From the American Library Association Washington Office Newsline: "On July 31, 2003, Senator Feingold (D-WI), joined by Senators Bingaman (D-NM), Kennedy (D-MA), Cantwell (D-WA), Durbin (D-IL), Wyden (D-OR), Corzine (D-NJ), Akaka (D-HI), and Jeffords (I-VT), introduced the Library, Bookseller, and Personal Records Privacy Act (S. 1507). The bill would amend the PATRIOT Act to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans and set reasonable limits on the federal government's access to library, bookseller, medical, and other sensitive, personal information under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and related foreign intelligence authority."
Today's WSJ and Washington Post report that TIA Director John Poindexter will resign in the wake of the debacle over the proposed "FutureMAP research project...to explore the power of futures markets to predict and thereby prevent terrorist attacks."
GSA Launches USA Services: "New Initiative Rapidly Connects Citizens with the Federal Government Service Answers Citizens' Web, E-mail and Telephone Questions in 2 Days or Less."
How to Win the Information Battle — Lessons from a Modern War
Bertelsmann will sell BarnesandNoble.com back to Barnes and Noble for $164 million.
Rep. Mary Bono introduced H.R. 2929, the Safeguard Against Privacy Invasions Act (SPI), to protect users of the Internet from unknowing transmission of their personally identifiable information through spyware programs.
"Computer hackers have adopted a startling strategy in their attempts to break into websites. By using the popular search engine Google, they do not have to visit a site to plan an attack. Instead, they can get all the information they need from Google's cached versions of web pages, say experts in the US." (link from New Scientist via SearchEngineGuide.com)
From ComputerWorld: "Microsoft Corp. is beefing up its MSN search engine to go head-to-head with Google Inc., but at the same time, it says it has no immediate plans to cancel its agreement for paid search listings with Overture Services Inc., which was recently bought by MSN rival Yahoo Inc."
This lawsuit, Muslim Community Ass'n of Ann Arbor, et al, v. John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller (July 30, 2003), filed by the ACLU on behalf of Arab-Americans, challenges the constitutionality of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act.
"Copying is Theft ..." And other legal myths in the looming battle over peer-to-peer, by Mark D. Rasch, J.D., former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit, and now Senior Vice President and Chief Security Counsel at Solutionary Inc.
From today's Boston Globe editorial, which refers to yesterday's debacle on the DARPA FutureMap Program : "The Defense Department should sever its ties with Poindexter (TIA Director John Poindexter) before he can humiliate Americans again. Indeed, President Bush should have dismissed him last year and owes the nation an explanation of how his administration nearly implemented such a bizarre proposal. This distortion of a fashionable faith in pure market forces betrays a radical detachment from reality."
From SearchDay: "Yahoo News is now incorporating more than 3,500 sources from Moreover's public metabase of near real-time news content. This is in addition to the full-text coverage provided by dozens of providers, and a wide range of editorially selected coverage."
On Thursday, July 31, the ACLU will be hosting a live online chat discussing the FBI's broad new surveillance powers under the USA PATRIOT Act. Hear about the Fourth and First Amendment defects to a provision in the law that allows the government to obtain records or personal belongings from any person or entity, including public libraries, upon the mere showing of "relevance" to a terrorism investigation.
The Citizens' Protection In Federal Databases Act, introduced yesterday by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), is being hailed by civil liberties groups.
In the July 29 press release announcing the cancellation of the FutureMap program (see my July 28 posting on this subject here), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) stated: "The FutureMAP research project was meant to explore the power of futures markets to predict and thereby prevent terrorist attacks. Futures markets have proven themselves to be good at predicting such things as elections results; they are often better than expert opinions. The program was part of DARPA’s overall thrust to find new ways to thwart terrorism...Our job at DARPA is to explore new ideas and innovative research to enhance national security. The resources that would have been applied to this project will be applied to other more fruitful pursuits."
Senators Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) spearheaded the call for the program's immediate termination.
From CNN: "President Bush on Tuesday rejected calls to release classified sections of a congressional report on the September 11, 2001, attacks, saying his administration must protect intelligence sources during the war on terrorism." See my July 24 posting on the report here.
From the Center for Democracy and Technology: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is introducing legislation (S. 1484) requiring all government agencies that use commercial data for law enforcement and intelligence purposes to report to Congress about their activities and the potential privacy implications of those programs.
