Hal says:

I thought this would be in the vein of a lot of the "photography is terrorism" posts that have been on Boing Boing lately.

I'm a professional stock photographer, and just this morning, I was greeted by two FBI antiterrorism agents who wanted to question me regarding shooting in the Port of Los Angeles two weeks ago. When I was down there, a private security guard in a pickup truck chased me out of the area and onto the freeway. After he stopped following me, apparently he filed a report with the FBI.

The agents that showed up at my door were at first intimidating, but after they realized I wasn't a threat, we had an interesting conversation about the balance between me doing my job, and them being required to follow up on leads in their job.

I shot an email to Thomas Hawk earlier, he just made a blog post here.

Link

From Saul Hansell's Bits blog at the NYT:

Charter Communications, the fourth-largest cable system in the United States, has started telling its high-speed Internet customers that it is going to keep track of every site they visit on the Web.

...

I suggested to [senior vice president for product management and strategy] Ted Schremp that there are likely to be a fair number of customers who don’t consider having their Internet activities tracked to be an enhancement.

He responded several ways. He said that Charter convened focus groups of customers in two cities and found that most didn’t object when the program was explained to them. (A key aspect of the NebuAd system is that it claims not to record any personally identifiable information about users. Rather, it associates each user’s behavior with 1,000 categories of interest to advertisers.)

He offered his personal view that the system is harmless and well within the norms of the Internet these days. “The mainstream Internet user is hugely aware of the fact that the fundamental economic model on the Internet is advertising,” he said.

Link

Keith tried to take a picture on the Red Line in LA, and was told that he was breaking the "9/11 Law" by a metro worker who swore at him and threatened him with arrest when he asked what the "9/11 Law" was.

Him: Hey! It's against the 9-11 Law to take pictures down here man!

Me: You mean the Patriot Act?

Him: No pictures.

Me: Could you explain? What law do you mean?

Him: You are lawyer?

Me: No.

Him: No pictures. You could be a terrorist. Very strict!

Me: How about I take a picture of you?

Him: F**k you...(I couldn't believe it either)

He then proceeded to huddle in the corner and speak into his radio. Next thing I knew, a booming female voice very loudly announced over the loudspeaker "Attention to the gentleman in the plaid shirt: You are not allowed to take photographs in the Subway. You will be arrested if you continue to take photos and harrass the metro worker."

I was incensed/surprised/embarrassed/horrified/bewildered. People started staring.

Then the voice continued: "The gentleman in the plaid shirt: You must approach the callbox near the escalators and speak to the sheriff." I didn't budge. So she said it again, this time louder...

"Okay" I thought, I'll play along...I went up to the callbox and pushed the button. A new voice this time, this one male, boomed out and said, "Why are you taking photographs sir?"

Me: "What law am I breaking?"

Voice: "You can't take pictures sir, we don't know why you are taking pictures."

Link (Thanks, Keith!)

Budgens, a London supermarket chain, secretly records biometric facial photos of people who buy cigarettes and alcohol and compares it to a database of known underage buyers, and they're hoping to link their database with other grocery chains around the country. This means that just bringing a bottle up to the till means that your likeness and details will be added to a nationwide database, recording your movements and purchasing habits.

They'll probably be forced to drop the "secrecy" bit in the end, but that will not bring an end to the practice. Instead, they'll just put a sign up next to the till saying, "By buying alcohol here, you agree that we can violate your privacy and share your information with anyone we feel like." After all, that's what they do with the CCTV signs in London already.

If successful, it could be rolled out across the country to create a database of youngsters who try to buy alcohol.

The system alerts a cashier if it 'recognises' someone who has previously been unable to prove they are 18.

It is believed to be the first time a British retailer has used the technology in this way.

The software takes measurements between key points on the face to make a template of a person's features that is stored as a "token".

Customers' images are monitored and relayed to a control centre to be compared with under-18s already on record.

Future options include other retailers linking the scheme to their shops to create a giant database.

Link (Thanks, Frank!)

Andy sez,

This afternoon, an NPR colleague of mine and I were almost arrested at Washington DC's Union Station for taking panorama photos with a Gigapan, a robotic camera mount developed by Carnegie Mellon University originally for the Mars Rover. The university had sent us a loaner of the robot for us to evaluate.

Though we were initially allowed to take photos, they unexpectedly changed their minds, demanding that we delete our pictures and cease taking pictures, or face arrest. They didn't seem to care I was Twittering their comments throughout the incident, though. I've posted a summary of what happened, as well as the resulting half-gigapixel panorama photo, on my blog.

