Britain's cops have the largest DNA database in the world, and it's full of innocent people who were arrested but not charged, or charged but not convicted (the EU's Court of Human Rights have ordered this practice to stop, but the cops refuse to comply with the law -- their latest dodge is to keep innocents' DNA for six years). Now an inquiry that begins today claims that police are "routinely arresting people" that they know they can't convict of any crime, simply to get their DNA into the database.

The highly critical report from the government's advisory body on the development of human genetics is published as the number of innocent people on the database is disclosed to be far higher than previously thought ‑ nearing 1 million.

The commission says the policy of routinely adding the DNA profiles of all those arrested has led to a highly disproportionate impact on different ethnic groups and the stigmatisation of young black men, with the danger of their being seen as "an 'alien wedge' of criminality"...

The chairman of the commission, Prof Jonathan Montgomery, said: "It's now become pretty routine to take DNA samples on arrest. So large numbers of people on the DNA database will be there not because they have been convicted, but because they've been arrested."

He said the commission had received evidence from a former police superintendent that it was now the norm to arrest offenders for everything possible. "It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons, if not the reason, for the change in practice is so that the DNA of the offender can be obtained," said Montgomery, adding that it would be a matter of very great concern if this was now a widespread practice.

Police routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims (Image: DNA Molecule display, Oxford University, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from net_efekt's Flickr stream)

A huge amount of email from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit was hacked and released onto the web, causing much rejoicing from the climate change denialists. They read through the corpus of email and found that the scientists working on climate change often have substantive disagreements with one another, which they debate vigorously in email, and cited this as evidence of a conspiracy to cover up dissent and present a scientific consensus on climate change.

Futurismic's Tom Marcinko does a great job of putting this in context, rounding up several links to other good commentators around the web. In a nutshell: science is about the advancement of competing theories and the evaluation of these theories in light of evidence. The East Anglia Climate Research Unit's scientists disagreed in some particulars, and used peer-review to resolve them (and continue to do so). No one is paying them to cover up evidence that climate change isn't real or isn't caused by humans -- but they are conducting science the way that scientists do.

Smart enough to hack, not sophisticated enough to appreciate the daily give-and-take of how science works-is that how we nonscientists are going to approach critical issues? Maybe we can do better than that.

Those hacked climate e-mails: Good scientists, poor conspirators

The Associated Press, a organization with so little respect for fair use that they expect you to pay for a license to quote as little as five words from its articles, describes how it relied on fair use to do reporting on Sarah Palin's memoir Glowing Rouge:

"The AP was determined to get the first copy," Oreskes [a senior managing editor] wrote, detailing how the writers learned a store had "inadvertently placed the book on sale five days before its official Nov. 17 release date." "They bought a copy, ripped it from its spine and scanned it into the system so it could be read and electronically searched," he wrote.

As Rebecca Tushnet notes, this is fair use. And so is quoting the AP.

Actually, the AP likes fair use after all (via @CathyGellis)

Britons: here's a petition to the Prime Minister to abolish the new Digital Economy bill's provisions that will require ISPs to cut off your household's internet access if anyone living there (or using your network) is accused of three acts of copyright infringement:

This petition has been set up in response to the Government's proposal to cut off internet access to those who are caught illegally downloading copyrighted files. We think this has one fundamental flaw, as illegal filesharers will simply hack into other peoples WiFi networks to do their dirty work. This will result in innocent people being disconnected from the internet. What's more, such a punishment should be dealt with in the proper way, in a court of law. This guilty until proven innocent approach violates basic human rights.

Tell your friends.

Petition to: abolish the proposed law that will see alleged illegal filesharers disconnected from their broadband connections, without a fair trial

Britain is full of license-plate cameras, cameras used to send you tickets if you're caught speeding, or driving in the bus-lane, or entering London's "congestion-charge zone" without paying the daily fee for driving in central London. And because of Chekhov's first law of narrative ("a gun on the mantelpiece in act one will go off by act three"), the police have decided to also use these cameras as a surveillance tool, to "catch terrorists" (and other bad guys). So any police officer can add any license number to the database of "people of interest" and every time that license plate passes a camera, the local police force will receive an urgent alert, and can pull over the car, detain the driver, and search the car and its passengers under the Terrorism Act.

And, of course, police officers are less than discriminating about who they add to this list. For example, "Catt, 50, and her 84-year-old father, John" were added to the list because a police officer noticed their van at three protest demonstrations. And now Catt and John get pulled over by the police and searched as terrorists.

Environmental activists tend to be pretty forgiving of license-plate cameras, because they're a critical piece of congestion-charge systems that charge people money for driving instead of using public transit. This kind of regressive tax (the £10 charge in London is a pittance and no disincentive to the wealthy, and is crippling to the marginal and the poor) is also much beloved by the law-and-economics crowd, who assume that rational consumers will all be equally disincentivized by a little friction in the system.

But congestion charges require license plate cameras, and license plate cameras are an enormous piece of artillery to hand to the world's police, who are increasingly pants-wettingly afraid of any sort of public protest -- including environmental protests. I support reducing driving as much as the next green, but environmental change will require lots of protest, and that protest will get exponentially harder with the growth of the traffic cameras that are absolutely integral to congestion charge schemes.

The two anti-war campaigners were not the only law-abiding protesters being monitored on the roads. Officers have been told they can place "markers" against the vehicles of anyone who attends demonstrations using the national ANPR data centre in Hendon, north London, which stores information on car journeys for up to five years.

Senior officers have been instructed to "fully and strategically exploit" the database, which allows police to mark vehicles with potentially useful inform-ation such as drink-driving convictions.

The use of the ANPR database to flag-up vehicles belonging to protesters has resulted in peaceful campaigners being repeatedly stopped and searched.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal Kent and Essex police deployed mobile ANPR "interceptor teams" on roads surrounding the protest against the Kingsnorth power station, in Kent, last year.