From today's WSJ: "As the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks approaches, Ready.gov, the Department of Homeland Security's high profile Web site, provides information only in English. Meanwhile, advocates for non-English speakers say they'd like to see government sites become more accessible -- but particularly emergency-information sources like Ready.gov." According to the article, other heavily trafficked government sites, such as the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department are in English only, but the Social Security Administration site is "the most-translated major federal government site."
Talk about a fast resolution: This program, about which I posted very early this morning, has been cancelled due to the uproar on Capitol Hill. See below for details.
Attorney General Ashcroft promotes antiterrorism law: Speaking at a homeland security conference on Monday, "Ashcroft said the USA PATRIOT Act preserved traditional checks on library, bookstore and business records because a "federal judge must first issue a warrant" and because it is for "foreign intelligence that doesn't affect U.S. persons."
Diverging Estimates of the Costs of Spam: "Spam is costing the U.S. economy billions in network resources, diminished productivity and forgone Internet sales. But how many billions?"
Judge Orders UBS to Pay to Retrieve E-Mail - "A federal judge ordered UBS to pay the majority of the costs involved in restoring e-mail evidence sought by a former employee who is accusing the bank of sex discrimination."
From Government Computer News: "Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia late this afternoon issued a preliminary injunction requiring the Interior Department to disconnect its IT systems from the Internet, with some exceptions."
IRS Again Delays Modernized Taxpayer Database: "The system, the Customer Account Data Engine (CADE), will be a modern database that will house tax information for more than 200 million individual and business taxpayers and replaces the antiquated, magnetic tape-based system that came into use four decades ago."
House Panel Approves Deep E-Gov Funding Cuts - "The U.S. House Appropriations Committee is calling for only $1 million in 2004 funding for the Electronic Government Act (E-Gov), which invests in inter-agency projects with government-wide applications. The Bush Administration had requested $45 million for the program." This act "uthorizes funding for improvement of the federal Internet portal, Firstgov.gov, so that on-line government information and services are organized "according to citizen needs, not agency jurisdiction."
Interesting article discussing online book piracy from "South India's Leading News Site." With so much focus generated by the RIAA's increasingly aggressive pursuit of individuals who download and "share" or "pirate" music files, the burgeoning enterprise of downloading books, from the latest best sellers to older but no less popular works, has not been the target of such aggressive reporting.
ABA Survey of Technology Use by Law Faculty - ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Technology Committee (636 law faculty responded.) Posted today on technoids.
From Elmer R. Masters, news that Technoids has a new design, and is now powered by Geeklog.
Despite the efforts of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) to prohibit funds appropriated under H.R. 2555, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act 2004, from being used by any advisory committee (Homeland Security Advisory Council) that has been exempted from the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the amendment was defeated on July 24. (via Secrecy News)
Enforced Standards Versus Evolution by General Acceptance: A Comparative Study of E-Commerce Privacy Disclosure and Practice in The U.S. and The U.K. "compares U.S. and U.K. e-commerce Web sites' notice and disclosure practices, their adherence to promises about secondary uses of e-mail addresses, and the state of the market for privacy assurance programs in the two countries."
File Sharers: See If the Recording Industry Is After You: "EFF is assisting Internet users by offering a mechanism for people to check the username they use on a file sharing service against a database of those usernames specified in hundreds of subpoenas the RIAA issued this month to Internet Service Providers (ISPs)."
From the Sacramento Bee: "By some estimates, 200 to 300 spammers, sometimes loosely organized into gangs, are responsible for almost 90 percent of spam -- unsolicited "junk" e-mail. They play a high-tech cat-and-mouse game and increasingly use overseas servers to inundate AOL, Microsoft Network, EarthLink and other Internet service providers."
From Paul Deschner:
E-Mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication, by Nancy Flynn, Randolph Kahn, May 2003.
New position paper from the National Council on Disability - When the Amerians with Disabilities Act Goes Online: Application of the ADA to the Internet and the Worldwide Web.
Federal Computer Week reported on "a crisis of confidence" in the Thrift Savings Plan" over "an overwhelming backlog of individual transactions" on the Thrift Savings Plan website.
