Guido Núñez-Mujica, a 26-year-old Boing Boing reader in Venezuela who is an avid gamer, writes in with this extensive personal observation piece about a new law that widely criminalizes video games in the South American country. As you read the piece, please also bear in mind that publishing this sort of thing under one's full name is not done without personal risk.

These games are a cherished part of my life, they helped to shape my young mind, they gave me challenges and vastly improved my English, opening the door to a whole new world of literature, music and people from all around the world. What I have achieved, all my research, how I have been able to travel even though I'm always broke, the hard work I've done to convince people to fund a start up for cheap biotech for developing countries and regular folks, none of that would have been possible hadn't I learned English through video games.

Now, thanks to the tiny horizons of the cast of morons who govern me, thanks to the stupidity and ham-fisted authoritarianism of the local authorities, so beloved of so many liberals, my 7 year old brother's chances to do the same could be greatly impacted.

After the jump, Núñez-Mujica's essay in full.

Yesterday marked exactly one year since Iranian blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakhshan was arrested. Cyrus Farivar has been covering the story on his blog and in various news outlets. He posts an update today, after a Skype chat with Hossein Derakhshan's brother, Hamed Derakhshan (who lives in an undisclosed country). We now know that Hoder is being held in the notorious Evin Prison, where many other political detainees have been taken, and where human rights abuses are commonplace and extreme.

"Hossein confirmed the recent Human Rights Activists in Iran reports that claim he had been forced to do squats in cold showers and has been beaten repeatedly," reports Cyrus.

His family doesn't know when they'll see him next, and does not know all of the details of his detainment.

Hossein Derakhshan's brother, Hamed, speaks out [ cyrusfarivar.com ]

From Robert Arthur's blog, Narco Polo.

An excerpt from The New Prohibition: Voices of Dissent Challenge the Drug War, the book that includes Richard Mack's story:

Ted and I were different. He smoked, he drank, at times he used marijuana, and his morals were not in line with my Mormon background. But he was a good man. He cared about his children, and he was a hard worker. He was loyal and understanding, and he had a great sense of humor .... Why were we arresting people, some really decent people, for smoking marijuana? Should we arrest all the "Teds" in the country? Take his sports car, ruin his career, give him an arrest record and some jail time, and maybe overall just teach him a lesson? (pp. 13-14)

The Narc Who Got High: What In The Heck Is The Big Deal?

I'm giving two talks in the UK this week -- the first in Cambridge, as part of the Arcadia Seminar, held at Robinson College; the second is at Sheffield, as part of the DocFest premiere of RIP: A Remix Manifesto, a documentary on copyfighting and art that features some interviews with me. Hope to see you at them!

Cambridge: 3 November 2009, 6PM
Arcadia Seminar: 3rd Nov. "Thinking Like a Dandelion: Cory Doctorow on copyright, Creative Commons and creativity"
Umney Theatre, Robinson College, Cambridge. Please email mh569@cam.ac.uk if you are planning to attend.

Sheffield: 5 November 2009, 2:25PM-4:30PM
RiP! A Remix Manifesto
Showroom 1, Sheffield DocFest (tickets)

Update: CORRECTION -- I'm at Sheffield Doc/Fest from 1425h-1630h, not 1600-1800h as previously stated!

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?"

I have an op-ed in today's Times about the British plan to disconnect people from the internet if someone in their home is accused -- without proof -- of infringing copyright, and how utterly unjust this is.

Even more radical is the Mandelson proposal to disconnect entire families from the internet if a single member -- or a neighbour who uses their internet connection -- is accused, without proof, of violating copyright. Leave aside the fundamental injustice of collective punishment, a practice so abhorrent that it is outlawed in the Geneva Convention; think instead of the utter disproportionality of this.

The internet is an integral part of our children's education; it's critical to our employment; it's how we stay in touch with distant relatives. It's how we engage with government. It's the single wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. It isn't just a conduit for getting a few naughty free movies, it is the circulatory system of the information age.

Denying physics won't save the video stars

Score one for Britain in its contest with the United States to create the stupidest fear-based society. The Watford Borough Council took the lead by banning parents from supervising their own kids in public playgrounds, "because they have not undergone criminal record checks."

The only adults allowed to monitor the kids are idiocracy-vetted "play rangers." The children's parents must "watch from outside a perimeter fence."

A council notice to parents explains that: "Safeguarding the children and young people who use the site is one of our top priorities.

"Due to Ofsted regulations we have a responsibility to ensure that every authorised adult who enters our site is properly vetted and given a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check by Watford Borough Council."

Council Mayor Dorothy Thornhill argued they are merely enforcing government policy at the play areas, in Vicarage Road and Leggatts Way.

She said: "Sadly, in today's climate, you can't have adults walking around unchecked in a children's playground and the adventure playground is not a meeting place for adults.

Right pillocks at Watford Borough Council ban parents from hanging out with kids at park (Thanks, Fee!)

Hugh from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "Today, EFF is launching our new 'Takedown Hall of Shame' project, which collects the worst and most shameful examples of bogus DMCA takedowns. We've got everything from the recent Ralph Lauren takedown to Michael Savage's attempts to silence critics to a video NPR tried to remove just last week!"

"Free speech in the 21st century often depends on incorporating video clips and other content from various sources," explained EFF Senior Staff Attorney and Kahle Promise Fellow Corynne McSherry. "It's what The Daily Show with Jon Stewart does every night. This is 'fair use' of copyrighted or trademarked material and protected under U.S. law. But that hasn't stopped thin-skinned corporations and others from abusing the legal system to get these new works removed from the Internet. We wanted to document this censorship for all to see."

EFF's Takedown Hall of Shame at www.eff.org/takedowns focuses on the most egregious examples of takedown abuse, including an example of a YouTube video National Public Radio tried to remove just this week that criticizes same-sex marriage. Other Hall of Shame honorees include NBC for requesting removal of an Obama campaign video and CBS for targeting a McCain campaign video in the critical months before the 2008 election. The Hall of Shame will be updated regularly, as bad takedowns continue to squash free speech rights of artists, critics, and commentators big and small.

