Ok, I'm totally confused here. All the data that they've gathered over all these years by talking to these evil pilots that of course everyone knows are simply incapable of reporting things that have happened to them, is just utterly useless. No, the traveling public may not be interested in any of this, but other pilots, the NTSB, and the FAA SHOULD be. This is stuff that should be addressed. In my less than 1500 hours flying, I've had several close calls and encounters that ATC either directly caused or could have prevented. Why aren't we taking this information and working together to find solutions?

NASA Says Study All But Worthless:


Well, suppose they held an aviation safety study and nobody (except, perhaps, one particularly ticked off news agency) cared? NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told a news conference today that it has no intention of trying to glean anything meaningful from a four-year, $11.3 million survey of pilots on air safety and that if anyone else wants to wade through the 16,000 pages of gap-filled responses they're welcome to. Oh, and he doesn't expect them to find anything. "It's hard for me... to see any data here that the traveling public would care about or ought to care about." he told puzzled reporters who thought they might be covering a press conference about aviation safety. Instead they witnessed the political lid being firmly closed on an issue that has dogged NASA for two months and which Griffin clearly wanted no more part of. The release of the data came after a heavily publicized series of stories by the Associated Press on NASA's refusal to release the documents under a freedom of information request. The normally staid news agency made it clear it was less than satisfied with the culmination of its investigation.

Posted by mikki at 08:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Passport Card Rule Will Weaken Border Security and Privacy:


Today, the Department of State released a final rule for the new "Passport Card," which is intended to be used by American citizens who frequently travel by land or sea to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. The new rule calls for the use of "vicinity read" RFID technology without the use of encryption. This means the card will be able to be read remotely, at a long distance. CDT strongly objected to the use of this technology--developed for tracking inventory, not people--because it is inherently insecure and poses threats to personal privacy, including identity theft, location tracking by government and commercial entities outside the border control context, and other forms of mission creep.

Posted by mikki at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Romney's Founders:

ACSBlog is on hiatus until January 2. Please enjoy this Guest Blog post from earlier this year.

by Geoffrey R. Stone, professor of law at the University of Chicago

Mitt Romney’s recent reflections on the role of religion in American politics implicitly called to mind a disturbingly distorted version of history that has become part of the conventional wisdom of American politics in recent years.

That version of history suggests that the Founders intended to create a “Christian Nation,” and that we have unfortunately drifted away from that vision of the United States. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Those who promote this fiction confuse the Puritans, who intended to create a theocratic state, with the Founders, who lived 150 years later. The Founders were not Puritans, but men of the Enlightenment. They lived not in an Age of Faith, but in an Age of Reason. They viewed issues of religion through a prism of rational thought.

To be sure, there were traditional Christians among the Founders, including such men as John Jay, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. Most of the Founders, however, were not traditional Christians, but deists who were quite skeptical of traditional Christianity. They believed that a benevolent Supreme Being had created the universe and the laws of nature and had given man the power of reason with which to discover the meaning of those laws. They viewed religious passion as irrational and dangerously divisive, and they challenged, both publicly and privately, the dogmas of traditional Christianity.

Benjamin Franklin, for example, dismissed most of Christian doctrine as “unintelligible.” He believed in a deity who “delights” in man’s “pursuit of happiness.” He regarded Jesus as a wise moral philosopher, but not necessarily as a divine or divinely inspired figure. He viewed all religions as more or less interchangeable in their most fundamental tenets, which he believed required men to treat each other with kindness and respect.

Thomas Jefferson was a thoroughgoing skeptic who valued reason above faith. He subjected every religious tradition, including his own, to careful scrutiny. He had no patience for talk of miracles, revelation, and resurrection. Like Franklin, Jefferson admired Jesus as a moral philosopher, but insisted that Jesus’ teachings had been distorted beyond all recognition by a succession of “corruptors,” such as Paul, Augustine, and Calvin. He regarded such doctrines as predestination, trinitarianism, and original sin as “nonsense,” “abracadabra” and “a deliria of crazy imaginations.” He referred to Christianity as “our peculiar superstition” and maintained that “ridicule” was the only rational response to the “unintelligible propositions” of traditional Christianity.

John Adams, who identified most closely with the early Unitarians, also believed that the original teachings of Jesus had been sound, but that Christianity had subsequently gone awry. He wrote to Jefferson that the essence of his religious beliefs was captured in the phrase, “Be just and good.” As President, Adams signed a treaty, unanimously approved by the Senate in 1797, stating unambiguously that “the Government of the United States . . . is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

George Washington was respectful of traditional Christianity, but he did not have much use for it. His personal papers offer no evidence that he believed in biblical revelation, eternal life, or Jesus’ divinity. Clergymen who knew Washington well bemoaned his skeptical approach to Christianity. Bishop William White, for example, admitted that no “degree of recollection will bring to my mind any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in Christian revelation.”

