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And yes, it's about time. It's utterly insane the way that copyright has stifled innovation. We all have many examples in our daily lives, and one of these days I'll write a long article about how Dish Network caved to the MPAA and castrated their service.
It may sound like an Apple product, but the IPac is a nonpartisan group that wants to fight the expansion of copyright law. [CNET News.com]
Hooray! Now we're back to where we should be - making law enforcement show probable cause before prying into private information.
Ruling nixes a key aspect of Patriot Act that let the FBI secretly demand data from Internet providers. [CNET News.com]
So, is this going to turn into another security issue? Hoardes of TSA agents swooping down on laser users?
stormfish writes "The Washington Times is reporting that laser light from an unknown source injured a pilot's eye as he was flying a Boeing 737 from Dallas to Salt Lake City. A 5 milliwatt laser pointer is strong enough to damage a person's eye, and stronger laser's are not that hard to come by. Unfortunately, having pilots wear colored laser safety glasses would be impractical as that would make it impossible to interpret the colored symbols on paper maps and cockpit displays." (security, timothy) [Slashdot.org]
I finally got around to taking some pretty good pictures of the kitties. It's tough to chase the kitties around. and get them to hold still enough for pictures. 
.
The little cuties are rescue cats from a house in Frederick, MD where the poor woman had over 100 cats because breeders talked her into taking more and more. The health department moved in when the poor woman was finally overwhelmed. She thought she was doing a good thing, but the cats weren't in great shape.
The little grey one is a female named Oreo. The other is a crazy male named Qhat (formerly known as Petey :-)). Oreo is 8, Qhat is 6, and both of them are doing ok. They are both crazy Ocicats. Oreo has some gastric issues still, and Qhat has asthma, but they're going to be happy little critters in the crazy home of Psycho Sensei.
An anonymous reader writes "The Seattle PI has an article about Lucasfilms sending a cease and desist letter to a local Seattle-based theater company. The company had been planning to do a live parody of Star Wars in which they would turn off the sound and redub it live. This brings up the question are parodies fair use? And if so, should copyright holders be allowed to order people not to parody their work?" (starwars, michael) [Slashdot.org]
Rick Zeman writes "Wanna send that one last email after you're dead and gone? CNN has an article about a service that will give the 21st century equivalent to a old-fashioned note in a drawer except that this could be more targeted '...by offering people the chance to write one last e-mail, complete with video clip or photo attachments, and send it to loved ones, friends or even enemies after the person who wrote it is dead.'" (humor, timothy) [Slashdot.org]
The referenced poem is absolutely priceless. Brent first showed it to me last week.
Via Blogbook, a marvelous Groklaw piece I managed to miss, taking aim at SCO, Disney, and other abusive copyright holders/claimants:
The Nazgul, a Derivative Work of the Intellectual Property of Edgar Allan Poe:
If Edgar Allen Poe was alive and thought like SCO, you couldn't write this without the risk of being sued by the venerable Mr. Poe, because he might say, like SCO, if he shared their concept, that we had 'stolen' his plot line. Just think of how much creativity the world would lose if such ideas about copyright were to be adopted. Without a doubt the world would be the poorer for it. Happily, The Raven is in the public domain, which means we can be as creative as we like with Mr. Poe's original work, with delightful results.
Expelling Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) shows how ill-equipped the US is at spotting real terrorists. [Christian Science Monitor: All Stories]
Hopefully this won't cause any paranoid "shark killing" escapades.
WOODS HOLE -- A nearly 1-ton shark, similar to the great white in the movie "Jaws," swam to within 10 feet of one of Cape Cod's Elizabeth Islands yesterday, drawing curiosity-seekers and boaters -- including one brazen kayaker who had to be shooed away. (Beth Daley, Globe Staff) [Boston Globe: Local]
Washington, DC - In a blow to the privacy of air travelers, the Department of Transportation has dismissed a complaint against Northwest Airlines. The complaint alleged that Northwest airlines, by giving three months' worth of passenger data to NASA for research into passenger profiling without the knowledge or consent of its customers, violated its own privacy policy and committed an unfair and deceptive trade practice.