Link (Thanks, Andy!)

Neil sez,

Some oceanographer friends of mine were encouraged to apply for TWIC cards so that they could access research vessels in port without escorts. Because they're, y'know, researchers.

That's not how the TSA rolls, though, and they received nice letters on TSA letterhead explaining that "I have determined that you pose a security threat."

It's a good thing we found this out now, before the NSF, MIT, and WHOI agreed to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for them to study here.

So let's review:

* Foreign students on F-1 visas are under no circumstances eligible for TWIC cards, even if they have a legitimate need to access US ports and research vessels.
* They shouldn't worry though, because anybody who has a TWIC card can still escort them (or anybody else) into "restricted" areas. Even though the TSA doesn't trust you, as long as someone they do trust trusts you, that's good enough.
* When the agency that's responsible for inspecting your shoes and liquids at the airport calls you a security threat, you shouldn't worry: it's not like there could possibly be far-reaching repercussions.

I feel better already.

Link (Thanks, Neil!)

The New Yorker's "Drug War Bulletins" are sure to boil your blood: a man who died for want of a liver transplant because the hospital insisted he needed "drug treatment" for his medical marijuana use; a suburban San Diego housewife who will spend the next 20 years in jail because she was peripherally involved in a heroin deal while she was in college in 1975; and a pulmonologist who'd been favored by the drug warriors until his giant, well-funded, unreproachable study concluded that pot didn't give you lung cancer, and who is now a pariah whose research conclusions have been boycotted by the press.

The War on Some Drugs is as unwinnable and destructive as all the other wars on abstract nouns. Who needs terrorists to rip America apart when you've got drug warriors killing off, imprisioning and shunning its innocents?

.In Seattle, a fifty-six-year old man died last Thursday after being refused a liver transplant because he had followed his doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana to ease the symptoms of hepatitis C. From the Associated Press story:

His death came a week after a doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list. The team had previously told him it would not consider placing him on the list until he completed a 60-day drug-treatment class…

The Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system, leaves it to individual hospitals to develop criteria for transplant candidates.

At some, people who use “illicit substances”—including medical marijuana, even in the dozen states that allow it—are automatically rejected. At others, patients are given a chance to reapply if they stay clean for six months.

The cruelty and stupidity of this beggars belief. This patient did not need “drug treatment.” He was already undergoing drug treatment. Nor did he need to get “clean.” He was already clean. It’s the drug war that’s dirty. (H/t: John Leone.)

Link (via Making Light)

Here's the latest installment in Instructables' series of HOWTOs inspired by my young adult novel Little Brother, which tells the story of young people who use homebrew technology to restore their civil liberties after a police crackdown on terrorism.

This week's installment: What to do if the police stop you.

1. What you say to the police is always important. What you say can be used against you, and it can give the police an excuse to arrest you, especially if you badmouth a police officer.

2. You must show your driver's license and registration when stopped in a car. Otherwise, you don't have to answer any questions if you are detained or arrested, with one important exception. The police may ask for your name if you have been properly detained, and you can be arrested in some states for refusing to give it. If you reasonably fear that your name is incriminating, you can claim the right to remain silent, which may be a defense in case you are arrested anyway.

3. You do not have to consent to any search of yourself, your car or your house. If you DO consent to a search, it can affect your rights later in court. If the police say they have a search warrant, ASK TO SEE IT.

4. Do not interfere with, or obstruct the police, as you you can be arrested for it.

Link

Premiered recently in SF and NYC. Snip from description:

Faubourg Tremé is arguably the oldest black neighborhood in America, the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement in the South and the home of jazz. While the Tremé district was damaged when the levees broke, this is not another Katrina documentary. Every frame is a tribute to what African American communities have contributed even under the most hostile of conditions. It is a film of such effortless intimacy, subtle glances and authentic details that only two native New Orleanians could have made it.

Link, trailer. (thanks, Clayton James Cubitt)

Instructables has just posted its latest installment in its collection of HOWTOs inspired by my new novel Little Brother, a young adult book about hacker kids who use technology to win back their civil liberties from the Department of Homeland Security.

This week, it's instructions for building a simple device that will let you spot hidden "pinhole" video cameras:

With one hand, hold up the toilet paper tube to your eye. With your other hand, hold up the flashlight at about eye level and point it away from you. With one eye, look through the tube and scan the room. If there are any small points of light bouncing back, inspect it further. It might be a camera.