Activists repeatedly stopped and searched as police officers 'mark' cars (via Beyond the Beyond)

(Image: control, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from Secret London's photo stream)

The British government has brought down its long-awaited Digital Economy Bill, and it's perfectly useless and terrible. It consists almost entirely of penalties for people who do things that upset the entertainment industry (including the "three-strikes" rule that allows your entire family to be cut off from the net if anyone who lives in your house is accused of copyright infringement, without proof or evidence or trial), as well as a plan to beat the hell out of the video-game industry with a new, even dumber rating system (why is it acceptable for the government to declare that some forms of artwork have to be mandatorily labelled as to their suitability for kids? And why is it only some media? Why not paintings? Why not novels? Why not modern dance or ballet or opera?).

So it's bad. £50,000 fines if someone in your house is accused of filesharing. A duty on ISPs to spy on all their customers in case they find something that would help the record or film industry sue them (ISPs who refuse to cooperate can be fined £250,000).

But that's just for starters. The real meat is in the story we broke yesterday: Peter Mandelson, the unelected Business Secretary, would have to power to make up as many new penalties and enforcement systems as he likes. And he says he's planning to appoint private militias financed by rightsholder groups who will have the power to kick you off the internet, spy on your use of the network, demand the removal of files or the blocking of websites, and Mandelson will have the power to invent any penalty, including jail time, for any transgression he deems you are guilty of. And of course, Mandelson's successor in the next government would also have this power.

What isn't in there? Anything about stimulating the actual digital economy. Nothing about ensuring that broadband is cheap, fast and neutral. Nothing about getting Britain's poorest connected to the net. Nothing about ensuring that copyright rules get out of the way of entrepreneurship and the freedom to create new things. Nothing to ensure that schoolkids get the best tools in the world to create with, and can freely use the publicly funded media -- BBC, Channel 4, BFI, Arts Council grantees -- to make new media and so grow up to turn Britain into a powerhouse of tech-savvy creators.

Lobby organisation The Open Rights Group is urging people to contact their MP to oppose the plans.

"This plan won't stop copyright infringement and with a simple accusation could see you and your family disconnected from the internet - unable to engage in everyday activities like shopping and socialising," it said.

The government will also introduce age ratings on all boxed video games aimed at children aged 12 or over.

There is, however, little detail in the bill on how the government will stimulate broadband infrastructure.

Government lays out digital plans (Thanks, Lee!)

A source close to the British Labour Government has just given me reliable information about the most radical copyright proposal I've ever seen.

Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is planning to introduce changes to the Digital Economy Bill now under debate in Parliament. These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson -- or his successor in the next government) the power to make "secondary legislation" (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright. Mandelson elaborates on this, giving three reasons for his proposal:

1. The Secretary of State would get the power to create new remedies for online infringements (for example, he could create jail terms for file-sharing, or create a "three-strikes" plan that costs entire families their internet access if any member stands accused of infringement)

2. The Secretary of State would get the power to create procedures to "confer rights" for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement. (for example, record labels and movie studios can be given investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect users, remove websites, block URLs, etc)

3. The Secretary of State would get the power to "impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement" (for example, ISPs could be forced to spy on their users, or to have copyright lawyers examine every piece of user-generated content before it goes live; also, copyright "militias" can be formed with the power to police copyright on the web)

Mandelson is also gunning for sites like YouSendIt and other services that allow you to easily transfer large files back and forth privately (I use YouSendIt to send podcasts back and forth to my sound-editor during production). Like Viacom, he's hoping to force them to turn off any feature that allows users to keep their uploads private, since privacy flags can be used to keep infringing files out of sight of copyright enforcers.

This is as bad as I've ever seen, folks. It's a declaration of war by the entertainment industry and their captured regulators against the principles of free speech, privacy, freedom of assembly, the presumption of innocence, and competition.

This proposal creates the office of Pirate-Finder General, with unlimited power to appoint militias who are above the law, who can pry into every corner of your life, who can disconnect you from your family, job, education and government, who can fine you or put you in jail.

More to follow, I'm sure, once Open Rights Group and other activist organizations get working on this. In the meantime, tell every Briton you know. If we can't stop this, it's beginning of the end for the net in Britain.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's international policy crimefighting duo, Eddan Katz and Gwen Hinze, have published a scholarly article analyzing the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in light of US law and policy. Called "The Impact of ACTA on the Knowledge Economy," it was recently published in the Yale Journal of International Law, and constitutes a fantastic, reference-heavy resource for understanding just how creepy it is that the Obama administration is sneaking around behind Congress's back (not to mention the backs of the American public) to create a privacy-invading, internet-breaking trade agreement that the US will be bound to bring into its law.

In brief, the ACTA process has been deliberately more secretive than customary practices in international decision-making bodies to evade the debates about intellectual property (IP) at established multilateral institutions. The Office of the USTR has chosen to negotiate ACTA as a sole executive agreement. Because of a loophole in democratic accountability on sole executive agreements, the Office of the USTR can sign off on an IP Enforcement agenda without any formal congressional involvement at all. But the negotiations do not have to be secret, and the sole executive agreement process does have mechanisms for oversight: they have not been used in ACTA, but can and should be.

The excuse for using sole executive agreements is that ACTA will be fully respectful of U.S. law. But the constraint of coloring within the lines of US law, as one anonymous trade official described it, is a fragile linchpin upon which the weight of public trust and democratic legitimacy is bearing down.

Stopping the ACTA Juggernaut

Tom sends us video of a Maricopa County Sheriff's Deputy named Adam Stoddard stealing a public defender's paperwork, during a court proceeding, in front of the court's security camera. Tom adds, "The local news clip is really worth seeing, if only for the reporter's incredulous lead-in: 'The Maricopa County Sheriff's office backing one of its deputies after he takes away a lawyer's paperwork in court.' If you live in Arizona you're subject to the daily outrage from Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It's a bit like Philadelphia during the Rizzo years."