Tom Paine, the author of Common Sense, The Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason, insisted that “the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian religion,” because it “is free from those invented and torturing articles that shock our reason.” Paine explained that deism’s creed “is pure and sublimely simple. It believes in God, and there it rests. It honours Reason as the choicest gift of God to man” and “it avoids all presumptuous beliefs and rejects, as the fabulous inventions of men, all books pretending to revelation.” Paine dismissed Christianity as “a fable, which, for absurdity and extravagance, is not exceeded by anything that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients.” In Paine’s view, traditional Christianity had “served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”

These words no doubt sound shockingly blunt and “politically incorrect” to modern ears, but they were in fact the views of many of our most revered Founders. The fable that the United States was founded as a Christian Nation is just that – a fable.

It is worth noting that the Declaration of Independence does not invoke Jesus, or Christ, or Our Father, or the Almighty, but the “Laws of Nature,” “Nature’s God,” the “Supreme Judge,” and “Divine Providence,” all phrases that belong to the tradition of deism. The Declaration of Independence is not a Puritan or Calvinist or Methodist or Baptist or Protestant or Catholic or Christian document, but a document of the Enlightenment. It is a statement that deeply and intentionally invokes the language of American deism. It is a document of its own time, and it speaks eloquently about what Americans of that time believed.

The Constitution goes even further. It does not invoke the deity at all. Unlike the Puritan documents of the early seventeenth century, it makes no reference whatever to God. It cites as its ultimate source of authority not “the command of God,” but “We the People,” the stated purpose of the Constitution is not to create a government “according to the will of God” but to “secure the Blessings of Liberty.” Significantly, the only reference to religion in the 1789 Constitution expressly prohibits the use of any religious test for public office.

The Founders were not anti-religion. They understood that religion could help nurture the public morality necessary to a self-governing society. But they also understood that religion was fundamentally a private and personal matter that had no place in the political life of a nation dedicated to the separation of church and state. They would have been appalled at the idea of the federal government sponsoring “faith-based” initiatives. They would have been quite happy to tolerate Mitt Romney’s Mormonism – as long as he keeps it out of our government.

Posted by mikki at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bozeman Montana Local News:


A bit of hotel room fun brought a group of six college-aged students more attention than they bargained for Friday evening, the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office reported Saturday.

Around 6 p.m., the group activated a personal locator beacon at their hotel on North Seventh Avenue, possibly attempting to locate each other with the device, Undersheriff Jim Oberhofer said.

“They thought it interacted with their avalanche beacons. It did not,” he said. “They didn't realize it communicated with a satellite.”

The beacon sends a signal to a government-controlled satellite that then pages local law enforcement and search and rescue teams.

But Oberhofer said the first set of coordinates received from the beacon were incorrect. As a result, a search and rescue team was dispatched to Castle Mountain to search for the beacon. A later message from the satellite, combined with tracking work done by local ham radio operators, located the beacon at the hotel, Oberhofer said.

The entire ordeal took about five hours, Oberhofer said. During that time, 22 volunteers, six deputies and an ambulance crew either responded to the beacon or were held on standby.

He said the Sheriff's Office did not issue any citations and chalked the incident up to a simple misunderstanding.

Oberhofer said this was the first locator beacon activated in Gallatin County since the satellite-based system began operating in 2003.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the beacons led to the rescue of 59 people in 2007.

Posted by mikki at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Md. Firefighter Rescues Unwanted Parrots:


DAMASCUS, Md. (AP) - Paralyzed on his right side and unable to speak following a car accident, former firefighter Brian Wilson credits his parrots with helping him get back on his feet.

Now, he is returning the favor by caring for birds others no longer want.

"I was supposed to be in a wheelchair, in a nursing home," Wilson said, recalling how his parrots helped him recover from the brain injury suffered shortly after retiring as a Montgomery County firefighter in 1995.

"They kept repeating one word, and they knew I would say it right," Wilson said.

"It was like I was a child. But it worked. They taught me how to talk again. Then I had to learn to walk, because I had to let them out and take care of them and clean their cages."

Now, people bring him birds, often warning he won't be able to hold them. He often amazes the owners by winning the birds over in minutes.

"Ninety percent of them have been so neglected, they don't want to come out of their cage because they don't know what will happen," Wilson said.

Wilson speaks with a deep voice when he instructs parrots to step up or down, and softly when he tells them he loves them and gives them kisses as rewards. If they don't respond correctly, he ignores them.

"They need attention all the time," Wilson said. "I give them everything they want and deserve."

They also need a balanced diet, Wilson said, noting seeds alone will cut their life span in half. Parrots enjoy fruits, vegetables, and even chicken bones, which they chew to get to the marrow, but can't have chocolate, caffeine and avocado and apple seeds, which can be fatal.