Takedown Hall of Shame

'Hall of Shame' Calls Out Bogus Internet Censorship (Thanks, Hugh!)

Eternally excellent Rachel Maddow allowed me to join her tonight (pretty much the only reason I own a TV now is to watch her show) for a discussion about John McCain's "Internet Freedom Act," also known as "The Great Telecom Reacharound of 2009."

Why is the former presidential candidate who once described himself as technologically "illiterate" suddenly so worried about the nerdy details of internet architecture? Follow the money.

A Sunlight Foundation Report released yesterday says McCain received more telecom lobbying money than any other senator, over the past two years. We ought to stop calling him the senator from Arizona and start calling him the senator from AT&T.

Video: McCain Pushes Agenda Against Web Freedom (The Rachel Maddow Show)

Troy had heard the reputation that the 555 California Building's security guards had for hassling photographers, so he tried out the experiment of photographing (legally) the building, and was met by potty-mouth security guards who threatened to break his "fucking camera" and punch him in the face. A rep from property managers Voranado Realty later apologized and said that this wasn't "typical of our security team."

No photography, they stated clearly. Why, we responded. Safety, they said.

I decided to challenge this statement and the older of the bunch (left) asked me if I wanted to be punched in the face. No, I replied, I have to go back to work and a black eye would make things awkward for me. He then asked me how I would feel if he broke my camera. I told him I would be bummed, but that I needed an upgrade and if he touched me or my camera I would seek monetary legal action to the extent of a brand new Canon 5D Mark II.

Shortly after, my internal voice of reason set in and I decided to leave. The conversation was going no where and a definition of "safety" was unable to be produced.

One of the security guards did give me a phone number to call for more information, which I called this morning. Strangely, the number has nothing to do with BofA or 555 California, but in fact belongs to a woman in Chinatown who had no idea what I was talking about.

If you're in San Francisco and want to go by 555 this weekend to get a photo, do drop by the comments on this post to let us know whether this is "typical" or not.

"I Will Break Your Fucking Camera"

Fershteh Ghazi (@iranbaan) tweets that Hamed Derakhshan, brother of jailed Iranian blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan, just said on @bbcpersian his brother has been held in solitary confinement for 10 months. Hoder was first arrested on November 1, 2008.

Yesterday, Hoder's father wrote a letter to Iran's judiciary to appeal for his son's release. That letter was published on the website of Salaam, a reformist newspaper from Iran. (both items via Cyrus Farivar).

Sequouia, a company that makes many of the electronic voting machines used in the US and elsewhere, has inadvertently leaked much of the secret source-code that powers its systems. The first cut at analysis shows what looks like illegal election-rigging code ("code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election") in the source.

Sequoia blew it on a public records response. We (basically EDA) have election databases from Riverside County that Sequoia insisted on "redacting" first, for which we paid cold cash. They appear instead to have just vandalized the data as valid databases by stripping the MS-SQL header data off, assuming that would stop us cold.

They were wrong.

The Linux "strings" command was able to peel it apart. Nedit was able to digest 800meg text files. What was revealed was thousands of lines of MS-SQL source code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election, in violation of a bunch of clauses in the FEC voting system rulebook banning interpreted code, machine modified code and mandating hash checks of voting system code.

I've got it all organized for commentary and download in wiki form.

This is the first time we can legally study a voting system's innards without NDAs or court-ordered secrecy.

Sequoia Voting Systems hacks self in foot (via MeFi)

Over the past two days, Internet advocates in Mexico have been voicing outrage over a proposed 3% telecommunications tax in a number of ways -- including flooding Twitter with the hashtag "internetnecesario," shorthand for "the internet is a basic neccesity." Here's one English language blog post from one blogger who believes the tax would be terrible news, and here is another in Spanish. Background on the politics in this Reuters item. (image via trendsmap.com, thanks @wordwardness).

Rebecca from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation on Thursday October 22nd at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco in a fundraiser honoring the 2009 Pioneer Award winners. Awarded every year since 1992, the Pioneer Awards recognize leaders who are extending freedom and innovation on the electronic frontier. This year's winners include hardware hacker Limor 'Ladyada' Fried, e-voting security researcher Harri Hursti, and public domain advocate Carl Malamud. EFF will also present a 2009 Cooperative Computing Award to Mersenne Research, Inc., Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, for finding a record breaking prime number. Tickets are $60."

I am a previous Pioneer Award recipient and was doubly honored this year to be a Pioneer Judge. Congrats to all the winners on their much-deserved honor!

Join EFF for the 2009 Pioneer Awards fundraiser honoring: Limor "Ladyada" Fried, Harri Hursti and Carl Malamud

The British ISP TalkTalk has produced a compelling case against the government's plans to disconnect whole households from the Internet if the copyright industry accuses them -- without proving anything in court -- of three acts of infringement. TalkTalk picked a random street in North London and showed that 23 of the households in that road were using WEP security to stop strangers from accessing their networks. WEP has been thoroughly broken for years, but many older games consoles, phones and other devices are only capable of using WEP to connect to WiFi networks. TalkTalk argues that householders who have done everything they can to secure their networks from people who want to use them for cover during illegal file-sharing are still vulnerable to being disconnected by record- and film-company execs.

Households that are subjected to this form of collective punishment -- "someone around here broke the law, so you'll all suffer" -- lose access to the net, and with it, connectivity related to their employment, education, family connections, health, and government. All on the unsubstantiated say-so of the same entertainment companies that have previously accused a laser-printer of illegally downloading an Indiana Jones movie, not to mention the small legion of dead people; ancient, non-computer-owning grannies; and other innocents who've been legally threatened by the music industry for alleged copyright infringement.