The deputy claims he wasn't stealing the paper, he was searching it for contraband. H's been found in contempt of court, and the judge has ordered him to apologize:

Those conditions are:

1) On or before November 30th, 2009, at a time convenient for Ms. Cuccia, a news conference to take place in the plaza on the north side of the central court building where he is to give Ms. Cuccia a sincere verbal and written apology for invading her defense file and for the damage that his conduct may have caused to her professional reputation.

2) If at the news conference, Ms. Cuccia does not state that the apology is sufficient, Stoddard will report to the jail on December 1, 2009 and be detained until further order upon a finding that he has complied with the purge clause.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio responded to the ruling early Wednesday, saying Superior Court judges do not order his staff to hold press conferences.

MCSO officer who took lawyer's paperwork might go to jail (Thanks, Tom!)

Update: Dan Gillmor points out that the Heat City blog has done great work on this, breaking the story.

Autumn sez, "DJs at local underground parties have been losing their laptops to police raids - even when they're not DJing. They're being told that they'll lose their laptops - and often their livelihood - for an indefinite period of time, with no information on when or how to get their property back. The EFF has taken on the defense of several local DJs, but this is having a huge effect already on the local dance scene."

Over the past six months, music fans who have been spinning records -- or even just attending friends' events -- claim their laptops, soundboards, and mixers have been taken by the cops in police raids. The busted gatherings include an illegal dance party, an artist fundraiser, and a private Halloween bash. While it's unclear whether the lack of official permits was enough reason to close down all these parties, the bigger question is why the police are seizing and holding private property that DJs and attendees use as valuable tools for making their art and living.

Mike Holmes, aka DJ White Mike, was a recent victim of an SFPD sweep. On Halloween night, he DJed at the Beauty Bar and then hit a friend's costume party at a SOMA loft. He stored his bag, which held his laptop, in the DJ booth to prevent it from getting swiped. Ten minutes later, around 2:30 a.m., he says the police arrived and announced that they were taking all the laptops in the warehouse space. "I tried to explain that I wasn't even playing at the party," he says. Nonetheless, his computer was seized by a cop who identified himself as part of a "task force," who told him that he shouldn't expect to get his laptop back "for at least three months." Other DJs at the party claim to have received similar warnings -- as well as threats of jail time, if they were seen DJing at warehouses again -- from officers who said they were part of a task force.(The SFPD claims it does not have a specific task force looking at underground parties, but it does routine checks in the SOMA area, sometimes with other agencies such as the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, for permit and other violations.)

S.F. cops may have gone too far in seizing DJ gear at underground parties

Stop the War on Fun

(Thanks, Autumn!)

Remember the June 2005 Supreme Court eminent domain ruling that gave Pfizer Pharmaceutical the right to bulldoze a housing neighborhood in Connecticut to make way for a $300 million private development project? Some of the homeowners didn't want to give up their homes but Pfizer took them to court and won.

Last week Pfizer said it was shutting down its center.

This Democracy Now video has interviews with a former homeowner and a lawyer who represented the homeowners who wanted to keep their homes.

From Seth Roberts' Blog:

One of the last things Jane Jacobs wrote was a friend-of-the-court letter in the Supreme Court case Kelo v. New London where eminent domain was used to take property from private landowners and give it to a private corporation (Pfizer). It was just as outrageous as that sounds. And Pfizer got away with it.

Pfizer, After Having Its Way with the Good Citizens of New London ... )

For his latest project, British art director Adam Richardson used Photoshop to superimpose Space Invader characters onto pics he took in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Adam Richardson main page via NotCot

Bonnoe says: "The folks at the TED Prize have been working with partners around the world to fulfill the wish of best-selling author and former nun, Karen Armstrong – the Charter for Compassion. The Charter is a document collaboratively written with contributions from thousands of people from more than 100 countries. With a sense of urgency, the Charter is a call to action for all of us to live more compassionately with each other in the hopes of ending global suffering. People from every corner of the world – including Oslo, Buenos Aires, Vancouver, Tehran, Capetown, Sydney, San Francisco, Mumbai and more - have embraced the Charter’s inclusive message by affirming the Charter at the Charter for Compassion website and posting the official widget on their blogs in a show of solidarity (see below). It’s a powerful message and one that we wanted to share."

Charter for Compassion

A 20-year old Shanghai woman of mixed race has sparked a discussion about race in China. Lou Jing is half black; she was raised by a Chinese mother and speaks and acts like any other Chinese girl. But when the aspiring TV anchor entered an American Idol-like contest and rapped on-stage, she attracted both sensational admiration and ignorant hate. The presenters adoringly called her "chocolate girl" on stage — meanwhile, on web forums, people called her gross and ugly and criticized her mother for having sex with a black person out of wedlock. In an interview with NPR's All Things Considered, Lou Jing says: "I've always thought of myself as Shanghainese, but after the competition I started to have doubts about who I really am."

Lou Jing has never met her dad, who left China without knowing he had gotten her mom pregnant. She hopes to study journalism at Columbia University.

Stories about Lou Jing on NPR, Time, Shanghai Daily

Image via Shanghai Daily

Vice has an interview with b.a.n.g lab's Ricardo Dominguez about the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a GPS device based on a cheap cell phone that will help Mexican immigrants safely cross the border."

For the past few years you've been working on the Transborder Immigrant Tool, which sounds like it's really going to chafe the asses of millions of people--civilians and government entities alike. What was the impetus for this project?
My research lab at Calit2 is called BANG Lab, which stands for Bits, Atoms, Neurons, and Genes. One of the areas I've focused on since I've been in San Diego is developing what we call border-disturbance technologies.

What is the device, exactly?
We looked at the Motorola i455 cell phone, which is under $30, available even cheaper on eBay, and includes a free GPS applet. We were able to crack it and create a simple compasslike navigation system. We were also able to add other information, like where to find water left by the Border Angels, where to find Quaker help centers that will wrap your feet, how far you are from the highway--things to make the application really benefit individuals who are crossing the border.