The Transportation Department found that Northwest's privacy policy "did not unambiguously preclude it from sharing data with the federal government," despite the fact that the policy clearly states that Northwest does not sell passenger data to third parties, and that passengers are "in complete control" of their travel planning, including "the use of information [they] provide to Northwest Airlines." The Department added insult to injury by stating that even if the privacy policy clearly promised that Northwest would not share data with the government, that promise would not overcome the "moral imperative" that Northwest had to help improve airline security, especially considering that privacy is "not an absolute personal and fundamental right, particularly in the context of air travel."
"In addition to revealing that the Transportation Department has little regard for the privacy of the citizens it is supposed to serve, this case clearly demonstrates the failure of privacy policies to actually protect anyone's privacy," said Kevin Bankston, EFF attorney and Equal Justice Works/Bruce J. Ennis fellow. "Unfortunately, privacy policies aren't promises but public relations tools, intentionally worded to create as few binding commitments as possible. The American public should demand that companies that collect their personal information develop more explicitly protective policies, and make them an enforceable part of the contract with the customer."
Contacts:
Kevin Bankston
Attorney, Equal Justice Works / Bruce J. Ennis Fellow
Electronic Frontier Foundation
bankston@eff.org
Hooray! Larry Lessig, that crusader for First Amendment rights, did some pro bono work on this case, which has started a small "sanity virus" into the judiciary. Hopefully this virus will take hold, and more sanity and balance will result
A district court in the Southern District of New York has struck down the anti-bootlegging provision of the copyright act. There is a new report here. I should have the opinion up soon. (Disclosure: I did pro bono work on this case.)
[Lessig Blog]How amusing. Windows is our favorite thing. I just hope that Airbus software isn't running under Windows.
fname writes "The recent shutdown of LAX due to an FAA radio outage was apparently caused by a Windows 2000 integration flaw, possibility related to an old Windows 95 bug. An article at the LA Times claims that the outage was caused by human error, as the system will automatically shut down after 49.7 days (related to this Windows 95 flaw?), and a technician didn't reboot the system monthly as he should have. This happened after an upgrade from Unix to Windows. I don't think blame should be assigned to the technician who missed the task; rather, it seems a gross oversight for the FAA to guarantee that such a critical system will crash after only one missed maintenance task. Who's really at fault?" (bug, michael) [Slashdot.org]
While our brilliant Congress Critters are running around like headless chickens to decry "video voyeurism" (for which we already have adequate laws in most cases), the real privacy violations are completely beyond their comprehension. Perhaps someday they will give more than lip service to privacy issues.
The Department of Homeland Security is looking for some live data to feed its new Secure Flight watch-list system, so it will order airlines to fork over a months' worth of passenger itineraries. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]
There's a reason we haven't heard from our friends on Grand Cayman, and there has been no real news from the Island. The government is not allowing reporters onto the island and is sending away those who try to show up. We got an email from some of our friends telling us how awful it really is there. The few hotels that aren't destroyed or badly damaged are housing refugees. Two of their 3 rental condos are destroyed and the third is flooded. Their only electricity is still from generators. Grocery stores were closed until yesterday, when they decided to only let in 50 people at a time, and were allowed to buy 1 gallon of water, one loaf of bread, and 50.00 worth of groceries.
Banks aren't supposed to open until Monday, and nobody knows when tourists will be able to come back.
The little island of Grand Cayman is a total mess. It seems trite to say "count your blessings" but what we've experienced up here in the past few days from wind and rain is pretty much nothing when compared to the hell these and others are going through in the wake of the storm. Time to make a donation to the Red Cross.
Postscript. The RS who won't bother to register to make comments reminded me that the Red Cross sucked terribly after 9/11 and wasted lots of blood, and generally screwed up. He suggests the Salvation Army, despite their highly religious leanings.
So let me try to get this straight. They pay millions of dollars per year to set up a "Defense Zone" around DC to protect from these horrible little planes. They spend billions on "enhanced security" and all this other stuff to "protect us" and pass regulation after regulation making life more difficult (and costly) for law abiding citizens while doing very little to deter terrorists, and yet our Fire Depts. still can't coordinate with Police Depts.
