank and credit card statements for fraudulent activity. See the press release here.
See also this USA Today article, Hackers evolve from pranksters into profiteers (requires registration), that provides tips on how to avoid ID theft, and also reviews recent high-profile incidences of hacking here and abroad and the costs involved to businesses and to individuals.
Representive Max Coll introduced House Joint Memorial 40 to the New Mexico Legislature, "Affirming Civil Rights and Liberties; Declaring Opposition to Federal Measures that Infringe on Civil Liberties." The House subsequently issued this substitute bill that includes the following statement:
The bill seeks to "direct public libraries to post in a prominent place within the library a notice as follows: "WARNING: Under Section 215 of the federal USA Patriot Act (Public Law 107-56), records of books and other materials you borrow from this library may be obtained by federal agents. This law also prohibits librarians from informing you if records about you have been obtained by federal agents. Questions about this policy should be directed to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Department of Justice, Washington, DC 20530."
The West Virginia Supreme Court Clerk, Rory Perry, has created a list of appellate and trial courts that webcast oral arguments, and make them available either live or archived.
Howard Dean 2004 Call to Action Weblog, launched March 15, is the official blog for the campaign.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) announced yesterday that the Senate Commerce Committee approved an amendment that would put into place Congressional oversight of the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) controversial Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II).
The CAPPS II system is at the center of a contentious battle between advocates of the privacy and civil liberties of airline passengers and the government's position that national security and the fight against terrorism require increased data collection, surveillance and the designation of the potential level of threat presented by individual passengers via a color coding system (green - I'm ok you're ok; yellow - you need a second look; and red - you are not flying today!)
The language of Wyden's amendment will be incorporated into S. 165, the Air Cargo Security Bill, which awaits Senate action.
See also yesterday's press release, Committee Approves Air Cargo Security Bill and Focus on CAPPS, a resource about the system from Privacy Activism.
The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and other civil liberties groups sent a letter in support of the Wyden amendment to the Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation.
TSA administrator Adm. James M. Loy responded to the issues raised by privacy advocates in a press release, TSA's CAPPS II Gives Equal Weight to Privacy, Security, dated March 11.
According to a survey of global Internet usage and search engine referrals by WebSideStory, Inc., web users are increasingly likely to go directly to sites from which they seek specific information, rather than to rely on secondary links. In addition, "...search engines apparently are becoming the card catalog to the Web," with usage showing significant increases in many countries, including the U.S., UK, Spain, Brazil and Australia, since last year's survey.
From the ABA's elawyering webzine, Best Practice Guidelines for Legal Information Web Site Providers. The guidelines were approved by the House of Delegate and updated on March 11.
From the American Library Association: "On Freedom of Information Day, March 16, the American Library Association urges libraries and librarians across America to join in celebrating the public's "right to know" by sponsoring activities to educate their communities about the importance of promoting and protecting freedom of information."
As reported by the Omaha-World Herald, the Nebraska State Law Library is in jeopardy of losing its funding due to budget cutbacks, although the library has the support of the Supreme Court judges.
From the Lawyer's Committee on Human Rights, a new report, Imbalance of Powers, How Changes to U.S. Law and Policy since 9/11 Erode Human Rights and Civil Liberties (PDF), focuses on the following areas: (1) Open Government; (2) Right to Privacy; (3) Treatment of Immigrants, Refugees and Minorities; and (4) Security Detainees and the Criminal Justice System (from the press release).
Electronic Government: Success of the Office of Management and Budget's 25 Initiatives Depends on Effective Management and Oversight, by Joel C. Willemssen, managing director, information technology, before the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations, and the Census, House Committee on Government Reform. GAO-03-495T, March 13. The report Highlights are here.
From CIO Magazine's March 2003 issue, see E-Government in Process.
On March 13, the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property held an Oversight Hearing on "International Copyright Piracy: Links to Organized Crime and Terrorism" Links are as follows to the:Witness List, John Malcolm, Rich LaMagna, Joan Borsten Vidov, Jack Valenti.
Although not a focus of the hearing, campus-wide file sharing was mentioned. See this related article from IDG News in which Representative John Carter (R- TX) is quoted as stating, "I think it'd be a good idea to go out and actually bust a couple of these college kids... If you want to see college kids duck and run, you let them read the papers and somebody's got a 33-month sentence in the federal penitentiary for downloading copyrighted materials."