Are you worried that you're going to rile anti-immigration militias?
One of the first things we did at BANG Lab was to interfere with the Minuteman Project in 2005. They were quite angry because not only were we committing public actions against them, but Calit2 and the UCSD system were also supporting it. They're well aware of who we are and what we do. Once they get full knowledge of the Transborder Immigrant Tool--and we're very transparent about it--I'm sure they'll be quite critical.

The Transborder Immigrant Tool Helps Mexicans Cross Over Safely

Danny from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "Copyright lobbyists often indulge in what's called "policy laundering" -- if you can't get an amendment to copyright in one country, just shop it around until you find somewhere that will take it. Keeping track of changes and variations in over 180 countries and dozens of international venues is a challenge, but necessary if we're going to stop ill-advised copyright law from taking hold and spreading. That's why EFF, librarians, and researchers all around the world have teamed up to start Copyright Watch. We've spent months pooling together every copy of every country's copyright law that we could find. From now on, Copyright Watch will be spotting new changes, identifying quirks and novelties in different laws, and keeping watch at the IP fronter -- wherever in the world that might be."

Copyright Watch collects and monitors copyright laws from all over the world. (Thanks, Danny!)

This is neat -- CharityBuzz is auctioning off a private tour of Griffith Observatory with Leonard Nimoy! The tour is for two people and the current high bid is $5,250. The proceeds will go to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.

Also in the auction block: A tour of Industrial Light and Magic with George Lucas. Max bid on this is $300.

Rick sez, "SFFaudio has just announced their 4th Annual Make an Audiobook, Get an Audiobook Challenge. They have twenty Science Fiction and Fantasy titles of public domain and Creative Commons novels that they'd like to see freely available as audiobooks on the internet. They're looking for participants to commit to recording and editing the sound files and then making them available online. At that point they will get to choose a free audiobook for a prize. But the real prize is the satisfaction of creating a creative work that can be shared with all. Previous SFFaudio Challenges have generated some great audiobooks of classic and obscure titles that would otherwise be unavailable in audio. This year's challenges has a variety of authors including Jack London, Mack Reynolds, James E. Gunn and many others."

The 4th Annual SFFaudio Challenge (Thanks, Rick!)

Here's a 20-minute, must-see lecture on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement -- the secret copyright treaty currently being negotiated, which stands to fatally wound all user-generated content sites from mailing lists to YouTube; which stands to criminalize kids for noncommercial file-sharing; which stands to put your internet connection in jeopardy if anyone in your house is accused of infringement, and much, much more.

The ACTA Threat: My Talk on Everything You Need To Know About ACTA, But Didn't Know To Ask

The MPAA has successfully shut down an entire town's municipal WiFi because a single user was found to be downloading a copyrighted movie. Rather than being embarrassed by this gross example of collective punishment (a practice outlawed in the Geneva conventions) against Coshocton, OH, the MPAA's spokeslizard took the opportunity to cry poor (even though the studios are bringing in record box-office and aftermarket receipts).

Mike LaVigne, IT director, said the number of people who access the Internet using the connection varies widely, from perhaps a dozen people a day to 100 during busy times such as First Fridays and the Coshocton Canal Festival.

It's used by Coshocton County Sheriff's deputies who can park in the 300 block and complete a traffic or incident report without leaving their vehicle. Out-of-town business people can park and use their laptops to make connections.

During festival times, vendors find it a convenience to check the status of credit cards being used to make purchases, LaVigne said.

Because it's a single address used by many people, it's difficult to tell who made the illegal download, although the county plans to investigate the matter .

Illegal movie download forces shutdown of free Wi-Fi (Thanks, Dan!)

Followers of Boing Boing will know that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been battling in court to force the US government to disclose documents related to the illegal mass wiretapping that the phone companies and Uncle Sam engaged in as part of the "war on terror." Now the government has blinked, and EFF has the photos to prove it.

Hugh from EFF sez, "A photo of what it looks like when the gov't says 'uncle': EFF lawyers with a mountain of telecom immunity docs."

nate&marcia (Thanks, Hugh!)

Rebecca from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "More news about the Yes Men and the Chamber of Commerce. BoingBoing reported on the lawsuit the Chamber filed over the activists' political criticism of the Chamber's stance on climate change and the Chamber's DMCA takedown attempt. Now it's official: EFF and Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP, will defend the Yes Men and other activists involved in the action. As EFF Senior Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry says: "The action was a brilliant piece of political theater, but it had a serious purpose: calling attention to the Chamber's political activities. This is core political speech, protected by the First Amendment." Next step in the case -- a response to the Chamber's complaint is due later this month in the U.S. District Court for District of Columbia."

"The action was a brilliant piece of political theater, but it had a serious purpose: calling attention to the Chamber's political activities," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "This is core political speech, protected by the First Amendment. We're very pleased that Davis Wright Tremaine -- with its long, successful history of protecting free speech rights of Americans -- has joined us in helping these activists battle a transparent attempt at censorship."

"U.S. courts have recognized that political parody lies at the heart of the First Amendment," said Davis Wright Tremaine LLP partner Bruce Johnson. "Even if the party parodied refuses to giggle--or even panics and sues--free speech will ultimately triumph. We look forward to a prompt dismissal of this case and a reaffirmation of the rights of all Americans to poke fun at the pompous and powerful."

The Chamber has pulled out all the stops in its effort to silence the activists. First, it sent an improper copyright takedown notice to the Yes Men's upstream provider, demanding that a parody website posted in support of the action be removed immediately and resulting in the temporary shutdown of not only the spoof site but hundreds of other sites hosted by May First/People Link. Next, the Chamber filed suit against the activists in federal court, claiming among other things the activism infringed their trademarks.