You may recall the previous incident where the FAA and Homeland InSecurity failed to pick up telephones and coordinate before scrambling jets after the very dangerous and evil Governor of Kentucky (who had filed and was following an approved flight plan). Think how much worse things can be then if fire and police couldn't coordinate during an attack. When are they finally going to put money where it can actually be used to make a difference?
Three years after Sept. 11, emergency radios aren't linked for most first responders. [Christian Science Monitor: All Stories]
John Gilmore’s battle to force the government to explain the basis upon which it demands that airlines verify an ID before permitting someone on a plane got a small victory last week. The government had asked to file its brief, defending a rule that is itself secret, in secret. The 9th Circuit said no.
[Lessig Blog]Would that more people speak out against the horrors of the Patriot Act.
The timid media won't do it, so 'radical' librarians are standing up against the government to protect free speech and fight censorship. Commentary by Adam L. Penenberg. [Wired News]
Very bad news from Larry Lessig's blog. Very bad news, indeed.
One of the exciting thing about the early days of the Democratic primary was that there was at least some debate about whether the Democratic Party would continue to be led by IP extremists. Some of the worst in IP came, after all, from the Clinton administration. Reflecting on that, many were hopeful we’d see some new thinking. Many of the most passionate Deaniacs were eager to see new thinking on this issue. Senator Edwards addressed some of this on this blog.
Word now is that Bruce Lehman, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and Commissioner of Patents, is spreading the word that he is running IP policy on the Kerry campaign. In the scheme of extremists, few are more extreme. Of all the government “Czars” in our form of government, he proved himself to be most to be feared.
Yet another bit of depressing news, if true, from this extraordinarily important campaign.
[Lessig Blog]Ivan spared Bonaire, which was fantastic given that we had friends there for a trip, and friends who live on the island. Unfortunately, it is currently about to smash Grand Cayman and Little Cayman, where we also have friends. The Bonaire friends are stranded there until the area calms down enough to get planes in to pick them up (maybe Wednesday). The Grand Cayman friends, we hope will be ok. Keep them in your thoughts if you would.
They're kidding, right? Think the Shrub would allow anyone to second guess the Mighty Ashcroft's decisions "for our safety and security?"
Legislation introduced in the Senate to implement 9/11 Commission recommendations would create an executive-level board to investigate and advise on civil liberties and privacy issues. President Bush recently created a similar board with fewer powers. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]
Yet more information that used to be available is being pulled from the public. A quite disturbing trend.
isdale writes "Defense Tech reports the U.S. Gov't. is proposing to exempt satellite images from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The proposed exemption has already passed the Senate and awaits House/Senate conference committee this month. Not only does the exemption apply to Gov't. satellite images, but also any commercial satellite images the gov't buys and 'any... other product that is derived from such data.' That would include maps, reports, news footage, etc. This would heavily impact news gathering and probably the income of commercial satellite operators - who would only be able to sell to the U.S. Govt. And how big is the deficit already?" peter303 writes with a more optimistic story in USA Today " about building and launching a satellite for as little as $65K,", as long as you can squeeze it into a 4 inch-cube. (censorship, timothy) [Slashdot.org]
And yes, it's about bloody time!
A campaign by anti-spam groups has persuaded a large US net service provider to ban spammers using its network. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY]
Finally some national coverage on the plight to maintain at least a modicum of personal privacy and constitutional freedoms. And, what a surprise, the government wants all of this to be SECRET. Aren't there enough secrets already regarding what used to be constitutional rights?
A privacy advocate who is suing the government for allegedly forcing airlines to ID passengers is pressing to have his case aired publicly. Government attorneys, meanwhile, want the court to hear their arguments in secret. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]
So why do we allow scum like this to dictate innovation? Why do we allow them to dictate what we can do with content or CDs or other things that WE PURCHASE. We PAID these people to use these things.
And now they are forcing innovators who create LEGAL products that we want to buy, to kowtow to their demands or they will get the politicians who are already in their back pockets, to write bad laws to force them to comply. And we just sit back and take it.
It's time we closely examine the records of these politicians who vote for this anti-consumer, anti-innovation, anti-American stuff and vote their sorry butts out of office forthwith.