Link, Link to feed of Little Brother Instructables

WillS sez, "The Get Out Clause, an unsigned Manchester band who could not afford a camera crew for their video, 'performed' in front of a load of CCTV cameras, requested the footage from the camera operators under the Freedom of Information Act Data Protection Act and then stitched the results together for their music video." Link (Thanks, WillS!)

Since last summer, the FBI has been on the lookout for two men who were seen taking a deep interest in a car-ferry in Seattle. The men were believed to be terrorists, plotting to blow up the ferry.

Actually, they were tourists who'd never seen a car ferry and thought it was cool.

Last summer, the FBI launched an international search for two men after crew members and riders on a Washington State Ferry reported their unusual behavior — namely that they were taking pictures below deck, in areas that don't hold much interest for most tourists.

A ferry captain snapped their photo, which was passed along to the FBI.

Turns out the men, both citizens of a European Union nation, were captivated by the car-carrying capacity of local ferries.

"Where these gentlemen live, they don't have vehicle ferries. They were fascinated that a ferry could hold that many cars and wanted to show folks back home," FBI Special Agent Robbie Burroughs said Monday.

Link (via Schneier)

Bugs sez,

Several large UK retail firms are due to launch a database containing details of staff who've been accused of "stealing, forgery, fraud, damaging company property or causing a loss to their employers and suppliers."

This is intended as a closed, privately-run addition to the police background checks already offered by the state-run Criminal Records Bearau.

Crucially, the new database will include details of people who, due to lack of evidence, have never been formally charged. So if someone is fired due to a grudge with their boss or wrongly suspected of an offence, they could end up blacklisted for life with no way to find this out or, if they do find out, no way to appeal.

Link (Thanks, Bugs!)

A court case has forced the FBI to withdraw its gag order against the Internet Archive, brought down after the Archive was served with a Patriot Act "National Security Letter" warrant that asked for personal information about one of the Archive's users. The Archive, as a library, was reluctant to give out information on its patrons, so they contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU, and eventually won the right to discuss the case:

The NSL included a gag order, prohibiting Kahle from discussing the letter and the legal issues it presented with the rest of the Archive's Board of Directors or anyone else except his attorneys, who were also gagged. The gag also prevented the ACLU and EFF from discussing the NSL with members of Congress, even though an ACLU lawyer who represents the Archive recently testified at a congressional hearing about the FBI's misuse of NSLs.

"This is a great victory for the Archive and also the Constitution," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU. "It appears that every time a national security letter recipient has challenged an NSL in court and forced the government to justify it, the government has ultimately withdrawn its demand for records. In the absence of much needed judicial oversight – and with recipients silenced and the public in the dark – there is nothing to stop the FBI from abusing its NSL power."

"A miscarriage of justice was prevented here because the Archive decided to fight the unlawful demand for information and unconstitutional gag," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "The big question is, how many other improper NSLs have been issued by the FBI and never challenged?"

Link (Thanks, Rebecca!)

Susannah Breslin interviews the 57-year-old scat video producer who is at the center of what may be the "most extreme obscenity trial in U.S. history." Of note: he compares himself to Picasso, Mozart, and Kafka, and does not consider his work to be pornography.

Snip from her intro:

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled "The 2 Girls 1 Cup Defense," focusing on the case of Ira Isaacs, a Los Angeles based director of coprophagy and distributor of bestiality films who was indicted last summer by the Department of Justice's Obscenity Prosecution Task Force for various obscenity-related offenses. Not long after that post went up, I got an email from Mr. Isaacs himself. He said if I wanted to interview him, I could. So I did. That interview is now online at Radar Online: "But Is It Obscene?"

And snip from her Radar interview:

RADAR: How did you get started making these movies?
IRA ISAACS: When the Internet was happening, I wanted to enter it in some way, and I wanted to do something different. In the past, you needed a lot of money and people to make a movie. Until video cameras were invented. Then the Internet was a big breakthrough for distribution. So, I started making a lot of money with these fetish shock videos. I was distributing shock art films from Europe.

What do you mean by "shock art films"?
You talk about art? What is art? Art is what artists do. If it shocks you, it's art. One of the things art should do is make you think and question things. Shock art has always been something that has been a very popular thing through the 20th century and the 21st century. People used feces as shock art. There was a guy who shit in a can and sold it for the price of gold. [In 1961, Italian conceptual artist Piero Manzoni canned his feces in 90 tins and sold them for the price of their weight in gold.] So, the Internet allowed me to be an artist, to reach a lot of people. It allowed me to be on the edge, to do what I would never do as a fine artist. If you're going to paint, you've got to compete with Picasso. If you want to write a great classical music piece, you're competing with Mozart. I would never write anything like Kafka's The Trial. If I was going to make a mark, I was going to do it in some extreme shock way.