A rep from the record industry insists that he has bought some magic beans "robust" evidence-gathering software that will never, ever cut someone off from the Internet on false pretences, so we don't need judges or evidence or trials or any of that messy business. But, of course, if someone is hacking your WiFi without your knowledge, he's prepared to cut you off from the Internet, because "the responsibility for ensuring that an internet account shared throughout a household is not being used for illegal filesharing clearly lies with the account holder."

ISP in file-sharing wi-fi hack

Just ran into a Norwegian librarian at Internet Librarian International in London wearing this killer tee-shirt, created in protest of the PATRIOT Act's provision to force librarians to reveal which books their patrons were checking out. The Latin translates as "We know what you read, and we're not saying."

We know what you read, and we're not saying

In a violation of British free speech rights dating back to the 1688 Bill of Rights, The Guardian newspaper has been forbidden by court order from reporting on a question in Parliament. We don't know who raised the question, what it was about, or where you can find it.

Today's published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented - for the first time in memory - from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations...

The right to report parliament was the subject of many struggles in the 18th century, with the MP and journalist John Wilkes fighting every authority - up to the king - over the right to keep the public informed. After Wilkes's battle, wrote the historian Robert Hargreaves, "it gradually became accepted that the public had a constitutional right to know what their elected representatives were up to".

Guardian gagged from reporting parliament

(Thanks to Andy and everyone else who suggested this!)

Zachary Christie is a six-year old student in Newark, Delaware who is facing 45 days in reform school because he brought his new Cub Scout eating utensil to school for lunch. The utensil includes a knife, and this violates the school's brainlessly, robotically enforced zero-tolerance policy on "weapons on school property."

Critics contend that zero-tolerance policies like those in the Christina district have led to sharp increases in suspensions and expulsions, often putting children on the streets or in other places where their behavior only worsens, and that the policies undermine the ability of school officials to use common sense in handling minor infractions.

"Something has to change," said Dodi Herbert, whose 13-year old son, Kyle, was suspended in May and ordered to attend the Christina district's reform school for 45 days after another student dropped a pocket knife in his lap. School officials declined to comment on the case for reasons of privacy.

Ms. Herbert, who said her son was a straight-A student, has since been home-schooling him instead of sending him to the reform school...

"I just think the other kids may tease me for being in trouble," he said, pausing before adding, "but I think the rules are what is wrong, not me."

It's a Fork, It's a Spoon, It's a ... Weapon? (Thanks, Ron!)

(Image: Case Boy Scouts of America Caramel Jigged Bone Hobo Knife 4-1/8", Knifecenter.com; illustration only, this is not necessarily the cutlery Zach Christie got in trouble for carrying)

ZDnet's Richard Koman accuses Yahoo of having collaborated with the Iranian regime during the recent post-election protests. Koman says the online giant provided names and emails for some 200,000 Iranian Yahoo users to authorities so that those same authorities would "unban" Yahoo on the state-controlled internet. The blog post does not include a response by Yahoo, but promises "to provide further proof as the story unfolds." UPDATE: Yahoo denies all of the claims in the ZDnet article: "The allegations in the story are false. Neither Yahoo! nor any Yahoo! representative has met with or communicated with any Iranian officials, and Yahoo! has not disclosed user data to the Iranian government. "

Oh, the unfortunate irony. The annotations on this Google Map are all in Chinese, so it's of little utility for a non-Chinese-speaker like myself -- but it's the most extensive such documentation I've seen about the jail locations of persons in China imprisoned for online dissidence. (via @rmack)

Margaret Killjoy from Steampunk Magazine writes, "One of the founders of modern steampunk thought, Professor Calamity, is facing multiple felony charges after having been accused of running a twitter account that communicated with protesters during the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh last month. To add insult to injury, they raided his house in Queens, confiscating everything from hammers to copies of SteamPunk Magazine."

EFF has all the court documents on this.

We put our hands out where they could see them. They ordered us out of bed. They wouldn't let us dress, but they did put a random assortment of clothes on some people. We were handcuffed, and although the upstairs and downstairs groups were kept separate initially, we were soon all together, sitting in the living room, positioned like dolls on the couches and chairs. We were in handcuffs for several hours, and we were helpless as our little bird, a Finch we had rescued and were rehabilitating, flew out the open door to certain death, after his cage had been battered by the cops in their zeal to open the upstairs bedroom doors by force. We shouted at them, but they stood there and watched.

And they stood and watched us for hours and hours and hours. 16 hours to be precise, 16 hours of the NYPD and FBI traipsing through our house, confiscating our lives in a fishing expedition related to the G20 protests of September 24th and 25th. The search warrant, when we were finally allowed to read it, mentioned violation of federal rioting laws and was vague enough to allow the entire house to be searched. They kept repeating that we were not arrested, that we were free to go. But being free meant being watched by the FBI, monitored while using the bathroom, not allowed to make phone calls for hours or to observe them ransacking our rooms. Being free meant they took two of us away on bullshit summonses, and even though this was our house, where we lived, if we left, we could not re-enter.

SteamPunk's Professor Calamity faces multiple felonies for twittering

Man Arrested for Twittering Goes to Court, EFF Has the Documents

Aaron Swartz, co-founder of Reddit, was investigated by the FBI for participating in a project to take the publicly owned US court records from the PACER database (where they were very expensive to access) and put them on the web. He's requested his FBI file and put it on the web:

AARON SWARTZ has a profile on the website LINKEDIN, at www.linkedin.com/in/aaronsw. SWARTZ is listed as a writer, hacker and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. SWARTZ's education includes Stanford University, Sociology, 2004. SWARTZ's experience includes the following:

SWARTZ has a profile on the website FACEBOOK. His networks include Stanford '08 and Boston, MA. The picture used in his profile was also used in an article about SWARTZ in THE NEW YORK TIMES.

SWARTZ's personal webpage, www.aaronsw.com, includes a section titled "Aaron Swartz: a life time of dubious accomplishments". In 2007, SWARTZ began working full-time as a member of the Long-Term Planning Committee for the Human Race (LTPCHR).