EFF to Represent Yes Men in Court Battle Over Chamber of Commerce Action (Thanks, Rebecca!)

The Open Rights Group is collecting "Messages to Mandelson" -- that is, photos and brief textual messages to UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, who has proposed that you should lose your access to the Internet if anyone in your household is accused (without proof) of violating copyright law. You can upload your photo and message and let Mandelson know how you feel.

Message Mandelson (Thanks, Jim!)

When the US government demanded the IP address of every visitor to Indymedia's website (and ordered Indymedia to keep the request secret), Indymedia called the Electronic Frontier Foundation. EFF fought the subpoena -- which was grossly unconstitutional -- and won. Here's the story of how it happened, and remember, if you ever get a crazy, unconstitutional request from a G-man, stop and call a lawyer or get in touch with EFF.

The government added insult to injury by also inserting this language on the first page of the subpoena: "You are not to disclose the existence of this request unless authorized by the Assistant U.S. Attorney. Any such disclosure would impede the investigation being conducted and thereby interfere with the enforcement of the law."

The problem? The law doesn't require the recipient of a federal grand jury subpoena to keep the subpoena secret (which is why, typically, subpoenas often will "request" -- but not require -- a recipient's silence). There are certainly secrecy requirements for participants in the grand jury -- such as the jurors and the prosecutors -- but those requirements do not extend to witnesses (or potential witnesses such as a subpoena recipient). And although the SCA does provide the government with the option of obtaining a court order under 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b) requiring silence when the recipient's disclosure would have an adverse affect on an investigation, the government in this case did not obtain any such gag order.

In sum, without any legal authority to back up their purported gag demand, the government ordered Ms. Clair not to reveal the existence of the subpoena, a subpoena that as already described was patently overbroad and invalid under the SCA. This is exactly the kind of unjustified demand of silence that creates a fog around the government's often-overreaching surveillance activities. How many other subpoena recipients have remained silent over the years in response to such bogus demands, and how many of them violated their users' privacy by handing over data that the government wasn't entitled to? We simply do not know, and because of a lack of meaningful reporting about the government's use of the SCA, we cannot know.

We were determined that our client would not be one of the silenced, and that this illegal subpoena would eventually see the light of day.

From EFF's Secret Files: Anatomy of a Bogus Subpoena

Deirdre Walker, the 24-year police veteran and former Assistant Chief of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Department of Police who wrote up a sharp, professional critique of the TSA's checkpoint procedures, has written a follow-up, showing a huge flaw in the "random" screening process used at the BWI airport:

I asked, "How are people selected for secondary searches?. She replied "It's random."

I asked "Is there a mark on my boarding pass?" She replied, "We used to do that, but we don't do it anymore." She did not know why that practice had been discontinued.

I stated "So you look at people as they are entering the metal detector, you make some type of assessment, and then you select people for secondary searches, right?"

...At this point, I turned to look over my shoulder and observed a Caucasian woman in her late thirties or early forties standing inside the whole-body imager. I called my screener's attention to this and said. "Look over there. There's a woman in the scanner. You all picked me for a search, and then the very next person you select is a woman. Why didn't you pick a white guy? Where are all the white guys?"

She replied, helpfully, "We are understaffed today and we don't have enough male screeners to do pat downs. We are not allowed to do opposite sex pat-downs so we are only selecting women for secondary screening."

By this point, I was seated and she was patting down the bottom of my feet. The secondary search, more thorough than the last search I had been subjected to in Albany, but equally ineffective, was nearing completion. I said "If you are only selecting women, how is that random?"

She said, "You're done. You can collect your belongings, Have a nice day."

"Where are all the white guys?" -- Update on "Do I have the right to refuse this search."

TonyBot sez, "This video is from a talk I saw Professor Lessig give on Wednesday the title is 'It is About Time: Getting Our Values Around Copyright.' The talk was given at EDUCUASE a major technology in higher education conference. As an IT support guy for professors at a New England state school I run up against copyright every day, Lessig's talk is both informative and inspiring, though I'd be interested in ways the people would react to his concluding call for action."

It is About Time: Getting Our Values Around Copyright (Thanks, TonyBot!)

Remember the BBC's daft plan to put DRM on high-definition broadcasts even though it's illegal for the BBC to put DRM on its broadcasts? Remember when people rose up and sent angry letters to Ofcom, the UK regulator that oversees the BBC's broadcasting activity?

It worked. Ofcom told the BBC to forget about it. Score one for the good guys. Give yourselves several pats on the back.

Meanwhile: the Beeb should be ashamed of itself. Especially for this disingenuous smear-job they published after I wrote about this ridiculous plan in the Guardian.

Ofcom received a large number of responses to this consultation, in particular from consumers and consumer groups, who raised a number of potentially significant consumer 'fair use' and competition issues that were not addressed in our original consultation. In view of these responses we have decided not to approve a multiplex licence change without giving these issues further consideration. We remain keen to support the successful introduction of HD services on the DTT platform and are willing to consider a further round of consultation on the licence amendment if you could provide more information and evidence in the following three areas:

1. The anticipated benefits to citizens and consumers, and to the DTT platform, of the proposed approach;

2. How you propose to address the potential disadvantages to citizens and consumers associated with the impact on the receiver market under the proposed approach;

3. An explanation of potential alternative approaches that would impact less on the receiver market, and the extent to which those alternatives would be able to deliver similar outcomes and benefits for citizens and consumers.

We are keen to provide early clarity on the licence amendment to all stakeholders affected by the DVB-T2, MPEG 4, HDTV upgrade on the DTT platform and would welcome your early response on these three issues. Until we reach a final decision on the licence amendment the HD service information broadcast on Multiplex B should be provided in a free to air format. If Huffman compression is used then the related tables should be made available to receiver manufacturers without the need for a licence for Huffman look-up tables from the BBC.

HD on DTT content management proposals (PDF) (Thanks, Glyn!)