Wilson said his finances are becoming tighter because he is moving from disability to retirement and is seeking donations for his Wilson Parrot Foundation, including a reliable van a car dealer might want to donate.

Government workers can help through the Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Region and Central Maryland.

For those considering a parrot as a pet, he advises them to let the bird choose the owner.

"Know that they are messy, destructive and need attention," he said.

Posted by mikki at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Looking for increased revenue, states tax out-of-state plane owners - The Boston Globe:


PORTLAND, Maine - When Steve Kahn got a $26,000 tax bill on his airplane, he thought Maine Revenue Services had made a mistake. Kahn lives, works, and keeps his plane in Massachusetts.

But the bill was no error. It was part of the agency's efforts to collect taxes on aircraft owned by out-of-state residents, even though they bought their planes elsewhere and brought them to Maine only to visit.

A number of other states, from Florida to Washington, are doing the same as they grapple with budget shortfalls and as the Internet makes it easier to track the comings and goings of aircraft.

Many pilots are outraged.

"At best what Maine is doing is underhanded and devious; at worst it is illegal," Kahn said. "Either way, it's wrong."

Maine officials say they are simply enforcing the state's laws when they send bills, into six figures, to out-of-state plane owners.

At issue in Maine is the state's use tax, which applies to many goods and services bought out of state that are not subject to sales tax. In the case of airplanes, tax officials say, the law allows them to collect a 5 percent use tax from people who did not pay sales taxes on their planes if they brought their plane to Maine for more than 20 days, excluding time for maintenance and alterations, in the first year of ownership.

"We're charged with administering the law," said David Bauer, a tax policy analyst with Maine Revenue Services. "We didn't write it."

Use taxes have been on the books for decades, but the first time tax lawyer Jon Block saw the state go after somebody who lives and keeps their plane out of state was three years ago.

Block, with the Pierce Atwood law firm in Portland, represents seven people from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, and Florida who got bills this year ranging from about $16,000 to $175,000. His clients mostly fly to Maine on business or to visit vacation homes.

"These people are dumbfounded," Block said. "They feel like they've been taken to the cleaners." He contends that in addition to being unfair, the wording of Maine's use-tax law makes his clients exempt from the tax.

Other states are also stepping up efforts to collect use, lease, and property taxes from out-of-state plane owners, said Louis Meiners, president of Advocate Aircraft Taxation Co. of Naples, Fla., a consulting firm for aircraft owners with 1,600 clients nationwide.

Florida assesses a 6 percent use tax on plane owners who didn't pay sales tax on their planes and bring them to Florida even once within six months of the purchase date. Washington state assesses a use tax of up to 8.9 percent if a plane is in Washington for more than 90 days in any continuous 12-month period. Illinois is assessing taxes on out-of-state plane owners, as well, Meiners said.

These days, the Internet makes it easier for tax collectors to track the whereabouts of planes on the Internet or through FAA records, Meiners said. Some plane owners have received letters of inquiry and bills from multiple states demanding payment or proof that they have paid sales taxes in their home states, he said. "What we have is a real potential for double-taxation and triple-taxation and endless taxation in the way the states try to enforce it."

Kahn, a partner in a Boston financial-services company, did not pay a sales tax when he bought his plane five years ago because Massachusetts exempts planes.

He often flies to Rockland, Maine, to visit his vacation home. He also flies as a pilot in the national Angel Flight program to pick up patients in rural Maine and bring them to Boston-area hospitals free of charge.

He has appealed his tax bill. If his appeal fails, he could take the case to court. "I don't mind paying taxes when I owe them, but this is underhanded," he said.

Posted by mikki at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Their newest tactic is to claim that ripping YOUR OWN PAID FOR CD for use on your computer or ipod is "theft" and you are "stealing." Guess that paying for music is no defense against these nut cases. Have they noticed that their sales are in the toilet and getting worse? They are still blindly clinging to their outdated business model, resorting to suing their own customers, and demanding special treatment for their product in the courts above and beyond what any other product receives. Perhaps when their cold dead fingers are finally pried off of the throat of creativity, new artists will be free to distribute their music as THEY see fit.

Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use - washingtonpost.com:


Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.

Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry's lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

They're not kidding. In October, after a trial in Minnesota -- the first time the industry has made its case before a federal jury -- Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $220,000 to the big record companies. That's $9,250 for each of 24 songs she was accused of sharing online.

Whether customers may copy their CDs onto their computers -- an act at the very heart of the digital revolution -- has a murky legal foundation, the RIAA argues. The industry's own Web site says that making a personal copy of a CD that you bought legitimately may not be a legal right, but it "won't usually raise concerns," as long as you don't give away the music or lend it to anyone.