February 19, Manassas, VA:

On February 17, 2008 [sic], SA [REDACTED] received an email from [REACTED] Administrative Office of the US Courts, with links to two published articles regarding the compromise of the PACER system.

On February 12, 2009, [REACTED] published an article in THE NEW YORK TIMES titled "An Effort to Upgrade a Court Archive to Free and Easy". For the article, [REDACTED] interviewed [REDACTED] and AARON SWARTZ regarding the compromise of the PACER system.

Wanted by the FBI

George Norris, a 66-year-old retiree who ran a home-based orchid business was imprisoned for two years in a federal penitentiary because "he had failed to properly navigate the many, often irrational, paperwork requirements the U.S. imposed when it implemented an arcane international treaty's new restrictions on trade in flowers and other flora," reports claims the The Washington Times, in a story titled, "Criminalizing everyone." (The orchids themselves were legal.)

When 60-year-old Kathy Norris asked court officials why U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's very own SWAT team had raided and ransacked her home, they helpfully explained, "You don't need to know. You can't know."

The judge who sentenced Mr. Norris had some advice for him and his wife: "Life sometimes presents us with lemons." Their job was, yes, to "turn lemons into lemonade."

The judge apparently failed to appreciate how difficult it is to run a successful lemonade stand when you're an elderly diabetic with coronary complications, arthritis and Parkinson's disease serving time in a federal penitentiary.

UPDATE: Read the comments for more context to the story. There seems to be more going on here than what the The Washington Times is reporting.

Here's an interesting post from 2004 about George Norris from Pollenatrix, a "botanical discipline" blog:

George Norris, a crusty old orchid grower from Texas, has yet again found himself squarely in the sights of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the Department of Homeland Security.

George, along with his business associate Peruvian grower Manuel Arias-Silver, is charged with conspiracy to smuggle endangered phragmipediums (orchids) into the U.S. Since Manuel is one of only three growers to have been given permission by the Peruvian government to artificially propagate the newly discovered phragmipedium Kovachii, it appears that the U.S. government has singled out the pair for special attention over suspicions that this is the species they were smuggling. There appears to be little evidence of this, though it is likely the pair were taking some shortcuts on paperwork because of the challenges of importing other, legally propagated species, into the U.S.

In the orchid world, the CITES treaty is almost universally denounced; the charge is that it does nothing to stop habitat destruction, and actually encourages illegal smuggling of wild-collected plants because the regulations make it so difficult to trade in artifically-propagated specimens.

Federal SWAT Raid Over . . . Orchids

Documentary film-maker Kirby Dick ("This Film is Not Yet Rated") has just released his latest doc, "Outrage," about anti-gay politicians who are secretly gay. These are the twisted lawmakers who campaign against gay rights in public, but who are, in fact, gay (and who generally enjoy the rights they're publicly against, thanks to their power and privilege).

An official selection of the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, OUTRAGE investigates the hidden lives of some of the country's most powerful policymakers - from now-retired Idaho Senator Larry Craig, to former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevy - and examines how these and other politicians have inflicted damage on millions of Americans by opposing gay rights. Equally disturbing, the film explores the mainstream media's complicity in keeping those secrets, despite the growing efforts to "out" them by gay rights organizations and bloggers.

Through a combination of archival news footage and exclusive interviews with politicians and members of the media, OUTRAGE probes the psychology of a double lifestyle, the ethics of outing closeted politicians, and the double standards that the media upholds in its coverage of the sex lives of gay public figures. As Barney Frank, perhaps the best-known openly gay member of Congress explains, "There is a right to privacy, but not a right to hypocrisy. It is very important that the people who make the law be subject to the law."

"Outrage" premieres on HBO this week.

OUTRAGE (Thanks, Kirby!)

Michael Geist sez, "The Canadian government has introduced Internet surveillance legislation that requires ISPs to disclose customer information without a warrant. Peter Van Loan, the Minister in charge, claims that a Vancouver kidnapping earlier this year shows the need for these powers. I did some digging and shows this to be a lie - the Vancouver police acknowledge that the case did not involve an ISP request and the suspect is now in custody."

Van Loan's Misleading Claims: Case for Lawful Access Not Closed

In the video above, which is making the viral rounds: a San Francisco police officer who IDs himself as "Officer Schwab, (badge number) 2099" arrests a skateboarder identified as Zach Stow, after Stow calls the officer a "fckng dck." Over at metblogs SF, Richard Ault says the officer's understanding of SF skateboarding codes is wrong. An article about the incident is here at the SF Chronicle. My two cents, as someone who is neither a lawyer, nor a skateboarder: taunting a police officer by calling him a "fckng dck" is about as dumb as it gets, but that does not give the officer the right to threaten to break the guy's arms, or arrest him for -- what was it, in the end, failing to carry identification? In any case: viva la video camera. (thanks, Jacob Appelbaum)

On "Getting Over It," by Lauren over at Feministe:

What does rape do to you? Afterward? It changed me; there is before and after. Before, a child, playing with Barbies, looking sideways at boys, wondering. After, confusion. Depression. A litany of fuck-ups and fuck-its, whatevers, mistakes, trusting no one, least of all myself. Before, sex was mysterious; after, miasma. I was tarred as a Lolita. I was called jail bait.

Rape is not the only assault. Around rape is a large segment of the population that questions the victim, a culture that looks down on victims for allowing themselves to be victimized, or keep them victimized, questions about the victim's credibility, questions about the legacy of rape and how bad it is, because how bad is rape really? Rape, because various levels and forms of sexual assault are systemic and pervasive across all societies, exists alongside one's experiences of unwanted touching, wanted touching, sexual objectification, sexual desire, sexual harassment, incest, love, leering eyes, cat calls, roaming hands, consent, confusion, tits, vagina, rectum, penis, mouth, rape and not-rape, all of it loaded, all of it veering at rape's ugly legacy, co-mingling, the legacy that tells us to be more careful, to dress more conservatively, to BE BETTER AT BEING VULNERABLE, or BE MORE POWERFUL, or BE MORE FEARFUL, or GET OVER IT ALREADY. Rape leaks into healthy, consensual experiences. It lingers. It pervades.