On the heels of Fritz Attaway's antagonistic comments about P2P the other week, there was an interesting Q&A in CNET last week with Mitch Glazier, head DC lobbyist for the RIAA. I found this exchange particularly illuminating:
There has been speculation that the original Induce Act could make Apple Computer liable for selling like the iPod. Could it?No.
Why not?
The original Induce Act focused on the totality of the circumstances. There's no way that a company that produces great digital rights management for a licensed product is ever going to be shown to want to profit from piracy.
In other words, the RIAA intends to use INDUCE as leverage to pressure companies into incorporating DRM. If you incorporate "great digital rights management for a licensed product", they won't sue. Leave out the DRM, however, and well.. you enter the marketplace at your own risk.
Also, it appears that Mitch is confusing his Apple products. Apple's iTunes Music Store does put DRM on each of its songs, but the iPod can handle an unlimited number of DRM-free MP3 files without any restrictions. Apple could have designed the iPod to only handle DRM-protected content, but it didn't. Does the fact that it enforces DRM rules for some songs but not for others still mean it can't INDUCE?
[Copyfight]Psycho Sensei can now accept comments on her lovely blog once again. You can add your comments merely by following the instructions. It has been an up and down battle, given that even moderating comments made life difficult when I would receive 50 to 60 spam comments each day and would have to go through all of them in order to filter the real ones. So, now you will have to create a typekey account and log in. Yes, I finally got that part working. So, comment away and make the Psycho Sensei happy.
For those who haven't been watching this drama play out, John Gilmore has been one of the few people who has had the testosterone to ask WHY our right to travel domestically without "showing our papers" has suddenly been revoked. He wants to know how and why this unconstitutional restraint on our traveling between states has appeared. And "they" don't want to tell him. Rather scary, eh?
I just saw the latest news on John Gilmore's case concerning the requirement to present ID before boarding a commercial aircraft.
There are lots of opinions on both sides of the main issue. But I'm not going to try here to elaborate, much less address, those opinions.
Rather, what I am writing about here is the assertion by the government that they can make their arguments in secret, not even telling Gilmore what those arguments are.
That assertion screams of Kafka. Is John Gilmore a modern day Joseph K who is never to learn why his rights are being removed, much less to have a real means to make a challenge?
I will soon be writing some thoughts engendered by a book I just read - Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here When I read of actions and assertions by the present so-called "Justice" Department - assertions such are being made here in the Gilmore case, redaction of case citations in decisions, as well as assertions recently made (but fortunately rejected by the courts) of executive power to hold prisoners incommunicado for indefinite periods, I wonder whether the book could be re-issued under the title It Is Happening Here?
We as citizens deserve more from our government than "trust us". Citizens can not exercise their rights as citizens without information. A democracy can not survive in secrecy. A government that hides behind secrecy is a government that has repudiated the principles upon which this country was founded.
We may not all agree with John Gilmore's claim that he can board a commercial airliner without showing ID. But I believe that we all can agree that secret trials are wrong and are permissible only in extreme cases after a clear, complete, and compelling public showing by the government that a secret proceeding is necessary in a specific case and that there is no less burdensome alternative.
[CaveBear Blog][Dan Gillmor's eJournal]Frank Rich (NY Times): How Kerry Became a Girlie-Man. The flaw in Mr. Kerry is not, as Washington wisdom has it, that he asked for trouble from the Swifties by bringing up Vietnam in the first place. Both his Vietnam service and Vietnam itself are entirely relevant to a campaign set against an unpopular and ineptly executed war in Iraq that was spawned by the executive branch in similarly cloudy circumstances. But having brought Vietnam up against the backdrop of our 2004 war, Mr. Kerry has nothing to say about it except that his service proves he's more manly than Mr. Bush. Well, nearly anyone is more manly than a president who didn't have the guts to visit with the 9/11 commission unaccompanied by a chaperone.
So there I was, happily posting things to my weblog from netnewswire, when it suddenly decided to stop working, telling me that the server was returning "error 302" whatever that means. So it seems that from now on I get to tell all my marvelous readers about things only manually. How totally annoying. So let's see if we can get this stuff working eventually. Oh, the fun of life.