The Kansas House Committee on Federal and State Affairs is considering HB 2420, requiring the installation of Internet filters on all public library computers accessible to those under the age of 18. According to this letter to the committee from the state's budget director, the yearly cost "would be approximately $573,750 to purchase filtering devices for 3,825 computers in 425 public libraries."
On March 12, Senator Patrick Leahy(D-VT), joined by Senators Levin (D-MI), Jeffords (I-VT), Lieberman (D-CT) and Byrd (D-WV), introduced new legislation, S. 609, the Restoration of Freedom of Information Act ("Restore FOIA"). See Leahy's statement here. See Levin's statement here.
See also this Letter to Senate leaders on the Restoration of Freedom of Information Act of 2003 from the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), who are among 50 public interest organizations supporting the bill. The ASNE also provides a link to the Text of section 214 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and indicates the "Restore FOIA" legislation seeks "to clarify and alter language in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 that creates a damaging loophole in the Freedom of Information Act."
OMB Watch has linked to a resource, A Side-by-Side Analysis of the Restoration of Freedom of Information Act 2003 and the Homeland Security Acy of 2002, that clearly highlights, via a chart format, the critical issues involved in this legislation.
Professor of Computer Science Lee A. Hollaar has made available, at no fee, virtually the entire text of his treatise, Legal Protection of Digital Information, published by BNA. The Table of Contents provides direct links to each chapter and respective sections therein, which include the following topics: Copyright Overview, Software, Copyright, Digital Copyright, Patent Overview and Software Patents. This news is via UnivAtty.
Check-out UnivAtty, a new blog launched this month by attorney Chris Holmes, of the Office of General Counsel at Baylor University, in Waco, Texas. The postings so far are on topics such as copyright, licensing, DMCA and file sharing.
According to this Washington Post article, Seek and Ye Shall Not Find, add another government document to the "disappeared" list as a result of the administration's paperwork reduction policy. The OMB will not publish the detailed and comprehensive annual report, Budget Information for States (BIS) in 2004 and perhaps thereafter as well. The current report is available here in PDF (422 pages). The introduction states that it "provides state by state obligations...and estimated data for the major Federal grant programs to state and local programs." The BIS is compiled and published in compliance with the The Congressional Budget And Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
If you are interested in a top rate site to help you stay current on search engines, that also offers a free daily email newsletter, then head over to Search Engine Guide. The site Editor/Webmaster Robert Clough provides an excellent range of resources, including a Search Engines Directory database that can be searched or browsed, and a Search Engine Marketing Guide with a roster of expert authors.
The Institute for Government Innovation at Harvard University has included the government web portal FirstGov among its fifteen finalists for the 16th Annual Innovations Awards.
From the New York Times article, Measuring Lost Freedom vs. Security in Dollars, this statement, "In a notice published last month, the budget office asked experts from around the country for ideas on how to measure "indirect costs" like lost time, lost privacy and even lost liberty that might stem from tougher security regulations." The document referenced above is the Office of Management and Budget Draft 2003 Report to Congress on the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations. The article highlights the troubling and questionable application of monetary formulas to assess the impact of openly diminishing freedom and civil liberties.
See also this recent, related joint AEI-Brookings working paper (PDF), Sacrificing Civil Liberties to Reduce Terrorism Risk.
A bill passed by the Virginia House and Senate, H.B. 2426, "relating to posting certain information on the Internet; prohibitions" stipulates that "Beginning January 1, 2004, no court clerk shall post on a court-controlled website any document that contains the following information: (i) an actual signature; (ii) a social security number; (iii) a date of birth identified with a particular person; (iv) the maiden name of a person's parent so as to be identified with a particular person; (v) any financial account number or numbers; or (vi) the name and age of any minor child." The legislative summary of the bill is available here. The bill awaits the signature of Governor Mark Warner.
Subsequent to the hacking of UT Austin's computer system last week, resulting in the theft of personal data from more than 50,000 records as reported in my previous posting here, Texas lawmakers are giving closer consideration to a previously introduced bill banning the use of social security numbers on student IDs. The act, HB 1026, "relating to regulating the use of social security numbers by institutions of higher education," would take effect September 1, 2003. As of March 10 however, this bill has been left pending by the House Committee on Higher Education.