See also this press release from the Committee Government Reform on the July 24 hearing "on the customer service provided by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB), and the difficulties linked to the recent launch of a new Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) website."
KeepMedia Inc., which launches July 28, is a new service from Louis Borders, founder of Borders Books. News about this story was first reported on June 30 by paidContent.org, in the WSJ on July 21, and and today by News.com. This venture will allow subscribers to download content from an archive of more than 140 magazines, for $4.95 per month. The catch: "To avoid hurting sales of the print magazines, KeepMedia won't let users obtain current issues until they leave newsstands, unless those users are subscribers to the print versions of the magazines."
Fast AlltheWeb Q-card, and AllTheWeb Query prefixes: "AlltheWeb supports a number of simple Query Prefixes that allow you to access some basic site functions by simply prefixing your query term(s) with a supported prefix."
Federal Trade Commissioner Orson Swindle addressed the importance of safe computing practices at a press conference to re-launch GetNetWise, a public service Web site offering resources to make informed decisions about using the Internet. The media briefing is sponsored by the Internet Education Foundation.
Now available on Financial Accounting Standards Board website: FASB Statements—Full Text, Summaries, and Status (required Adobe 5.0 or higher).
From Kent Olson, University of Virginia Law Library:
From the US Climate Change Science Program:
From Secrecy News: "Of particular interest to Secrecy News readers may be the final Appendix on Access Limitations Encountered by the Joint Inquiry. It describes a number of documents or topical areas to which congressional investigators were denied access. These included the President's Daily Brief, reports on foreign liaison relationships, information on intelligence budget requests, and more. On other crucial topics, congressional access was limited or delayed. This Appendix appears at pages 834-858 of the report. Another item of special interest is a newly released General Accounting Office (GAO) analysis of the October 2001 anthrax attacks. The December 2002 GAO assessment had been restricted as Limited Official Use Only." It is now published at pages 808-822 of the report. The link to the report is here (pdf).
FYI, if you do not want to print this 858 report, it is available for purchase, for $64 per copy from http://bookstore.gpo.gov.
"In this Order, we adopt measures to ensure that our implementation of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) complies with the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court. CIPA requires schools and libraries with computer Internet access to certify that they have Internet safety policies and technology protection measures, e.g., software filtering technology, to receive discounts for Internet access and internal connections under the schools and libraries universal service support mechanism (e-rate)." See the text of this order here, and here in pdf.
Report of the Inquiry Into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Inteligence, December 2002 (pdf, 858 pages).
House Takes Aim at Patriot Act Secret Searches: "The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to roll back a key provision (amending H.R. 2799, see link below), which allows the government to conduct secret "sneak and peek" searches of private property, of a sweeping anti-terrorism law passed soon after the Sept. 11 attacks."
From MIT News (via The Register): "MIT recently received a subpoena from the Recording Industry Association of America that was issued under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The subpoena requests the name and address of the individual whose computer was, according to the RIAA, sending out copyrighted songs on the Internet...MIT of course has a policy of complying with lawfully issued subpoenas. But in this case we have been advised by counsel that the subpoena was not in compliance with the court rules that apply to these subpoenas, and did not allow MIT time to send any notice as the law requires."
From Internet.com: "Sen. Charles Schumer (D.-N.Y.) said Wednesday he will seek to amend the current spam bill pending before the Senate to include requiring the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create a Do Not Spam list comparable to the FTC's popular Do Not Call registry."
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched a new website, Telemarketing Fraud Enforcement, which includes:
A new article by Mary Minow, How I Learned to Love FAIR USE… or how to bring a $300,000 lawsuit down to $0 if you're a library, archive, or nonprofit educational institution.
The Stanford University Libraries' Copyright & Fair Use website has been relaunched with a new design, enhanced navigation and content in areas which include:
See Google Advanced News Search, and this related News.com article.
SLA Annual Meeting 2003: Programming for SLA Legal Division. Links to resources that include:
From the LexisNexis press release: "LexisNexis will provide a legal research option on Microsoft’s new Research Task Pane featured in Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003, Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2003, and Microsoft Office Access 2003." (thanks Donna).