Earlier today, Xeni spotted an item by gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, encouraging black people to embrace the LGBT status of some of its heroes. Tatchell's been in the news of late for another reason, too: another tussle with fellow progressive activists.

The subject is Tatchell's vocal opposition to Islamic fundamentalism, assailed in "Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the War on Terror," published by Raw Nerve Books. As a result, authors Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem have come under fire. Raw Nerve was even induced to confess a list of "untruths" aimed at Tatchell.

In today's Observer Business column, John Naughton discusses what a ripoff it is for ebook vendors to "sell" you books with abusive, multi-thousand word "license agreements," pretending that because you bought your book over the network, it wasn't a sale, and so you don't get to own it. These "licenses" aren't about upholding copyright (if they were, you could replace thousands of words of lawyerese with four simple words: "Don't violate copyright law"). They're about overriding copyright -- which has all kinds of guarantees for the rights of book-owners -- with a private law that gives every advantage to the publisher or retailer, converting you from a noble reader to a wormy, contemptible licensor who doesn't deserve to own books.

The Kindle EULA is a good example. Section 3, which deals with "Digital Content" (such as downloaded books), says that "Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content." In other words, you are forbidden to lend or sell the book you've just "bought". In real-world terms, you can't lend your copy of 1984 to a friend or donate it to the school jumble sale.

Under the subsection on "Use of Digital Content', the Kindle EULA says: "Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use."

Translation: you can't back up your electronic books on to any other device - which means that if your Kindle packs up, or if Amazon moves on to another technical standard, you're screwed: your entire digital library has effectively been vaporised. Then you look round your house and note the number of electronic devices that no longer work.

Kindle readers beware - big Amazon is watching you read 1984

Christian sez, "Just now it has been announced in the press by the official Danish Anti-Piracy agency, Antipiratgruppen, that they are throwing in the towel and will seize their operations completely; to find and prosecute music copyright offenders. Here is a translation of the first published article in today's Danish press."

"We have to, because it is has been announced by the state court, that it takes very strong and concrete evidence to have these people prosecuted. We have simply not been able to establish the necessary evidence..."

An overview of Danish trials shows an extremely small possibility of getting sentenced - unless the the accused confesses. Four principal state court trials last year lead to three acquittals and only a single sentence for illegal file sharing. And this sentence only came into place because

"Out of the four cases we can establish, that the courts do not sentence owners of Internet connections simply because of technical identification of IP-adresses and technical recognition of files," they say.

Danish anti-piracy agency throw in the towel (Thanks, Christian!)

A British corporate law firm has created a new unit that will help easily offended corporate giants track down and sue anonymous Internet forum posters. They will also target whistle-blowers. They specialize in figuring out how to get ISPs to turn over their subscribers' personal information.

A spokeswoman for Wragge said: "Courts can compel Internet Service Providers or telephone service providers to make information available regarding registered names, email addresses and other key account holder information.

One growth area is identifying individuals involved in leaking confidential information, such as client or financial details, to competitor companies. With the help of employment law specialists, the team can assist both in finding the source of such leaks and advising on any subsequent employment aspects."

Birmingham Wragge team to focus on online comment defamation (via Futurismic)

Skeptics who believe that a university is actually a diploma mill often prove their point by enrolling their cats in the university's program and seeing whether the cat can get a degree. Some enterprising Wikipedians have assembled a list of several such cats.

Colby Nolan is a housecat who was awarded an MBA degree in 2004 by Trinity Southern University, a Dallas, Texas-based diploma mill, sparking a fraud lawsuit by the Pennsylvania attorney general's office.[1]...

Ben Goldacre, a UK-based science journalist, obtained a diploma in nutrition from the American Association of Nutritional Consultants for his dead cat, Henrietta, while investigating allegations about fake qualifications.[5]

List of cats with fraudulent diplomas (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

(Image: Count the cats!, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from Eva 101's Flickr stream)

Michael Geist sez, "The latest round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (the secret copyright treaty) talks have now wrapped up with the usual bland press release confirming that the talks focused on Internet and criminal enforcement, indicating that the next meeting will be in Mexico in January 2010, and pledging to complete the treaty as quickly as possible. More interesting is the unofficial release - the leaked document that provided the information on what the Internet enforcement chapter actually says."

The Leaked ACTA Document (Thanks, Michael!)

Luke Iseman sells a Bicycle Defense Kit for $19.90.

The Bicycle Defense Kit (BDK) offers options for dealing with aggressive motorists. Contained within an altoids tin, the 8 tools vary in detectability, potential to cause damage, and legality.

Specifically, cyclists can:

• Issue "citizen citations" with official-ish tickets.
• Label offending vehicles with an "I was a jerk to a cyclist" sticker.
• Introduce the risk of paint damage with a Jolly Rancher.
• Create certain coating cremation via DOT3 brake fluid.
• Make cars stink worse than their exhaust with a carefully-placed stink bomb.
• Throw a trusty bolt to dent offending traffic as it passes.
• Lock out loony drivers by filling their keyholes with super glue.
• Cut through tire valve stems with a utility blade.

Bicycle Defense Kit

You might have seen that the EU's "Telecoms Package" squeaked through with some protection for users' rights intact -- specifically, the proposal to allow "3-strikes" rules (whereby everyone in your house would lose internet access if any member was accused, without trial, of copyright infringement) was killed. But it's not as good as it could be, nor as good as it was before the content industry's lobbyists got their chums to rewrite it.

Jérémie Zimmemrmann writes,

The European Parliament and the Council of the EU came to an agreement on the "Telecoms Package" negotiations. They laid down legal and procedural guarantees against restrictions of Internet access. The new provision gives[1] "effective judicial protection and due process", guarantees "the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy" and the respect of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

However, the text only speaks of "a prior fair and impartial procedure" instead of a prior ruling by the judicial authorities, guaranteed by the original "amendment 138", and contains loopholes and ambiguities. The invalidation of freedom-killer measures such as "three strikes policies" will now depend on interpretation by the European Court of Justice and national courts. Moreover, the text only relates to measures taken by Member States and thereby fails to bar telecom operators and entertainment industries from knocking down the founding principle of Net neutrality.