From the Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship 2003, this extensive and well documented resource, An Education in ©opyright Law: A Primer for Cyberspace. The author, Dr. Robert N. Diotalevi reviews copyright law basics, the fair use doctrine (and provides examples of permissible and non-permissible uses), how copyright applies to distance learning (illustrated by a chart of Institutional Policies and Procedures, along with respective web links), and the DMCA and Teach Act. (link via the ResourceShelf)
Volunteers on behalf of Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and Democratic candidate for President, have created a blog, Howard Dean 2004. The site provides links to press clippings, speeches and interviews (audio and video), articles about the candidate (including an archive from 08/25/2002 to present), postings on his campaign schedule, as well as an e-commerce component for the purchase of Dean apparel, housewares, cards and tote bags. The site uses Blogger Pro.
H.R. 395, The Do-Not-Call Implementation Act, P.L. 108-10, 117 Stat. 557; 2 pages, "To authorize the Federal Trade Commission to collect fees for the implementation and enforcement of a "do-not-call" registry," was signed by the President on March 11. For more information on the procedure to remove your name from the telemarketers registry, see this article. To submit a complaint about a specific organization to the FTC, use this form.
This story is just to good to pass up: McDonald's is test marketing a new service in restaurants in three cities - NYC, Chicago and somewhere to be announced in California: the purchase of a combination meal (I have no idea what that is having been a vegetarian for 29 years) is accompanied by one hour of free high-speed net access. Will nutritionists have a field day with this campaign?
Larry Lessig has filed a petition (PDF) with the Supreme Court for a rehearing of the Eldred v. Ashcroft case.
The results of a new Harris Interactive poll, conducted between February 12 and 16, focus on public response to increased government surveillance of citizens since 9/11. Results from this poll are consistent with one conducted a year ago, although overall support for the use of various technologies by the FBI and other government agencies did decline somewhat in most categories.
Types of surveillance rated by respondents included: facial recognition, a national ID system, airline passenger screening, the use of cameras in public places, monitoring Internet traffic, e-mail and cell phone use, as well as bank transactions.
From StateWatch, this report (PDF) from the European Parliament's Committee on Citizens' Freedoms expressing strong concerns about the collection and use of EU passenger data by the INS and TSA.
See also How US Customs bounced the European Commission into a quick decision.
The Public Library of Science "is working to establish online public libraries of science that will archive and freely distribute the complete contents of every published scientific article." For more information, see this article, Will Walls Come Tumbling Down? (free registration req'd).
From the March 10 Federal Register: "The Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee (TAPAC) is being established in consonance with public interest and in accordance with the provisions of Pub. L. 92-463, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, title 5 U.S.C., Appendix 2. The TAPAC will advise the Secretary of Defense concerning the legal and policy considerations implicated by the application of pattern queries/data correlation technology to counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence missions. The Panel will consist of up to 14 members selected on the basis of their preeminence in the fields of constitutional law and public policy relating to communication and information management."
The Truth in Domain Names Act, H.R. 939, introduced on February 26.
New e-commerce bill introduced in the House on February 26: the Jurisdictional Certainty Over Digital Commerce Act, H.R. 945.
From OMB Watch, this commentary on the ramifications of public access to government documents in light of the February 7, 2003 announcement by the GAO that it would not pursue an appeal in Walker v. Cheney, the case to "obtain information from the National Energy Policy Development Group, August 18, 2001."
From OMB Watch: "In an effort to encourage use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to access information, Illinois State Reps. Barbara Flynn Currie and Mary K. O’Brien have introduced House Bill 438 to the Illinois state legislature. The bill would provide reimbursement for court costs and attorney fees for individuals who are successful in lawsuits brought under the Illinois FOIA."
Check-out Tara Calishain's new book, Google Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tricks.
The launch of the Official Web Site of the President's E-Government Initiatives seems hobbled by broken links and icons that do not load. Maybe this site is still a work in progress?
According to this article in today's San Francisco Chronicle, branch libraries in Santa Cruz County have posted signs (as well as an online statement) warning patrons that "Although the Santa Cruz Library makes every effort to protect your privacy, under the federal USA PATRIOT ACT (Public Law 107-56), records of the books and other materials you borrow from this library may be obtained by federal agents." The website also links users to the Library Joint Powers Board: A Resolution on the USA PATRIOT Act and Related Measures that Infringe on the Rights of Library Users.