Of course, that's exactly what millions of people do every day. In a Los Angeles Times poll, 69 percent of teenagers surveyed said they thought it was legal to copy a CD they own and give it to a friend. The RIAA cites a study that found that more than half of current college students download music and movies illegally.

The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.

But lawyers for consumers point to a series of court rulings over the last few decades that found no violation of copyright law in the use of VCRs and other devices to time-shift TV programs; that is, to make personal copies for the purpose of making portable a legally obtained recording.

As technologies evolve, old media companies tend not to be the source of the innovation that allows them to survive. Even so, new technologies don't usually kill off old media: That's the good news for the recording industry, as for the TV, movie, newspaper and magazine businesses. But for those old media to survive, they must adapt, finding new business models and new, compelling content to offer.

The RIAA's legal crusade against its customers is a classic example of an old media company clinging to a business model that has collapsed. Four years of a failed strategy has only "created a whole market of people who specifically look to buy independent goods so as not to deal with the big record companies," Beckerman says. "Every problem they're trying to solve is worse now than when they started."

The industry "will continue to bring lawsuits" against those who "ignore years of warnings," RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said in a statement. "It's not our first choice, but it's a necessary part of the equation. There are consequences for breaking the law." And, perhaps, for firing up your computer.

Posted by mikki at 02:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pilot to TSA: Let my people go!:


Patrick Smith, the airline pilot who co-writes the NY Times's Jetlagged Blog has written a corker of an editorial railing against the bullshit "security" procedures that the TSA has put into place. Smith is hopping mad and stops just short of calling for a revolution. Man, I'd be with him at the barricades.

No matter that a deadly sharp can be fashioned from virtually anything found on a plane, be it a broken wine bottle or a snapped-off length of plastic, we are content wasting billions of taxpayer dollars and untold hours of labor in a delusional attempt to thwart an attack that has already happened, asked to queue for absurd lengths of time, subject to embarrassing pat-downs and loss of our belongings.

The folly is much the same with respect to the liquids and gels restrictions, introduced two summers ago following the breakup of a London-based cabal that was planning to blow up jetliners using liquid explosives. Allegations surrounding the conspiracy were revealed to substantially embellished. In an August, 2006 article in the New York Times, British officials admitted that public statements made following the arrests were overcooked, inaccurate and "unfortunate." The plot's leaders were still in the process of recruiting and radicalizing would-be bombers. They lacked passports, airline tickets and, most critical of all, they had been unsuccessful in actually producing liquid explosives. Investigators later described the widely parroted report that up to ten U.S airliners had been targeted as "speculative" and "exaggerated."

Link

(Thanks to HeavyD and everyone else who suggested this one!)

Posted by mikki at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Malibu Loses Prop, Landing Successful:


With no prop, no forward visibility and three people in his charge (one of them, his daughter), 7,400-hour pilot Barry Cox landed a 1988 Piper Malibu at Aspen-Pitkin county airport Thursday after suffering catastrophic engine failure just minutes into his flight. Offering up a late nomination for understatement of the year, "It was exciting," Cox told the Aspen Times. The incident unfolded around 10 a.m., about ten minutes into the flight and only 147 hours after the Malibu's Continental had been remanufactured. Cox had piloted the Malibu out of Aspen-Pitkin to 16,000 feet and about eight miles north of the airport. It was then and there that oil suddenly turned the windshield an opaque brown, a sight that was followed by a loud sound that likely signified the propeller's departure from the aircraft. Cox radioed the Aspen tower to inform them of his situation and impending return before offering calming words to his frightened daughter, "I was just saying, 'We're OK, we can glide from here and make it.'"

Posted by mikki at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So when we try to take photographic dive trips, we will have such a lovely fun time trying to get our batteries through. But hey, we can take them on board if we put them in PLASTIC BAGS. And now TSA will have the fun of arguing with us as to whether our batteries are lithium or nickel metal hydride. And they're going to have to COUNT how many we're allowed to bring. Oh that's going to make lines go ever so quickly. FEH!

New Rule Restricts Lithium Batteries On Planes - Travel Getaways News Story - WRC | Washington:


WASHINGTON -- Airline passengers will no longer be able to pack loose lithium batteries in checked luggage starting Jan. 1 due to fire risks, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Lithium batteries can overheat and ignite in certain conditions.
Passengers will still be able to pack batteries in checked bags if they are installed in electronic devices or in carry-on luggage if they are stored in plastic bags, according to the new federal safety rule.
Consumer electronics such as cameras, cell phones and most laptops are still allowed, but passengers can bring only two extended-life spare-rechargeable lithium batteries for these devices in carry-on baggage under the rule.
The FAA has found that current systems for putting out aircraft cargo fires could not suppress a fire if a shipment of non-rechargeable batteries ignited during flight, the release said.