Related: This Smoking Gun archive contains the entire "1977 grand jury testimony of the 13-year-old California girl with whom the director had sex after plying her with Champagne and a Quaalude at the Los Angeles home of Jack Nicholson."

A rape is a rape by any other name.

See also: Polanski's Victim and Me, by the celebrated novelist Robert Goolrick, who is also a survivor of child rape.

Finally, Polanski in his own words in 1979, an unrepentant abuser:

"If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But... f--ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f-- young girls. Juries want to f-- young girls. Everyone wants to f-- young girls!"

Boing Boing reader/commenter catastrophegirl, commenting in a thread about an enraged hillbilly user of flavored chewing tobacco, points to her Flickr photoset documenting her quest to make DIY kretek (clove cigarettes). These lung-rotting treats are much beloved by goths, and by my inner 14-year-old punk girl. Both catastrophegirl and "skoalrebel," each in their own ways, were upset about the Obama administration's recent ban on flavored tobaccos. The new FDA kibosh makes it illegal to sell stuff like clove cigs, and skoalrebel's beloved Copenhagen whiskey deeyup.

Catastrophegirl commented,

I heard about [the ban] the day it was signed. Now i am back to smoking a pipe at home and smoking homemade clove cigarettes when i drive. Besides the difficulty involved in driving and lighting a pipe, cops for some reason cannot fathom a caucasian woman smoking a briar pipe that doesn't have weed in it.

It's kind of a pain to set up and took me a while to find the right tobacco for my tastes, but aside from my little nicotine addiction, I am going to thoroughly enjoy smoking my clove cigarettes in public. The law is about sales and distribution. it does not cover making your own at home and smoking them as far as i have been able to glean from the law. If someone could point me at the full text of it, that'd be neat - even the FDA site has an abbreviated version.

I remember the taste of cloves well. In my memory, it is inextricably linked with certain songs by Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Damned, and other bands from the last great days of leather, studs, and black vinyl. I've long since become a nonsmoker, and believe that smoking and chewing are horrible habits -- but on this point, I can even agree with skoalrebel: the ban is total bullsheyut. Consenting adults ought to be able to purchase and smoke/chew the stuff if they want. The ban is a reacharound for Big Tobacco.

"Making Kretek" (Flickr)

The UK Border Agency has scientists "horrified" at a weird, eugenics-flavoured proposal to test asylum seekers' DNA to determine if they are truly and purely of the "race" they claim to be from. Even the scientists who pioneered DNA fingerprinting and related techniques call the idea "horrifying," "naive" and "flawed."

Science has obtained Border Agency documents showing that isotope analyses of hair and nail samples will also be conducted "to help identify a person's true country of origin." The project "is regrettable," says Caroline Slocock, chief executive of Refugee and Migrant Justice headquartered in London. Although asylum-seekers are asked to provide tissue samples voluntarily, turning down a government request for tissue could be misinterpreted, she says, "so we believe [the program] should not be introduced at all."

The Border Agency's DNA-testing plans would use mouth swabs for mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome testing, as well as analyses of subtle genetic variations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). One goal of the project is to determine whether asylum-seekers claiming to be from Somalia and fleeing persecution are actually from another African country such as Kenya. If successful, the Border Agency suggests its pilot project could be extended to confirming other nationalities. Yet scientists say the Border Agency's goals confuse ancestry or ethnicity with nationality. David Balding, a population geneticist at Imperial College London, notes that "genes don't respect national borders, as many legitimate citizens are migrants or direct descendants of migrants, and many national borders split ethnic groups."

Scientists Decry "Flawed" and "Horrifying" Nationality Tests

But wait, there's more!

Christopher Phillips, University of Santiago de Compostela: I had been asked earlier this year by colleagues in the UKFSS about the prospects of differentiating Somali ancestries from other populations in E[ast] Africa, however, I am sceptical about the precision possible beyond a simple five global group differentiation from limited typing of Y-chromosome/mtDNA/small-scale multiplexes of autosomal SNPs. Clearly there is a serious risk of falling into the trap of over-interpretation of population variation data that has limited scope. My suggestion this spring was to perform whole genome scans to isolate informative markers and begin to build these into sets of SNPs that could then be assessed with comprehensive reference populations. However, this does not amount to consultation on the correct way to develop and test a custom ancestry analysis system. I also doubt that my suggested approach to validating the system will be pursued, since a large number of samples would be required both within the relatively large region of Somalia and from surrounding populations such as those of Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea. Therefore a good deal of time, money and patience would be needed to find the best markers for the purpose and then test their efficacy....

Jane Evans, NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory: I can't imagine how you use [isotope evidence] to define nationality....It worries me as a scientist that actual peoples' lives are being influenced based on these methods.

U.K. Border Agency Docs and Expanded Reactions

On his blog, Jonathan Turley writes that this video "appears to show Pittsburgh police during G20 protests using an arrested citizen as a prop for a group photo." That's what it looks like to me, too. (Via The Agitator)

Dean Putney took the photos of the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) used in the Pittsburgh G20 protest. He says:

My roommate and I went to check things out downtown to see how the riot was coming along. We stopped here along with the news crews and a few spectators to watch. Police came in off of city buses in groups of about 50 or so and down the street (in the UPitt campus) they were setting off smoke grenades, tear gas and using the LRAD. The police warned protestors to leave multiple times over the loudspeaker before and during their use of force.

Shortly after we arrived that one girl threw her bicycle at an officer. My roommate and I are in the news footage of that. We stuck around for a while afterwards, watched these trucks and the SWAT team vans go by, collected a couple of the smoke grenade cartridges and went home. The cartridges are pretty cool, 40mm rounds. Each one costs about $25, and there were at least a dozen of them on the street where we were.