From the Center for Democracy and Technology, this new 108 page compendium of papers (PDF), Considering Consumer Privacy: A Resource for Policymakers and Practitioners. The papers address a range of privacy issues including: notice, consent/choice, access, security, private right of action, state pre-emption, the online/offline question, ADR, safe harbors, and verification.
The CDT's resource was published in conjunction with the Internet Caucus Advisory Committee sponsored debate on online privacy March 6, a video of which is available here.
Commissioned by the Library of Congress, a terrific new site called PoliticalWeb.info that provides access to the largest and most comprehensive digital collection of resources ever published on the U.S. campaign and election process. See the press release about last week's launch of the site here.
Among the resources available are a chart indicating the availability of several dozen useful features for voters from 2004 Democratic Presidential Campaign Sites, ranging from accessibility to speeches, for the declared candidates (Kerry, Dean, Lieberman, Edwards, Gephardt, Sharpton and Kucinich).
Another resource is the impressive and very useful tracking tool, Election 2002 Web Archive, a database with a "selective collection of nearly 4,000 sites archived between July 1, 2002 and November 30, 2002," from "505 races for U.S. congressional and gubernatorial offices." Users may search this database by Office (Governor, House or Senate), Party, State, Candidate Name, or All Candidates.
See also this related article, Saving Pieces Of Digital History.
Spurred on by an October 22, 2002 letter from the Vermont Library Association, Rep. Bernard Sanders (I-VT) introduced a new bill on March 6, the Freedom to Read Protection Act, to exempt libraries and bookstores from Section 215 of the Patriot Act. He did so with a bi-partisan coalition of 24 co-sponsors. Section 215 is titled, Access to Records Under Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA). (Thanks to Donna Cavallini for alerting me about this news).
The goal of the bill is to protect librarians and bookstore owners, and their respective patrons from government sponsored data collection and surveillance without a search warrant and probable cause. According to Rep. Sanders, "The threat of terrorism must not be used as an excuse by the government to intrude upon our basic constitutional rights."
In related news, see Book Snoopers' Open Door, and Patriot Act Opens New Door to Official Snoops.
This press release announces the launch, by U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, of a new government website with resources to assist schools in their response to emergencies that include terrorist incidents.
The UK Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) released a report, A Review of Image Search Engines, on services that collect and index images from websites. The data was collected during the first week of February 2003, and includes a range of general, specialized and meta-search engines.
The National Computer Recycling Act was introduced on March 6, "to encourage and promote the recycling of used computers and to promote the development of a national infrastructure for the recycling of used computers."
From the New York Times, Computers in Libraries Make Moral Judgments, Selectively, is a commentary by Geoffrey Nunberg who was an expert witness for the American Library Association in their case challenging the constitutionality of the Children's Internet Protection Act.
Via Slashdot, here is a new search engine for RSS feeds, whose name was briefly Roogle, but currently remains nameless so as to deflect a trademark issue.
From the blog Pleasing to Remember, detailed information on how Washington state's 700,000 Verizon customers can opt-out of being the recipients of marketing and junk mail from the company. If customers do not indicate a choice to opt-out, Verizon will share their data with affiliates and third parties.
The statistics for ID theft are already registering signficant numbers for a year that is still in its first quarter. According to this press release from the University of Texas at Austin, the university's computer system was hacked, exposing some 55,200 records that included names and social security numbers of current and past students, faculty, staff and job applicants, in the largest known attack of its kind to date. For further information, see this press release from United States Attorney Johnny Sutton and a university sponsored website on Identity Protection Resources.
See also this article, UT redoubles vigilance after network intrusion, March 8, 2003 (now archived and requires a fee to access via the Austin American Statesman).
The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was ruled unconstitutional for a second time by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision ACLU v. John Ashcroft, no. 19-1324, filed March 6.
The court stated that "...provisions of COPA are not narrowly tailored to achieve the Government's compelling interest in protecting minors from harmful material and therefore fail the strict scrutiny test: (a) the definition of "material that is harmful to minors"... (b) the definition of "commercial purposes,"..and (3) the "affirmative defenses" available to publishers..."