Music Industry Wins 871 Subpoenas Against Internet Users: "The music industry has won at least 871 federal subpoenas against computer users suspected of illegally sharing music files on the Internet, with roughly 75 new subpoenas being approved each day, court officials say." See also this RIAA press release, Recording Industry To Begin Collecting Evidence And Preparing Lawsuits Against File "Sharers" Who Illegally Offer Music Online.
Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books. "Executives at Amazon.com are negotiating with several of the largest book publishers about an ambitious and expensive plan to assemble a searchable online archive with the texts of tens of thousands of books of nonfiction, according to several publishing executives involved."
The Death Of Privacy--Again: "The world around you is being flooded with intrusive technologies, with camera phones as the tip of the iceberg, and the very concept of privacy, especially in public spaces, is going to be radically overhauled as a result."
News.com reports that the "Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is the new keeper of the specification for a popular Web log tool. The Berkman Center took over ownership of the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) 2.0 specification this week after UserLand, a company owned by RSS 2.0 author David Winer, transferred the copyright to the center."
From the Seattle Times: "U.S. Department of Labor officials have created two new Web sites aimed at helping small employers learn how to comply with federal law.
Accusations of Abuse in Report on USA Patriot Act: "A report by internal investigators at the Justice Department has identified dozens of recent cases in which department employees have been accused of serious civil rights and civil liberties violations involving enforcement of the sweeping federal antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act."
Informational Briefing on the kids.us Domain: The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will host an informational briefing regarding the launch of the new kids.us domain, Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at 3 p.m.
New Plain-English Jury Instructions Adopted to Assist Jurors in California Courts: "In another jury reform, the Judicial Council of California today officially adopted new civil jury instructions that emphasize plain, straightforward language, to provide an alternative to often confusing legal terminology that has been used in California trial courts for the past 70 years."
GPO Holds a Clearance Sale as It Closes Bookstores Because of Web's Growth: "It's the Internet," explained GPO spokesman Andrew M. Sherman. "Our online operation has just killed the retail end of this business. The mainstay of sales at our stores was principally regulatory information -- tax rules, international trade, the Code of Federal Regulations. But all that information is now available online for free."
On June 2, EPIC sponsored a conference, Privacy and Technology Looking Back, Looking Ahead. They only recently provided online access to resources associated with the presentations, which took themes from George Orwell's writings in honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth: Selections from EPIC Advisory Board and Essays by EPIC Staff.
As I previously posted on June 18, Consumer WebWatch is encouraging websites to implement privacy and content credibility guidelines, and recently added 25 more sites committed to upholding the guidelines. A pdf of the current list is here.
From Reuters: "The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to cut off funding for a widely criticized computer-surveillance program that would comb travel records, credit-card bills and other private records to sniff out suspected terrorists. In a military spending bill it passed unanimously, the Senate forbade the Defense Department to spend any portion of its $369 billion budget on the Terrorism Information Awareness program, brushing aside a request by the Bush administration to keep development efforts intact."
Tech Guide: Keeping The Government Happy: "As tough new privacy protections are put in place, lessons are emerging about savvy ways to keep regulators at bay."
According to an article in today's Wired: "Southeast Airlines said it plans to install digital video cameras throughout the cabins of its planes to record the faces and activities of its passengers at all times, as a precaution against terrorism and other safety threats. In addition, the charter airline, based in Largo, Florida, will store the digitized video for up to 10 years. And it may use face recognition software to match faces to names and personal records, the airline said."
The FTC's Do Not Call Registry has garnered considerable press and more than 25 million registrants. A recent survey from Insight Express indicates that consumers are eager for a similar program to address spam: "83 percent of consumers said that the government should roll out a similar 'do not spam' list that they can use to register their e-mail addresses to stem junk e-mail messages." However, "Experts in email and privacy at ePrivacy Group caution that creating an effective "do-not-spam" list to match the new national "do-not-call" list will require major changes to current email technology."
White House E-Mail System Becomes Less User-Friendly: "Those who want to send a message to the president must now navigate as many as nine Web pages and fill out a form that asks if they support White House policy."
Interview with Krishna Bharat, the Google Principal Scientist who conceived the idea for Google News.
Legislative hearing on H.R. 2517, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003, to enhance criminal enforcement of the copyright laws, educate the public about the application of copyright law to the Internet, and clarify the authority to seize unauthorized copyrighted works.