Previously: G20 protesters blasted by sonic cannon

Lady Ada and Phil Torrone made a $250 working replica of the Dazzler, a $1 million non-lethal puke flashlight developed at the request of the US Dept. of Homeland Security. The link below includes complete instructions for making one of your own.

Bedazzler DIY non-lethal weaponry

This could have been a deleted scene from Children of Men.

US security forces turned the piercing sound on their own citizens yesterday to widespread outrage. Pittsburgh officials told the New York Times that it was the first time "sound cannon" had been used publicly.

G20 protesters blasted by sonic cannon

Vermillion County Prosecutor Nina Alexander is proud to be "enforcing the law as it was written" by prosecuting Sally Harpold, a grandmother who bought two boxes of cold medication in less than a week. Alexander admits she knows Harpold had no intention of making meth with the medicine. That's beside the point. "The public has the responsibility to know what is legal and what is not, and ignorance of the law is no excuse," she Alexander.

Vigo County Sheriff Jon Marvel got his chance to show off a rock-solid understanding of cause-and-effect, too:

“I feel for her, but if she could go to one of the area hospitals and see a baby born to a meth-addicted mother …”

Because the best way to prevent meth-addicted babies is to arrest women who buy cold medication for their grandchildren.

Uh-oh. Now that a terrorist has tried unsuccessfully to blow up a Saudi prince with a bomb shoved up his ass, the TSA is obliged to perform rectal exams on every flier for the rest of time. After all, once a jihadi failed to blow up a plane with his shoe, we all needed to start taking our shoes off. Then some knuckleheads believed they could blow up a plane with energy beverages and hair gel, so now we have to limit ourselves to 100ml of all liquids and gels, unless they're for babies or are prescription (because no mass-murderer would be so evil as to forge a doctor's note, which, as every junkie knows, cannot possibly be forged).

Now we found someone who was made to believe he could kill people with an asshole bomb, and so it follows that the TSA will have to ban -- or at least inspect -- our assholes. They're like opinions, you know, everybody's got one. Except, of course, most of us got to keep our assholes to ourselves. Not anymore.

Let's just be thankful that no one has yet convinced a suicidal murderer that he could blow up a plane with his mind, because once that happens, we're all in for mandatory airport trepannations. Because, you know, you can't be too safe. Every little bit helps. If an unhinged suicide bomber believes it's possible, we must take it seriously. To do less would be irresponsible.

For years, I have made the joke about Richard Reid: "Just be glad that he wasn't the underwear bomber." Now, sadly, we have an example of one.

Lewis Page, an "improvised-device disposal operator tasked in support of the UK mainland police from 2001-2004," pointed out that this isn't much of a threat for three reasons: 1) you can't stuff a lot of explosives into a body cavity, 2) detonation is, um, problematic, and 3) the human body can stifle an explosion pretty effectively (think of someone throwing himself on a grenade to save his friends).

But who ever accused the TSA of being rational?

Ass Bomber

Jérémie Zimmermann sez, "The first conciliation meeting on the Telecoms Package will take place tonight at 9:30PM. In this meeting, 27 Members of the European Parliament will decide on the future of Internet in Europe. They will choose whether to fix or maintain the dreadful anti-Net neutrality dispositions voted in second reading by the Parliament, under the influence of AT&T. Rapporteurs and representatives of the Swedish Presidency opposed this idea so far. European citizens only have a few hours to urge MEPs to preserve Europe's innovation, competition, and citizen's fundamental rights."

Act now to save Net neutrality! (Thanks, Jérémie!)

Parker sez, "Although the Google Books Settlement is being modified, the questions it raises are important for students to think about. Students for Free Culture, in the interest of better informing students about the settlement, has solicited the thoughts of a variety of experts who are providing guest posts reflecting on how the settlement will likely impact students. This is the second installment in the series, from EFF's Rebecca Jeshke, and it talks about the privacy issues involved. All of last week and this week, we'll be posting other responses from people like Google's Derek Slater, and NYLS' James Grimmelman, about different facets of the settlement."

In the physical world, bookstores and libraries have fought for strong privacy protections, requiring the police to get a warrant before getting access to your reading records. These strong positions were developed precisely to respect our private, personal relationship with reading and learning, and to block any "chilling effect" violating that privacy might have on Americans' right to explore the world of ideas. That's why Google Book Search needs a robust, enforceable privacy policy that gives readers as much privacy in online books as we already have today.

A legal settlement that would pave the way for Google Book Search to go forward without these privacy protections is pending approval from a New York federal district court. But a group of more than two dozen authors and publishers, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and others, has filed an objection with the judge. The coalition--including best-selling novelists Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem along with Anthony Romero of the ACLU and science fiction author Cory Doctorow--presents a list of privacy protections that would improve the settlement, including limiting tracking of users and requiring a court order or judge-approved warrant before disclosure of the information collected, ensuring user control of personal information stored by Google, and making the system transparent to readers.

GBS and Students: EFF's Rebecca Jeschke on Privacy Implications (Thanks, Parker!)

BB guestblogger Aman Ali's post about a modest bathing suit designed by Muslim women for Muslim women has sparked debate. At the time of this post, I'm also seeing that an anonymous Muslim woman has voiced her thoughts in the thread, and I encourage you to go read. She ends: "I own a burqini and LOVE IT."

Still, some non-Muslim commenters in the related thread take the position that "modest swimsuits" such as the burqini are a form of Muslim oppression against women. I think that's a silly, narrow, and factually inaccurate position.

I thought it might be helpful to point out a few related Western apparel websites:

* Stitchin' Times Women's Swimsuits
* Lilies of the Field: Modest Women's Apparel
* Simply Modest Swimwear Solutions

...and, I want to point out this series of posts about Victorian Bathing Machines, contraptions that allowed 18th century folks in England to bathe in the sea while adhering to the cultural norms of the era. Above, one proponent of modest sea-bathing in that era.