Posted by mikki at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Law.com - Airline Industry to Appeal 'Passenger Bill of Rights' Ruling:


An airline industry trade group has filed a notice of appeal in its challenge to New York state's new law requiring better treatment of passengers sitting on grounded aircraft.

The Air Transit Association of America filed a notice to appeal last week's ruling by Northern District of New York Judge Lawrence E. Kahn. He ruled in Air Transport Association of America v. Cuomo that the pro-passenger law is not pre-empted by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, as the airline industry group contended.

Rather than regulating airline routes and fares, which states are barred from doing by federal law, Kahn ruled that the new state law is a permissible exercise of New York's power to protect the health and safety of passengers.

The law, which goes into effect on Tuesday, will require airlines to provide water, fresh air and working toilets to travelers stuck for longer than three hours on delayed flights. It allows the attorney general to seek civil fines of up to $1,000 per passenger per violation.

Posted by mikki at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gingerbread K-9 (from Doctor Who):

A tasty replica of K-9 from Doctor Who, by livejournaller therru: Link. This same nerd baker also crafted a tasty Tardis last year, and here are instructions. (thanks, AV)

Posted by mikki at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Australia dumps national ID card:


Australians got a wonderful xmas surprise this month -- the new Labour government has scrapped the plan for a universal surveillance identity card.

Opponents of Australia's controversial Access Card received an early Christmas present earlier this month when the incoming Rudd Labor Government finally axed the controversial ID program. Had it been implemented, the Access Card program would have required Australians to present the smart card anytime they dealt with certain federal departments, including Medicare, Centrelink, the Child Support Agency, or Veterans' Affairs...

Encrypted information contained within the card's RFID chip would have included a person's legal name, date of birth, gender, address, signature, card number, card expiration date, and Medicare number. Provisions were also included that would allow additional information deemed to be necessary for either "the administration or purposes of the Act."

Australians were unhappy about being forced to carry a unique ID card merely for the purpose of interacting with basic human and health services, and the proposal faced opposition from its very inception. The defeat of John Howard in the Australian polls was the last gasp of the Access Card program, which was killed off as one of the very first acts of the new Labor government, lead by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Link

Posted by mikki at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anonymity protected:

Just caught up with this (via a Steve Rubel tweet): A New Jersey court protected an anonymous blogger criticizing local government from being unmasked by a subpoena and dragged into litigation. When I was at Advance Internet, we got frequent subpoenas, mostly from local governments — often police chiefs who were being criticized in forums and knew how to use subpoena power to get IP addresses out of us. All in all, I think this is good news for anonymity and certainly for service hosts. There are, of course, also issues about anonymity and libel. But erring against the chilling of speech is the better choice — especially when it comes to dogging government.

Posted by mikki at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Traffic Control Viewed as ISP Risk:




Certain ISPs plan to spend a lot of money
throttling,

stifling,

policing copyrights,

campaigning and lobbying
to control content of information flow through their networks.
They might want to look at what's happening in China:

Beijing has recently added a new weapon to its arsenal of surveillance
technologies, a system it believes to be a modern marvel: the Golden
Shield. It took eight years and $700 million to build, and its mission
is to "purify" the Internet — an apparently urgent task. "Whether we
can cope with the Internet is a matter that affects the development of
socialist culture, the security of information, and the stability of
the state," President Hu Jintao said in January.

The Golden Shield — the latest addition to what is widely referred
to as the Great Firewall of China — was supposed to monitor, filter,
and block sensitive online content. But only a year after completion,
it already looks doomed to fail. True, surveillance remains widespread,
and outspoken dissidents are punished harshly. But my experience as
a correspondent in China for seven years suggests that the country's
stranglehold on the communications of its citizens is slipping: Bloggers
and other Web sources are rapidly supplanting Communist-controlled
news outlets. Cyberprotests have managed to bring about an important
constitutional change. And ordinary Chinese citizens can circumvent
the Great Firewall and evade other forms of police observation with
surprising ease. If they know how.

—
The Great Firewall: China's Misguided — and Futile — Attempt to Control What Happens Online,
By Oliver August,
WIRED MAGAZINE: ISSUE 15.11,
10.23.07 | 12:00 AM

And if they don't know how, that article provides tips.

Sure, the Great Firewall is for literal censorship and societal control.
But we've already seen that AT&T has censored music videos for political content.
And users may consider other forms of information limiting,
such as Comcast and Cox stifling P2P communications, as censorship.

For other examples, look at what's happening with the iPhone.
It comes locked to AT&T's network, but within weeks of its
release, methods to unlock it were found and distributed.
In Europe it probably won't be allowed to be sold locked.
Or look at what happened
to Sony when it sold CDs with rootkits,
violating its customers security and privacy.