Europe only goes half-way in protecting Internet rights.

The ACLU produced this video about men who were held at Guantánamo for years without charge then, after being tasered, suffocated, raped, punched, blinded, and spat upon, were released without charge. (Via The Agitator)

Alex sez,

The battle over your home entertainment equipment is heating up again and the time to make your voice heard is now. Hollywood wants the FCC to grant the studios permission to engage in so-called ""Selectable Output Control." SOC is a tech mandate that would allow movie studios to shut off video outputs on the back of your cable box and DVR during the screening of certain movies over cable.

SOC is bad because it could inhibit future innovation, obstruct interoperability, limit fair use and restrict consumer choice. Worst of all, it could force you to buy all new home entertainment gear in order to watch Hollywood films over cable.

Thirteen public interest groups today said the FCC should not respond to the "whims of industry" and grant the motion picture lobby the ability to control how consumers use their television sets and set-top boxes. As many as 20 million TV sets could be affected.

Take Action Now!

Yes, you read that right. The studios want the right to randomly switch off parts of your home theater depending on which program you're watching. And the FCC is taking this batshit proposal seriously.

So do something.

Tell the FCC to Say "No" to the Cable Kill Switch (Thanks, Alex!)

Michael Geist sez, "According to the official agenda, in a few hours the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement talks will continue on the Internet provisions and then move into the criminal provisions chapter. It is worth highlighting the ongoing criminal provisions as well. As previously leaked, the U.S. and Japan supplied the initial text for this chapter. Their proposal included extending criminal enforcement to both (1) cases of a commercial nature; and (2) cases involving significant willful copyright and trademark infringement even where there is no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain. In other words, non-commercial infringement could lead to criminal penalties. Plus, jail time for unauthorized camcording of films and even for fake DVD and CD packaging."

ACTA Negotiations, Day Two: What's On Tap (Thanks, Michael!)

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

• * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

• * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

• * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

• * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

Next: More on secret copyright treaty: your kids could go to jail for noncommercial music sharing

Global Voices has an interactive map showing bloggers who have been threatened, arrested, or killed for speaking out online. The United States has one — Elliot Madison was taken by the FBI for spreading word on Twitter on how to evade police arrest during the G20 protests in Pittsburgh on September 24th and released on bail shortly after. China has the most with 33 on record; Egypt is a close second with 29.

Threatened Voices via Erin Biba on Twitter

Oscar sez, "I just finished a 48-minute radio documentary for the Australian public broadcaster, the ABC, about remix culture, piracy and copyright. It's got brain-melting copyright education programs aimed at kids, commentary from Lessig, and tomfoolery from the Australian film industry about losses from internet piracy. There's also a history of the Statute of Anne, and the Australian music industry agreeing that amateur remixing at home should be allowed. It includes a cut-up of Johann Strauss' Blue Danube which will hurt your ears and make you laugh, and tracks from Girl Talk, Steinski, Strictly Kev and many others."

I've just gotten as far as the woman from the Australian film industry explaining that even though sales of DVD and box-office tickets are up, copyright infringement is still a deadly threat to the movie industry, demanding that the Internet be totally remade to prevent it, just in case. Nice stuff.

Adrianne Pecotic: The fact that there is a level of illegitimate consumption of film and television is something that detracts from the revenue that could go back into the industry and could go back into supporting local video stores, local cinemas and online distribution. Theft is not justified because someone is being successful, and that's a really important point in this debate.

Oscar McLaren: But it does seem strange that I mean, we're told in quite apocalyptic terms often that the video industry and the film industry is really starting to hurt. I don't imagine many people would actually be aware that the revenues are in fact going up quite steadily and have been for the past decade or so.

Adrianne Pecotic: I think the important thing about the losses that are being suffered by the film industry through piracy, is that individual investors in individual films rely on that investment in that particular film, for that film maker, or that investor as their entire revenue. If you're looking at the analysis across the board of the whole industry and whether it is going up or whether more people are consuming films or less people are consuming films, you're not asking the question of whether a particular film has had the opportunity to recoup its proper revenue.

Oscar McLaren: For the record, box office sales were also at all-time high levels last year, reaching nearly $1-billion.

Internet piracy

MP3 link

(Thanks, Oscar!)

Lobbyists at the EU have gutted the definition of "open" (part of a proposal to require more open standards and open source tools in European government) to mean "the willingness of persons, organisations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge." This meaningless drivel replaces a more robust definition that included, "The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.)."

According to this line of thinking, if everyone were forced to use Microsoft Word for document interchange, then that would provide interoperability. Except that it wouldn't, because interoperability implies at least two *different* things are are operating together: self-interoperability is trivial. Version 2's "homogeneity" is better described as a monopoly and a monoculture - and the last two decades have taught just how dangerous those are.

It's not hard to see why some companies might prefer the wording of Version 2. Version 1 specifically says: "The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis." This would allow alternative implementations from the free software community, which is unable to pay royalties. The current wording, which allows patented, proprietary solutions as part of the "open continuum" would mean that free software could not compete. How convenient.

EU Wants to Re-define "Closed" as "Nearly Open" (via /.)

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez, "The front page of today's Stars and Stripes has a story about a privacy issue Public.Resource.Org has been working on for a couple of years:"

From 1971 to 1996, the U.S. Senate published, in the Congressional Record, the name and the full Social Security number of every military officer promoted. If the officer was senior enough, they printed their birth date as well just to make sure the wrong General Jones wasn't promoted. From 1997 until this year, they switched to only printing the last four digits of the Socials in a note to privacy. (We'll remind readers of the recent article by John Markoff in the New York Times that explained how you can usually guess the first 5 digits of a Social Security number, and since Congress provides the last four digits, you have one-stop shopping for identity theft).