My point, such as it is: why must our first reaction to stuff like a Boing Boing post about burqinis be to judge or condemn? You may or may not choose to wear one, but the world doesn't revolve around you. I believe it is more fruitful to try and learn about and appreciate cultural differences than to get all flustered about whether or not you approve.

The commenter who loves her burqini (or any one of the smiling American customers on this "modesty swimsuit" website) does not care what you think about her garments or her beliefs. Nor should she.

Let all forms of happy mutancy prevail. (Thanks, Clayton Cubitt)

Al Franken's Senate career just keeps on getting better: this week he read the Fourth Amendment ("no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.") aloud to a high-ranking Department of Justice official who was making the case for renewing the PATRIOT Act's provision for roving wiretaps.

"That's pretty explicit language," noted Franken, asking Kris how the "roving wiretap" provision of the Patriot Act can meet that requirement if it doesn't require the government to name its target.

Kris looked flustered and mumbled that "this is surreal," apparently referring to having to respond to Franken's question. "I would defer to the other branch of government," he said, referring to the courts, prompting Franken to interject: "I know what that is."

Kris explained that the courts have held that the law's requirements that the person be described, though not named, is sufficient to meet the demands of the Constitution. That did not appear to completely satisfy Franken's concerns.

Al Franken Reads the 4th Amendment to Justice Department Official (via Greg Laden)

Glyn sez, "In 2005, Boing Boing reported on the arrest of a London geek for the 'crime' of carrying a 'bulky' backpack (e.g., a laptop bag), wearing an 'unseasonably warm' coat (it was one of the coldest July days on record), and 'avoiding the police' (he was looking at an SMS on his phone when he went through the turnstiles and so didn't make eye-contact with the officers there). [Ed: his house was subsequently raided, his data and computers confiscated and examined] After four years the police have finally admited they should never have arrested him in the first place."

I would like to apologise on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service for the circumstances that arose on 28 July 2005 including your unlawful arrest, detention and search of your home. I appreciate this has had a deep and traumatic impact on your lives and I hope that the settlement in this case can bring some closure to this.

I shall ensure that the officers concerned are made aware of the impact of the events of that day and also the details of the settlement in this case.

Yours sincerely

[signature of Chief Superintendent Wayne Chance]

Borough Commander
Southwark

Innocent in London - 'Suspicious behaviour on the tube' (Thanks, Glyn!)

Jérémie Zimmermann from the French digital liberties org La Quadrature du Net sez,

The French Parliament has adopted HADOPI 2, a law aimed at establishing a so-called "three-strikes" policy in order to fight file-sharing. The Constitutional Council made groundbreaking decision on June 10th 2009 that recognized access to the Internet as essential to the full exercise of free speech, and invalidated the sanctioning power of HADOPI 1. The law HADOPI 2, despite the internet cutoff now being handled in an expedient form of judicial justice, it is as flawed and dangerous as its predecessor, for it was only designed to circumvent the Constitutional Council's decision. The war on sharing continues its way as HADOPI 2 will go through the constitutional test again. ***

After an expedient democratic debate, in which valid alternatives to the war on sharing and possible futures for the cultural economy were systematically ignored by the bill's proponents, the "three strikes" policy might become law. It has already been a long process, after the Members of the European Parliament expressed on three occasions their strong criticisms of the French government's plan. After a first rejection of the law and a second vote in France, the Constitutional Council eventually followed the European Parliament in stating that Internet has become a vital component of the freedom of expression and communication, thus invalidating punitive provisions of the HADOPI 1 law.

Yet, this new law is still as dangerous and flawed as the previous one. First of all, HADOPI 2 fails to guarantee the right to a due process. Instead of giving sanction powers to an executive agency, as HADOPI 1 did, it makes possible to judge copyright infringements and order Internet cutoff through a "simplified judicial procedure". This procedure does not include any contradictory debate or public hearing, and all kind of prior judicial investigation will be left out. Moreover, the Internet cutoff can be ordered as a complement for a standard fine for "negligence" in securing one's Internet access.

Second, alleged infringers would still be convicted on the sole basis of IP addresses that cannot be considered as valid evidence, and which are collected by private actors. And since one has no material way of opposing the validity of these "evidences", this new version of the graduated response still clearly violates the presumption of innocence. It is now up to the Constitutional Council to examine the law, and draw the necessary conclusions.

Yet another adoption of liberty killer "three strikes" law in France. (Thanks, Jérémie!)

Raph sez, "There's been a lot of debate in the Spanish-speaking community about the removal of several books by prominent Puerto Rican authors from the 11th grade curriculum in Puerto Rico, and a bunch of authors are protesting in blogs and in person in protests. Global Voices covered the story today (it's been ongoing for a week)."

The Department of Education of the government of Puerto Rico recently eliminated five books from the eleventh grade curriculum of the public school system: Antología personal, by José Luis González; El entierro de Cortijo, by Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá; Mejor te lo cuento: antología personal, by Juan Antonio Ramos; Reunión de espejos, an anthology of essays edited by José Luis Vega (all Puerto Rican authors); and Aura, by Carlos Fuentes from Mexico. The public agency justified its action by saying that the books "contain unacceptable language and vocabulary, which is extremely coarse and vulgar."

The governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuño, supported the decision: "I think I have been very clear, and that all of the mothers and fathers out there understand perfectly that the books that an 18-year-old can read should not be read by a 12-year-old." Numerous writers and artists in Puerto Rico publicly voiced their concerns and described the government's action as censorship. The Federation of Teachers also condemned the decision and stated that it "reflects ignorance about the social reality that our students live in, and a backward-looking vision of modern literature as part of the academic curriculum." After such public pressure, the Department of Education said they had only permanently eliminated one book, but were still evaluating the rest.