EPIC maintains an excellent online library of legal documents associated with this case, as well as on the 1998 law signed by President Clinton to protect minors through the use of criminal penalties for the distribution of harmful materials online.
Also, see the following articles for more background: Court Strikes Down Online Porn Law and Appeals court strikes down Net porn law.
New GAO Report: Critical Infrastructure Protection: Efforts of the Financial Services Sector to Address Cyber Threats. GAO-03-173, January 30. Highlights.
Discovery is hampered in an investigation into cost over-runs and project mismanagement on Boston's Big Dig project, "the largest, most complex and technologically challenging highway project in Amerian history."
Apparently project managers instituted a policy of deleting all project related e-mail messages after thirty days, as reported during a Massachusetts State House Hearing.
BEGINWA.org is a portal, still under development, that promises to provide comprehensive access to local government information (cities and counties) and e-services to assist businesses operating in the state. In future, the site will also provide online forms for payment transactions and permitting.
Hot Off Your News Clicking Service reviews the subscription news reader NewzCrawler, and highlights the attributes of news aggregators in general.
There are other reliable news aggregator applications, including free and fee-based alternatives such as the following:
Walt Mossberg, the author of the Wall Street Journal Personal Technology column (no fee req'd), gives a positive review to a nifty fee-based utility, GuruNet, in GuruNet as a Reference Tool Goes Beyond Search Engines. The program costs $35 and is marketed as "the ultimate reference program: encyclopedias, dictionary, thesaurus, companies, celebrities, stock prices, and much more."
See also this update from March 11: Atomica Unveils GuruNet 4.0.
Creative Commons, the unique copyright licensing project that facilitates the sharing of creative works, announced the launch of their new international program "dedicated to the drafting and eventual adoption of country-specific licenses." Link submitted by Donna Cavallini.
According to this law.com article, "in the wake of the adoption of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and last year's corporate scandals (such as Enron), more real- and quasi-real-time information about public companies will be available at the SEC's Web site or directly through the Web sites of companies themselves than could have been imagined last spring."
From the New York Times, another article on the continuing saga of Congress and their fixation with the BlackBerry wireless handhelds. As noted in my previous posting, loyalty to this Canadian device is under significant challenge from a patent infringement dispute with NTP Inc. Time will tell whether Congress will establish a new allegiance with perhaps a very eager Palm, dependent upon the outcome of the lawsuit.
Below are links with details about Wednesday's arguments by Solicitor General Theodore Olson and Paul Smith, for the American Library Association, in United States v. American Library Association, 02-361.
Start here, with Shelf-Censorship, an opinion piece that includes useful links and an important perspective on the key issues of the case, and then move on to the other articles as follows: Sides Debate Web Access in Libraries, Supreme Court looks at free speech and Internet filters in public libraries; Supreme Court Considers Web Porn Filter Case; and Foes lock horns in Web filtering case.
From the USAToday, this Op-Ed, Library restrictions borrow from colonial-era abuses is worth a read. And an opposing view from another Op-Ed in the same paper: Congressman Pickering on Children's Internet Protection Act.
Maryland House Bill 661, Internet Child Pornography - Removal, is opposed by the advocacy group Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). CDT staff counsel John B. Morris testified before the Judiciary Committee Maryland House of Delegates on March 4 that the bill has "...due process problems under the Fourteenth Amendment, free speech problems under the First Amendment, technical problems that create a risk of instability for the Internet, and effectiveness problems..."
The CDT contends that the Maryland bill is substantively similar to a Pennsylvania law, and would result in the indiscriminate blocking of potentially hundreds of sites.
British Telecom launched "a new global identity verification system, called You Are You (URU). The system will allow governments or businesses to enter a person’s details and search through databases such as the Electoral Role and Post Office Address File – to authenticate their identity."
The Opportunities and Dangers of Lawyer Blogging highlights the pros and cons of lawyer blogs.
In Interview with Bloggers, Director of the Oklahoma Bar Association Management Assistance Program Jim Calloway discussed blogs with two expert techie attorneys and I am pleased to say, colleagues; Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. A public thank you to both for mentioning beSpacific.