Link to Radar piece, and here's the post on Susannah's blog with more out-takes and background. (Photo, via Radar: Getty Images). [Ed. note to Susannah: you win at internet dumpster-diving, dude. Seriously.]

Previously on Boing Boing:

The "2 Girls 1 Cup" defense

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has put ISPs on notice that he's going to do everything he can to preserve Net Neutrality, telling ISPs to "think twice" before they start to corrupt the connections they provide to their customers.

Wyden delivered his ultimatum at a Computer & Communications Industry Association conference in DC, where he cast the entire network neutrality debate in terms of a legislative compromise. Years ago, Congress began protecting ISPs from the twin threats of regulation and taxation; in return, ISPs were expected to deliver an unimpeded connection to the Internet. A move away from a neutral 'Net would undermine the "very philosophical underpinnings of what we fought for for the last 15 years," according to Wyden. If that happens, he sees no reason for Congress to continue sheltering ISPs.

Link

A car passenger is in trouble for mooning a speed camera in the UK. It's interesting that the car was not speeding, but the authorities had a photo of the car anyway.

Police may take action against the man for public order offences and not wearing a seat belt.

Officers have the registration of the car, which was not breaking the speed limit, and intend to contact its owner.

It is understood the driver will not face prosecution as no driving offence was being committed.

Jeremy Forsberg, of the Northumbria Safer Roads Initiative, said: "This behaviour is simply ridiculous - it's clear what he was thinking with what he had on show.

"Not only is it disrespectful, but distasteful and offensive, particularly to children who may have been exposed to this nonsense.

Link (via IP)

Every time I put a book online for free, readers ask me how they can "tip" me for the download. The problem is, I'm not actually interested in tips, since these cut my publisher out of the loop, putting us on opposite sides of the free download equation. My publisher is extremely valuable to me, providing editorial and marketing and distribution services that I couldn't possibly provide on my own without spending a lot more of the cover-price of the book than currently goes to my publisher.

For Little Brother, I've come up with a solution that balances out my publishers' interests, my interests, the generosity of my readers, and the needs of educators and libraries.

Here's how it works: if you're a librarian, teacher (or similar -- someone who works in a halfway house, social center, or comparable institution), you can send in a request for a free copy of Little Brother. I'll post these, along with your institution's address, on a public web-page (I'm also vetting these to make sure that they really come from educators and affiliated trades, and not just cheap people who want someone else to buy them a copy of the book).

If you're someone who loved the ebook and wants to "tip" me, you can pay me back by checking out the list of teachers and suchlike in search of donated copies, and buy a copy directly for someone on the list, using Amazon, BN.com, Powell's, or your favorite mail-order house. Send in the email receipt (delete anything private first), and the teacher's entry will be marked as fulfilled.

I'm actually paying someone to manage this whole process, out of my own pocket. Olga Nunes, a friend and awesome web-developer, has agreed to take on the task of updating the page, vetting the entries, and answering your questions. You can reach her at freelittlebrother@gmail.com with your solicitations and/or donations.

So there it is: educators, librarians, social workers and other people who work with kids, send in your solicitations now! Generous ebook readers are waiting to send you free copies of my latest book! Link

Nelson Mandela and other members of the African National Congress are on the US terrorist watchlist. ANC members who wish to travel to the USA have to get waivers from the State Department. The former South African Ambassador to the USA was flagged and delayed when she attempted to visit a dying cousin -- by the time the red-tape had been cut, her cousin was dead.

"This is a country with which we now have excellent relations, South Africa, but it's frankly a rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterpart, the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader Nelson Mandela," Rice said.

Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, is pushing a bill that would remove current and former ANC leaders from the watch lists. Supporters hope to get it passed before Mandela's 90th birthday July 18.

"What an indignity," Berman said. "The ANC set an important example: It successfully made the change from armed struggle to peace. We should celebrate the transformation."

Link (Thanks, grayman23!)

You know all those Orwellian cameras that line the streets of London? Pretty much useless in crime-fighting. Scotland Yard's solution? More cameras!

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

Link (Thanks, Clifton!)

Amnesty UK has produced four short films on China's human rights records, released in the runup to this summer's Olympics in Beijing. The first video's online now: Torchure. Link (Thanks, Kristyan!)