John Gilmore is still right:

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

Users don't like censorship.
They will work around it.
They will vote with their pocketbooks for ISPs that don't do it.
Some of them will probably even attack the ISPs that do it,
if not through the Internet, then certainly through the press,
as we've already seen happen.

If the world's largest country, with an authoritarian government
with more than half a century of experience controling its people
can't control access to the Internet,
mere commercial ISPs might as well not try.
Trying constitutes a business and possibly a security risk
to the ISPs that do so.

-jsq

Seen on BoingBoing.

Posted by mikki at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

EFF Protects Free Speech Rights for New Jersey Blogger:

Manalapan, NJ - A Superior Court judge in New Jersey quashed a bogus subpoena for the identity of an anonymous blogger Friday, protecting the free speech rights of a critic writing about a local government controversy.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) represented the anonymous blogger, known as "daTruthSquad," on a site hosted by Google's Blogspot service. After the blogger strongly criticized a malpractice lawsuit filed by the township of Manalapan against its former city attorney, the township subpoenaed Google for "daTruthSquad's" identity, as well as for any emails, blog drafts, and other information Google had about the blogger. In a hearing Friday, Superior Court Judge Terence Flynn quashed the subpoena, ruling that the blogger had a First Amendment to anonymous speech.

"We're grateful that Judge Flynn upheld the First Amendment rights of our client and recognized that anonymous speakers should not be intimidated into silence through the discovery process," said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "Now 'daTruthSquad' can continue to discuss township business without fear of government reprisal."

For more on this case:

http://www.eff.org/cases/manalapan-v-moskovitz

Contact:

Matt Zimmerman

Staff Attorney

Electronic Frontier Foundation

mattz@eff.org

Posted by mikki at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well said, well said.... American Chronicle: The Case for Christ-Free Christmas:
Christmas is only a few days off, and I think it’s as good a time as any to speak up for a segment of humanity that is too often ignored and forgotten by the media around the holidays. I speak up for this faction of society not only because I believe it to be vastly in the majority, but also because I happen to be a member. I’m talking about those of us who celebrate a secular Christmas.

My favorite time of year for as long as I can remember has been Christmas. As a child, I strung popcorn onto thread, hung ornaments from pine branches (we always bought a real tree back then), and stood alongside my mother as she baked cookies decorated with brightly colored red and green sugar. When I was young enough to still believe in him, I wrote letters to Santa Claus and left a plate cookies and a glass of milk out on the kitchen table for him. One year I even constructed a crude object d’art from yarn and glued-together popsicle sticks and left it out for Santa to take with him, labeling it in my letter simply “a toy.” I figured he could deliver it to some underprivileged child behind the Iron Curtain who wouldn’t know the difference. When I woke up that Christmas morning, my homemade toy was gone, and Santa thanked me for it in a note left on the kitchen table.

At the time it was a thrilling surprise, though now when I think about it, I am suspicious of the similarity of Santa’s handwriting to that of my mother.

My mother’s father was a minister. My father’s upbringing wasn’t nearly so religious, but he wasn’t brought up an atheist, either. Mercifully, they both decided before I was born not to push religion on me. Except for a few months when I was in first grade, when Dad temporarily let his elderly grandmother guilt-trip him into it, we never attended church. Our Christmases were centered around Santa, snowmen, food, and family. And presents, naturally, which my younger brother and I soon realized were best of all.

As an adult, I’ve outgrown Santa and snowmen, and the rapacious lust for receiving gifts, but I still treasure the time spent sitting around the tree with my mother and father, my brother, my grandmother, and, these last few years, my girlfriend. We sing no hymns, we say no prayers. Jesus, most assuredly, is not among our reasons for the season.

And good for us, because that particular bit of bumper sticker sloganeering has always gotten on my nerves. For one thing, there’s the obnoxious insistence that any Christmas celebration not centering on the Christian concept of the holiday is illegitimate. For another thing, it makes no rational sense—no matter how you look at it, Jesus is not the reason for the season.

If you take “season” to mean the season of winter, the period of the year, in the Northern Hemisphere, between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, characterized by colder temperatures and fewer hours of daylight, then the season is the result of the 23 degree tilt of the Earth’s axis relative to its orbital plane. Jesus is neither the source, nor the cause, nor in any sense the reason for this season.

If you interpret “season” to mean the season of celebration surrounding the solstice in late December, then it is the result of virtually every culture throughout Europe and Asia marking the time of the solstice as a significant annual event. Many of these cultural celebrations predate Christianity by hundreds or thousands of years, and most have nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus. Even the connection of Jesus to Christmas is questionable; Christians take the day to mark his birth, but a careful reading of the Biblical account suggests his actual date of birth was during spring or summer. The Christmas celebration was established in late December to replace the pre-existing pagan celebrations, including Saturnalia, which were already popular in the Roman Empire before its conversion to Christianity.