From the Washington Post, this timely article, Primer: Children, The Internet and Pornography, tracks the checkered past six years of laws specifically intended to protect children on the Web. Unfortunately, no links to the enacted laws and proposed legislation are provided, so here they are: the Children's Internet Protection Act; the Child Online Protection Act; the PROTECT Act of 2003; the Communications Decency Act; the Child Pornography Prevention Act; the Child Obscenity and Pornography Prevention Act of 2002; the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998; and the Child Modeling Exploitation Prevention Act.
The American Society of Newspaper Editors recently issued a memo, The Effect of Patriot Act II on Newspapers. It focuses on three areas in which the proposed draft legislation would impact First Amendment rights: "(1) Increased surveillance authority that might chill speech, especially political dissent; (2) Increased restrictions on access to government information, either generally or through the Freedom of Information Act; and (3) Increased criminal provisions that might affect the First Amendment protections of the right to free association."
Today the Supreme Court ruled in two cases involving Megan's law, one from Connecticut and one from Alaska.
In Smith et al v. Doe et al, No. 01-729, (PDF - appeal in Doe I v. Otte, 259 F.3d 979, C.A. 9, Alaska, 2001) the court upheld the right of states to use the web to post photos of convicted sex offenders. "Alaska's sex offender registration act requires convicted sex offenders to register with the Alaska Department of Public Safety and makes offender information available to the public. The department elected to publish the information on the Internet."
In Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. John Doe, 01-1231 (PDF), the court determined that Connecticut's sex offender registry does not deprive offenders of "a liberty interest" nor violate the due process clause. For background on this case, see this National Conference of State Legislatures site.
See also this Cornell Legal Information Institute webpage that provides separate links to the following HTML documents in Smith v. Doe: Syllabus, Opinion [Kennedy], Concurrence [Thomas], Concurrence [Souter], Dissent [Opinion of Stevens], Dissent [Ginsburg].
EU Ministers agreed to establish a new criminal offense, "illegally accessing an information system," which would include incarceration for "serious cases." The text of this new policy is buried on page 19 of this 27 page document (PDF), under the heading "Attacks Against Information Systems." See also this related article in today's New York Times, Europe Hacker Laws Could Make Protest a Crime.
See also a recent press release: European Commission proposes creation of Network Security Agency to boost Cyber Security in Europe.
An update on SB 1, the California Financial Information Privacy Act: it received approval from the Senate in a vote of 23 to 6 on March 3. See my previous post on the bill here.
The recent demise of well regarded techzine Red Herring, just short of its tenth anniversary, follows the discontinuation of other prominent publications in the tech arena, including The Industry Standard in 2001, Upside magazine in 2002, and predictions that continued financial woes at Salon.com will also result in its closure. Amidst all this gloom comes the introduction of a new zine for "tech enthusiasts," Dig it.com, that focuses on weekly reviews of digital products.
On March 4, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced the Benefit Authors without Limiting Advancement or Net Consumer Expectations, or BALANCE Act, that mirrors the text of H. R. 5522, the Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002, introduced by Lofgren October 2, 2002.
From yesterday's press release: "This legislation would ensure that consumers are able to buy content that is compatible across platforms, thereby encouraging technological development and competition,".... Specifically, it will allow consumers to make backup copies and display digital works on their preferred digital media devices."
This Columbia Journalism Review article, Why Information Will No Longer Be Free, highlights the growing trend by newspapers to cut losses from free access to their websites with the addition of new subscriptions models, expanded advertising campaigns and the collection of more customer personal data for marketing purposes by third parties.
On March 4, the Supreme Court released a unanimous decision in Moseley et al., dba v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc., et al., No. 01-1015, a trademark dilution case (Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995 (FTDA) at Section 43(c) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §1125(c). According to Declan McCullagh's article on the decision, "the justices effectively narrowed the scope of a federal trademark law that frequently is invoked in spats over domain names."
AllTheWeb has redesigned their site, and added a new feature, AlltheWeb URL Investigator. See the company press release, and a review of the changes by Greg Notess.
In other search engine news, Northern Light News No Longer Updating, and Google moves into a new arena, Google Content-Targeted Advertising. See Danny Sullivan's commentary, Google Throws Hat Into The Contextual Advertising Ring.
On March 5, the government will argue before the Supreme Court that the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) should be applied and that federally funded libraries must filter Internet access to patrons. See my previous posting on this case here, as well as recent topical articles from the USAToday, Case tests Congress' ability to make libraries block porn (be advised that this site now requires registration), and from the Christian Science Monitor, Should libraries filter out Internet porn?