Public.Resource.Org learned of this situation when we copied all Government Printing Office (GPO) docs and put them on our server. A military officer wrote to me and said we had his social on our web site. We did a full scan on our archive, and it appeared that GPO forgot to redact two years of these numbers when they went on the Internet. We called their Inspector General, and they promptly put 50 people in a room and manually scanned every single page of the Congressional Record for those two years, performing the redaction of all SSNs. Of course, we immediately redacted our copies as well.

But, after that we ran into a brick wall. On the Internet, there's a security rule: when you find a bug, you give the vendor a little time to fix it, but then you notify the public. The reason you do that is otherwise you know the bad guys will all know about the bug, but the good guys won't. So, we started calling around and sending email to get things fixed, and ran into a brick wall with the U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Printing. This is the joint committee that has oversight of GPO and would be in a position to fix things. The staff of JCP totally refused to do anything. We had suggested that 3 things needed to happen:

I don't know about you, but I get tired of hearing about what climate change may possibly do to our planet in 150 years. It's important stuff to know. But the emphasis on that sort of implies we're not already experiencing the fallout.

Public radio's Marketplace has put together a big series on the impacts of climate change. And, instead of reporting-as-usual, they're actually taking the time to explain what's already happened, as well as what's to come. Besides some well-reported radio stories, they've also got an interactive map that breaks the United States down into eight regions, and compares---side-by-side---that area's past (mostly based on what things were like between 1960 and 1979), present and future.

To get self-centered about it, here's what climate change has already wrought in the Midwest:

• •Frost-free season has become longer by more than a week. Again, that's just since the 60s and 70s.
• •More frequent heatwaves.
• •Two record-breaking floods within the past 15 years
• •Heavier summer and winter precipitation.
• •Increased average temperatures, especially in winter.
• •Heavy downpours are twice as frequent as a century ago.

Marketplace: The Climate Race

French copyfighter Jérémie Zimmermann sez,

The negotiations on the Telecoms Package may come to a close this Wednesday. The Council of the European Union is still pushing for 'three strikes"' policies in Europe but is also attempting to allow private corporations to restrict citizens' Internet access. Will the European Parliament continue to hide behind a disputable legal argumentation provided by the rapporteur Catherine Trautmann, and accept the unacceptable for the future of Internet access in Europe?

A campaign page has been set up to allow everyone to contact Members of the European Parliament and urge them to refuse any proposal from the Council allowing "three strikes" policies in Europe, and to explicitly protect EU citizens' freedom to access the Net.

The new version of the compromise amendment presented by the Council of the EU still allows for restrictions of Internet access such as "three strikes" policies in Europe. Moreover, contrarily to the Parliament's version, the Council's proposal also permits private corporations to restrict Internet access, notably enabling entertainment industries to pressure Internet service providers in order to police the Net.

(Thanks, Jérémie!)

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez,

Boing Boing readers may remember a year ago when the great State of Oregon asserted copyright over the Oregon Revised Statutes, sending take-down notices prohibiting reuse by Justia and Public.Resource.Org. In a shining example of democracy, the legislature held hearings, heard us out, and unanimously waived copyright on the laws. The results of opening up the law were pretty spectacularly demonstrated when a 2nd-year law student, Robb Shecter, created the beautiful OregonLaws.Org (compare to the official site for a night and day look).

Well, those copyright assertions are back, this time by the Attorney General, who asserted ownership over the (for real!) Attorney General's Public Record and Public Meeting Manual. I spent last week in Oregon meeting with law school faculty and giving lectures at 3 universities on the topic of who owns the law.

The results have been compiled into a formal pleading which we are submitting to the Attorney General for his consideration. He seems like a good guy, and we've asked him to issue an official Attorney General Opinion on when the state may assert copyright, covering not only his Public Meeting manual, but also the Secretary of State's Administrative Rules, the Fire Marshall's Fire Code, and the Building Codes. We have quite a few of those documents already on line, so there is an actual issue on the table and we're hoping he'll do the research and make a ruling.

The Oregon Question (Thanks, Carl!)

Deirdre Walker, a 24-year police veteran who retired after serving as the Assistant Chief of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Department of Police writes up a recent interaction with the TSA in the Albany airport, subjecting it to critical policing analysis and finding it sorely, sorely wanting. This is a very good critical piece on conducting good security and curbing excess, and if there were any justice in this world, this woman would be put in charge of the TSA tomorrow.

Finally, I am most concerned about the "random" nature of my repeated selection for secondary screening. If there is no discrimination at work, and my selection is entirely random, then we have yet another, and probably more significant problem.

For years in policing, we relied on random patrols to curb crime. We relied upon this "strategy" until someone went out and captured some data, and did a study that demonstrated conclusively that random patrols do not work (Kansas City Study).

As police have employed other types of "random" interventions, as in DWI checkpoints, they have had to develop policies, procedures and training to ensure that the "random" nature of these intrusions is truly random. Whether every car gets checked, or every tenth car, police must demonstrate that they have attempted to eliminate the effects of active and passive discrimination when using "random" strategies. No such accountability currently exists at TSA.

* "Do I have the right to refuse this search?"

Rishab sez, "Knowledge Ecology International is organising a petition to President Obama to make the US position in negotiations on the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement transparent to the public. Boing Boing readers may remember previous posts on ACTA, the 'throw people in jail for sharing' agreement being developed in secret by rich countries who find the semi-public consultations in forums like WIPO tiresome."

Obama's administration has refused to disclose the drafts of ACTA on the grounds of "national security" (yes, really!), but we know from leaks and memos that it includes universal surveillance of the net; mandatory loss of Internet connections without trial for households where one member is accused of violating copyright; and a duty to search your laptop and personal devices at the border for infringing material.

Petition to President Obama, regarding transparency of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Thanks, Rishab!)