I've just put up my site for Little Brother, my young adult novel about hacker kids who use technology to reclaim the Bill of Rights from the DHS after a terrorist attack on San Francisco. Included on the site are:

• Creative Commons licensed downloads of the whole book
• An easy way to donate copies of the book to school classrooms
• Links to buy the book from various etailers (and an offer to get a signed, inscribed copy shipped direct to you by Borderlands Books in San Francisco)
• A place to put your remixes of the book
  

Still to come: the tour schedule, more Instructables HOWTOs, and lots of other news. Link

In this video, Flickr user Chriswoebken dissolves one of the London Underground's RFID-based Oyster cards with nail-polish remover, leaving behind nothing but the chip and its antenna -- and then gets on and off the tube using nothing but a flimsy bit of electronics, sometimes in his hand, sometimes taped to a sheet of paper.

I've been trying to come up with a good Oyster killing method since Transport for London made Oysters near-mandatory (you can't get a week-long pass without any Oyster anymore, and the buses are incredibly expensive if you don't pay by Oyster). In my ideal world, I'd pay cash for an Oyster card, use it for a couple weeks, trash it, and get a new one, so that there would be no long-term ride history for me on file.

Unfortunately, the ticket-agents have started to charge £3 for replacement Oyster cards, which I'm sure they'd waive if the card was malfunctioning. Microwaving the card leaves behind some unfortunate burn-marks.

The nice thing about this video is that it hints at the location of the RFID chip in the Oyster, which appears to be one of the corners. Anyone know which? Link (via Beyond the Beyond)

Parker sez, "All day I sit around and dream of ways to combine bb posts... Anyway, I took the liberty of adding the four committees that the EFF suggests calling about border control's unchecked laptop searching authority to Fred Benenson's new Cause Caller. Now if you have a few minutes, Cause Caller can do the heavy lifting and you can do your country proud and defend your rights to a few senators and congressmen. And because it's a wiki, you can add or edit the list of people to call or the script. As Cause Caller's website says, have fun getting in touch with democracy!" Link (Thanks, Parker!)

See also:
CauseCaller -- one-click to create a virtual phone-bank
EFF and security experts to Congress: We need hearings on Customs laptop seizures and snooping

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Rebecca Jeschke sez, "EFF's Jennifer Granick outlines how you should protect yourself while traveling with private data. Bad news: it's not easy."

If you encrypt your hard drive with strong crypto, it will be prohibitively expensive for CBP to access your confidential information. This answer is imperfect for two reasons—one is practical, the other is technological.

Practically, the government has not disclosed CBP's laptop search practices, despite our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for these documents. We don't know what a border patrol agent will do when confronted with an encrypted machine. One possibility is that the agent will simply give up and let the traveler pass with her belongings. Other possibilities are that the agent will turn the traveler and her machine away at the border, or that he will seize the laptop and allow the traveler to continue on. I suspect that on most occasions, CBP agents confronted with encrypted or password-protected data tell the owner to enter the password or get turned away, and the owner, eager to continue her voyage or to return home, simply complies.

If you don't want to comply, CBP cannot force you to decrypt your data or give over your password. Only a judge can force you to answer questions, and then only if the Fifth Amendment does not apply. While no Fifth Amendment right protects the data on your laptop or phone, one federal court has held that even a judge cannot force you to divulge your password when the act of revealing the password shows that you are the person with access to or control over potentially incriminating files. See In re Boucher, 2007 WL 4246473 (D. Vt. November 29, 2007).

Link (Thanks, Rebecca!)

See also: EFF and security experts to Congress: We need hearings on Customs laptop seizures and snooping

Tim sez, "According to this article in the Washington Times, some air marshals are being forbidden entry to the airplanes they are supposed to protect, as they have similar names to people on the no-fly list. Another nugget from the article- Chertoff says just one airline is seeing some 9,000 false positives EVERY DAY from this list."

Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) familiar with the situation say the mix-ups, in which marshals are mistaken for terrorism suspects who share the same names, have gone on for years — just as they have for thousands of members of the traveling public.

One air marshal said it has been "a major problem, where guys are denied boarding by the airline."

"In some cases, planes have departed without any coverage because the airline employees were adamant they would not fly," said the air marshal, who asked not to be named because the job requires anonymity. "I've seen guys actually being denied boarding."

A second air marshal said one agent "has been getting harassed for six years because his exact name is on the no-fly list."

Link (Thanks, Tim!)