This article reviews two applications, RoboPDF 2.0 ($50) and pdfFactory ($50), that offer a low-cost alternative for attorneys currently using Adobe to create database repositories of documents.
The Copyright Office has now posted all the public comments received on DMCA exemptions to the proposed rulemaking on anticircumvention as it applies to copyrighted works. See my previous posting here.
From Findlaw's Writ, the author of Should Universities Crack Down On Illegal Swapping? champions the position that "universities should take the lead in mounting free speech and "fair use" challenges to the application of NETA and the DMCA." See also my February 27 posting on this issue, P2P File Sharing on Campuses.
From the March 2003 issue of AmLaw Tech, this article on a customized electronic discovery application called Patterns, developed for Preston Gates, is described as "a search engine on steroids."
From Slate, this commentary on the recently released National Strategy To Secure Cyberspace contends that the report seeks to engender unfounded fears about cyberterrorism.
From the Council on Foreign Relations, in cooperation with the Markle Foundation, comes this informative and timely website, Terrorism: Questions & Answers. "The purpose of our site is to help sort out issues as they relate to terrorism in a question-and-answer format that is authoritative, easily understandable, and nonpartisan."
Via Digital Libraries, news about a new blog, VIP2, "for librarians, visually impaired individuals, and others interested in talking about digital books, talking books, digital audiobooks, library services for the visually impaired, and other issues of interest."
From the International Herald Tribune, Net programs to catch spies gives a positive review to the free application Spybot Search Destroy from PepiMK Software. One of its features "is a file shredder under the Tools button that lets you completely delete a file from your computer in a way that leaves no traces of it on your hard drive."
The Congress Online Project released a report resulting from two years of research, Congress Online 2003: Turning the Corner on the Information Age (html). The entire text of the report is also available in PDF. The report evaluates 610 congressional member, standing committee and leadership websites, identifies effective techniques and tools for design, usability and overall performance, recognizes the The Best Web Sites on Capitol Hill, and critiques mistakes in sites that detract from the goal of communicating with the public.
See also: Policy Committee Web Site Rated ‘Best’ In Congress.
According to a report in today's Seattle Times via AP and Bloomberg, and the March 1 WSJ, on December 6, 2002 ICANN granted Amazon.com approval to sell TLD (top level domain) Internet addresses to the public. A search of ICANN's site yielded confirmation of this approval in a very discreet manner: on a ICANN-Accredited Registrars document, where Amazon is listed in a chart half way down the page.
A new organization, the Internet Research Task Force, comprised of 13 Research Groups, one of whose goal is to fight spam, launched their website last week. The Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG) has an email list at asrg@ietf.org.
IDC’s recently released study, Worldwide Bandwidth End-User Forecast and Analysis, 2003-2007: More is Still Not Enough ($$$), predicts that within five years, Internet traffic generated by end-users will double, from "180 petabits per day in 2002 to 5,175 petabits per day by the end of 2007." The press release uses an interesting analogy to illustrate the impact of this growth. "The entire printed collection of the Library of Congress amounts to only 10 terabytes of information. By 2007, IDC expects Internet users will access, download, and share the information equivalent of the entire Library of Congress more than 64,000 times over, every day."
From the Digital Rights Management Conference, February 27- March 1, 2003, sponsored by the The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology: Lon Sobel, DRM as an Enabler of Business Models: ISPs as Digital Retailers, 18 Berkeley Tech. L.J. xx (forthcoming 2003) (Word, PDF, HTML).
See also this New York Times article, Pondering Value of Copyright vs. Innovation, reviewing the conference.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on February 28 that Attorney General Ashcroft has threatened to prosecute California law enforcement officials who continue to access three government databases, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the National Crime Information Center and the Interstate Identification Index, to track illegal gun owners.
From the New York Times, Online Library Wants It All, Every Book: "The directors of the new Alexandria Library, which christened a steel and glass structure with 250,000 books in October, have joined forces with an American artist and software engineers in an ambitious effort to make virtually all of the world's books available at a mouse click." This ambitious project is called the Alexandria Library Scholars Collective, but there is little substantive information available about it. The library will apparently share the resources of the Carnegie Mellon University Million Books Project, which by 2007 will provide access to the world's largest e-book collection.