So if I want to celebrate a non-religious holiday in late December, why bother with Christmas at all? There’s Yule, which is a major donor of traditions and trappings to modern Christmas—why don’t I trade in the tree for a log, and call the family to feast in honor of Thor? Because I don’t want to celebrate Yule. It means nothing to me. I want to celebrate Christmas. What the evangelical “Jesus is the reason” crowd hates to admit is that, while they weren’t looking, especially during the last hundred years or so, Christmas became a secular holiday.

Some Christians, I know, object to Christ-free secular celebrations being referred to as Christmas. “Put the Christ back in Christmas,” goes another popular slogan. But the word, like the holiday itself, has evolved beyond its origins. Modern Christmas is no more limited by the original conventions of Christ’s Mass than modern Halloween is by the Catholic celebration of All Hallows Eve.

I also don’t believe there is a war on Christmas. I’m not an officious alarmist who sees department stores and local governments wishing people “Happy Holidays” as part of an insidious scheme to delete Christmas from the public consciousness, like a certain television and radio host whom I shall not name, except to state that his initials are “Bill O’Reilly.” I know that many public schools no longer allow their show choirs to sing Christmas carols, and are even afraid to label their Christmas pageants as such, but I chalk that up to misplaced, overboard, however well-meaning, political correctness rather than some nefarious desire on the part of teachers and administrators to disenfranchise Christians.

I have no problem with schools holding Christmas assemblies, with the local, state or national governments hanging Christmas decorations on public property, or with the mayor or the governor or the president wishing us all a “Merry Christmas,” so long as we’re talking about the secular Christmas that virtually everyone in the United States, regardless of cultural or religious background, celebrates, even if only a little, and not the self-righteously pious Jesus-fest around which many church calendars revolve.

Not that I’m the type to brag about this sort of thing, but the Supreme Court agrees with me. In 2001, the highest court in the land upheld a lower court’s ruling in the case of Ganulin v. United States that Christmas served a legitimate secular purpose. It is not an exclusively religious holiday, and it hasn’t been for a long time.

Secular Christmas isn’t perfect. I’m as put-off by the commercialism and materialism surrounding it as anyone. I don’t want it to be an occasion for overindulgence or conspicuous consumption. I hate the emphasis on shopping that dominates the season, kicking into high gear the day after Thanksgiving and enduring for a solid month. Christmas is a sacred day to me. It’s a day for family and friends, for sitting around the table and eating great food, for gathering in the living room to watch Miracle on 34th Street—hell, if Dad wants to, I’ll even hold my gorge down long enough to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Making it a secular day shouldn’t make it a cheap day, a commercial or tawdry day.

For me, it’s always been the most wonderful time of the year, and it’s never had anything to do with the birth of Jesus. If you and your family treasure your religious Christmas, if you look forward to attending church services early in the morning, if you proudly display your illuminated plastic crèche in your front yard, more power to you. You have a right to your Christmas, just as I have to mine.

Anyway, whatever your Christmas looks like, whether its central figure is a child in a manger or a fat, bearded fellow on a sleigh; whether your tree is topped by an angel or a star; whether your yard is adorned with a nativity scene or a giant inflatable snowman; whether you believe in Christ, or Santa Claus, or neither one; whether you adore it or couldn’t care less, have a good one. Merry Christmas.

Posted by mikki at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

EFF Applauds Senator Reid's Decision to Delay Surveillance Bill Until January:

Washington, D.C. - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced today that due to the contentious nature of proposals to provide amnesty for telecoms that participated in the National Security Agency's (NSA) warrantless wiretapping program, further debate on the surveillance bill in the Senate would be delayed until January 2008. Reid's announcement followed a series of speeches by Senators who spoke in strong opposition to telecom amnesty, led by Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.

Senator Dodd's efforts included numerous citations to the evidence in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) case against AT&T from former AT&T technician and whistleblower Mark Klein, as well as to the initial decision by federal Judge Vaughn Walker that allowed the case to proceed.

In a statement delivered on the Senate floor at the end of the day, Senator Reid spoke against proposals to provide retroactive amnesty for telecoms, saying: "I believe that it is more than appropriate to ask the courts to examine the telephone companies actions and to evaluate whether or not they acted properly."

Senator Reid also warned his colleagues in the Senate about the dangerous precedent that could result should the telecoms receive amnesty from Congress: "Providing immunity without ever undertaking such an evaluation would send a dangerous signal that the requirements we enact prospectively may be ignored with impunity."