Three Things You Don't Want to Know About Your Personal Information: "Online merchants are frantically sucking up every scrap of information they can get about consumers, but consumers know next to nothing about what happens to that information."
From FCW.com: "The State Department is developing a passport that contains biometric technology to authenticate the identities of U.S. citizens who travel abroad."
Social Security Numbers: Ensuring the Integrity of the SSN, by Barbara D. Bovbjerg, director, education, workforce, and income security issues, before the Subcommittee on Social Security, House Committee on Ways and Means. GAO-03-941T, July 10. Highlights.
Video Surveillance: Information on Law Enforcement's Use of Closed-Circuit Television to Monitor Selected Federal Property in Washington, D.C. GAO-03-748, June 27. Highlights.
This wiki-weblog has dozens of annotated resources and links to RSS readers, including those for use on PDAs, Linux, Mac and Windows.
From Slate, Digging for Googleholes, ends with the following paragraph:
New Pew Internet Project Report, Internet Health Resources: Health searches and email have become more commonplace, but there is room for improvement in searches and overall Internet access.
The Author, Consumer and Computer Owner Protection and Security Act of 2003 (H.R. 2752), introduced on July 16. "The bill carries penalties of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for uploading a copyrighted file to a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, " according to dcinternet.com.
Shooting Ourselves in the Foot - Grandiose Schemes for Electronic Eavesdropping May Hurt More Than They Help, by Robert X. Cringely.
'Partial' Information Awareness is an article published on January 9, 2003, authored by Wayne Crews, director of technology studies at the Cato Institute. He states: "It's one thing to give up privacy for security if there's no other choice. With TIA we may be sacrificing privacy for no security benefit at all. And potential unintended effects on e-commerce, and a raft of likely new mandates give all the more reason to reconsider."
Today the House Judiciary Committee passed the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act of 2003 (H.R. 49), setting the stage for the a vote by the full House and Senate to permanently extend the moratorium on Internet access taxes.
Wired has an article from July 15 that spotlights the innovative work of the Oyez Project. See their June 17 announcement, The Oyez Project Releases Inaugural Set of Supreme Court MP3 Files.
From Secrecy News: in a July 14 statement, the White House "urges the Senate to remove the provision (from the 2004 Defense Appropriations Act) that prohibits any research and development for the Terrorism Information Awareness Program. This provision would deny an important potential tool in the war on terrorism."
From the New York Times: "William Sheehan does not like the police. He expresses his views about what he calls police corruption in Washington State on his Web site, where he also posts lists of police officers' addresses, home phone numbers and Social Security numbers."
Regulations Implementing the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act of 2002 (the SAFETY Act, subtitle G of the Homeland Security Act, P.L. No. 107-296), Office of the Secretary, Homeland Security: Notice of proposed rulemaking.
From Ken Withers, a Research Associate at the Federal Judicial Center, links to a series of presentations and papers on electronic discovery.
Tauzin, Greenwood Step-Up Committee's Investigation Into Troubled E-Rate Program and sent letters to 13 companies vendors and applicants participating in the program (a copy of which is available at the link above).
From the 7/15/2003 Library Journal: "As government documents librarians incorporate more digital materials, they are finding that the very shape of their libraries is transformed," by Marylaine Block.
From the EU eGovernment Conference 2003, 7-8 July 2003:
Launched July 8, "OMB Watch's new weblog will cover a wide range of tax and budget issues, and will be updated throughout the week by OMB Watch budget staff."
From the U.S. Census Bureau, Facts & Features:
Remote Online Usability Testing: Why, How, and When to Use It. From the article:
NITLE Blog Census. Glad to say that beSpacific is included in this MySQL database of over 600,000 weblogs published worldwide (net.law.blog). From the site's About Page:
Wiley Technology Publishing has determined that its publication of a planned forthcoming book, Hacking the Xbox, may have resulted in a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), prompting the author to find a new publisher, who plans to distribute the book later this month.
Yahoo will pay $1.63 billion for Overture.
Search engine personalization: An exploratory study. From the abstract:
Problems with the Department of the Interior's management and operations of its web sites is the focus of a recent Inspector General Report, issued in June. The introduction to the 42 page evaluation report (pdf) states that Interior "needs to manage its web sites more efficiently, cost-effectively, and securely; and focus on its customers."