Puerto Rico: Debate on Censorship (Thanks, Raph!)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Kevin Bankston has a post about the new JUSTICE Act:

Today, Senators Russ Feingold and Dick Durbin -- along with eight other Senators -- have taken the Administration up on its offer by introducing the JUSTICE Act, which would rein in the worst excesses of PATRIOT and last year's FISA Amendments Act (FAA). The announcement of the bill's introduction, along with a fact sheet outlining the bill's details, is here; the text of the JUSTICE Act is here (the "JUSTICE", if you're wondering, stands for Judiciously Using Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts").

The JUSTICE Act would renew two of the three expiring PATRIOT provisions, PATRIOT sections 206 (John Doe roving wiretaps) and 215 (FISA orders for any tangible thing), but would also add strong new checks and balances to those provisions and to the PATRIOT Act in general, especially those provisions dealing with the government's authority to issue National Security Letters. If passed, the bill would also establish critically important protections for Americans against surveillance authorized under the FAA. Of particular importance to EFF's clients in the Hepting v. AT&T case and to the preservation of the rule of law, JUSTICE would completely repeal the FAA provision intended to legally immunize telecoms like AT&T that illegally assisted in the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program. Last summer when Congress passed the FAA, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated his intention to revisit that law as part of the PATRIOT renewal debate, and we're very glad that Senators Feingold and Durbin have kick-started that process.

EFF Supports JUSTICE Bill to Reform the USA PATRIOT Act and Repeal Telecom Immunity

Jeremie Zimmermann sez, "Organizations from all around Europe share their concern of seeing Net Neutrality being sacrificed during the conciliation procedure of the directives of the EU Telecoms Package. They sent this letter to the Members of the European Parliament, urging them to take decisive action in order to guarantee a free, open and innovative Internet, and to safeguard the fundamental freedoms of European citizens.

"Everyone can take action by calling the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who were supportive of citizens' fundamental rights and freedoms in the past and ask them to do all they can to participate in the conciliation committee of the Telecoms Package."

We Must Protect Net Neutrality in Europe! - Open letter to the European Parliament

Jennie sez, "Two Seattle suburbs (of the super affluent persuasion) are monitoring and recording every vehicle that enter their town limits. If you happen to have had a past criminal infraction, you will be followed by police. Creepy and overzealous! By the way, residents of these towns are so community oriented that they also refuse to pay property tax to support their local county library system. But don't worry, they're 'not elitist at all,' according to a local council member."

In Medina, a new sign bears this warning: "You Are Entering a 24 Hour Video Surveillance Area..."

Medina -- a city of 3,100 with an average household income of $222,000 -- had discussed the idea for years as a way to discourage crime, city officials said.

Last year, there were 11 burglaries, Chen said.

"Some people think [that number of burglaries] is tolerable," he said. "But even one crime is intolerable."

Medina City Councilmember Lucius Biglow said crime prevention "outweighs concern over privacy."

"Privacy is considerably less nowadays than it was, say, 50 years ago," he said. "I think most of us are pretty well-documented by the federal government ... simply because of the Internet and credit cards."

Cameras keep track of all cars entering Medina (Thanks, Jennie!)

(Image: MARK HARRISON / THE SEATTLE TIMES)

In this new report, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) digs deep into the unsolved murders of 17 journalists in Russia: Anatomy of Injustice: The Unsolved Killings of Journalists in Russia (via @carr2n)

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC.org) has released the Privacy Report Card for the Obama Administration. The new administration got "an "Incomplete" for Consumer Privacy, A- for Medical Privacy, C+ for Civil Liberties, and a B for Cyber Security. Participating organizations included US PIRG, Consumer Federation of America, the Liberty Coalition, Association of American Physicians and, Surgeons, and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Read the full report here (PDF). Bottom line: according to EPIC, Obama is better than Bush so far, but if that's the yardstick we're using -- boy, are we in deep 5h1t. (EPIC via Privacy Revolt via @oxbloodruffin)

Louisiana native Clayton Cubitt blogs about the story behind a new nonfiction book by Dave Eggers, Zeitoun:

In the days after Hurricane Katrina, thousands of American citizens were rounded up and imprisoned at a makeshift fenced-in holding area at the city's bus station. The prison was nicknamed "Camp Greyhound." Citizens were not allowed phone calls. They were not given lawyers. Their property was confiscated, and they were held without charge. Prisoners were sometimes beaten, pepper-sprayed, and forced to sleep in the open-roofed cages on the greasy pavement that was once bus parking spots. Some went on to serve months in Louisiana prisons, only to have all charges eventually dropped.

The "30 mosques in 30 days" blog documents Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq's "Ramadan journey through NYC's Muslim Community." It's a really neat project, and ends on September 19th (the last day in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan). Snip from one post, each one is about a different mosque, all are delightful.

After the dhikr session, we broke our fast with dixie cups of water and prayed. The imam's recitation was incredible. This may sound hokey, but his voice sounded a lot like a perfect pitch violin, the way his voice glided seamlessly from letter to letter in his recitation. You couldn't help but close your eyes and take it all in. (...)

After a few minutes of breaking the ice, I mentioned the word "Call of Duty 4" and immediately a group of kids swarmed me. We had a blast during dinner cracking jokes. One thing I really love is seeing younger kids come to mosques because they genuinely enjoy being there, not because they are dragged by their parents. Its kids like these that make me feel good about where the Muslim community as a whole is headed in this country.

(via @ethanz via Global Voices)

Glyn sez, "The UK government is now considering laws that would allow individuals to be cut off from the internet. If Lord Mandelson's plan becomes law, disconnection may start for alleged copyright infringement, with no guarantee it would not be extended for other things. If you want to hear more about the Governments plans. David Rowntree (Blur), Ben Goldacre (Guardian / Bad Science) and Gerd Leonhard (Media Futurist) are doing a benefit talk for the Open Rights Group on October 2 in London, entitled 'Stop Mandelson's disconnection plans'."

Open Rights Group | Stop Disconnection without trial (Thanks, Glyn!)