"We applaud Senator Reid for allowing the full Senate to take the time to carefully consider the dangers of granting amnesty to the phone companies who have blatantly violated their customers' privacy for over six years. Over the holiday break we hope that many Senators will listen to their constituents who want them to stand up for the Fourth Amendment," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "But the biggest hero today is Senator Dodd, who recognized the profound Constitutional issues at stake in taking this key issue away from the courts, and refused to let it be rammed through the Senate without a fight. "

EFF represents the plaintiffs in Hepting v. AT&T, one of dozens of class-action suits accusing the telecoms of violating customers' rights by illegally assisting the National Security Agency with this dragnet domestic surveillance of ordinary Americans.

For more on Hepting v. AT&T and telecom immunity:

http://www.eff.org/nsa

Contacts:

Kevin Bankston

Staff Attorney

Electronic Frontier Foundation

bankston@eff.org

Cindy Cohn

Legal Director

Electronic Frontier Foundation

cindy@eff.org

Posted by mikki at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Won't this be an impetus to make people learn the language of the country? Try asking for forms in English if you happen to live in say, Paris.

Bill Says Va. Government Services Must Be Provided Only In English:


Services provided in foreign languages to non-English-speaking Virginia residents could be made illegal under legislation proposed in the Virginia General Assembly by Woodbridge Delegate Scott Lingamfelter, News4's Jane Watrel reported.

Posted by mikki at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Judge: White House visitor logs are public documents - CNN.com:


ASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House must release its visitor logs and cannot hide behind a shield of privilege, a federal judge ruled Monday. The Bush administration has resisted public disclosure while it fights a lawsuit over alleged political influence by conservative Christian leaders.

The Bush administration has been fighting the release of White House visitor logs.

U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth concluded the information is part of the public record and is subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act as "agency records."

"Because the Secret Service creates, uses and relies on, and stores visitor records, they are under its control," said Lamberth.

He ordered the Secret Service to produce records within 20 days.

The White House claimed exclusive control of the documents, subject to the complete discretion of the president over their release.

Secret Service records have been an important tool for advocacy groups and members of Congress seeking information on the inner workings of the executive branch.

Congressional investigators used the records a decade ago in their investigations of the various Whitewater scandals involving President Clinton and his associates, as well as allegations of influence peddling by the Clinton campaign in the 1996 elections.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a self-described government watchdog group, sought the visit records of prominent conservatives James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of America and seven others including the late televangelist Jerry Falwell.

"CREW is pleased that the judge saw through the White House's transparent attempts to hide public documents from the American people," said Melanie Sloan, the group's executive director. "We look forward to sharing the documents we obtain through this lawsuit."

The White House and Justice Department had no immediate reaction to the ruling.

Separate legal action by CREW and other groups, including Judicial Watch and the Washington Post, sought White House visitor logs that listed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He pleaded guilty last year to public corruption charges.

The White House and the Secret Service in 2006 signed an agreement that visitors to the White House complex were not subject to public disclosure. That "memorandum of understanding" was disclosed during legal action over the Abramoff records.

Lamberth called that a "self-serving" agreement because it was issued after the records were created and after the CREW lawsuit.

The judge, in a separate ruling Monday, said he lacked the authority to order the Secret Service to stop destroying its visitor records once copies were turned over to White House officials. But Lamberth noted the National Archives had to approve any destruction of the logs.

Another federal judge in Washington ordered the release of Secret Service logs of visitors to Vice President Dick Cheney's office. Cheney claimed those logs were subject to executive privilege. That ruling is being appealed.

Lamberth noted the Secret Service has an important "protective mission" when compiling electronic information -- including background checks -- of those seeking to enter the White House complex. But he said the agency's claim of "limited use" of the data does not mean the records are not subject to judicial review.

"This does not mean the Secret Service does not read or rely on them," wrote Lamberth. "If that were the case, any convenience store patron who has ever bought a losing scratch ticket could claim they did not gamble simply because they held the ticket for only a few minutes."

The issue of White House privilege over visitor logs has not been fully addressed by the Supreme Court.

The case decided Monday is Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Posted by mikki at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BBC NEWS | Americas | Flatulence leads US jet to divert:


An American Airlines plane made an emergency landing in Nashville after passengers reported the smell of sulphur from burning matches.
The matches were found on the seat of a woman who had attempted to conceal the odour of flatulence with the matches, Nashville airport authorities said.

All 99 passengers and five crew left the plane while it was searched.

The woman was questioned by the FBI but released without charge and allowed to board another American Airlines flight.

"It was determined that she was trying to conceal body odour," said Lynne Lowrance of the Nashville Airport Authority.

She had "no malicious intent but had struck matches which is against [Transport Security Administration] rules," Ms Lowrance said.

The unidentified woman had an unspecified medical condition, Associated Press news agency said.

She was carrying safety matches, which the TSA allows in carry-on luggage.

The matches are not allowed to be struck, however.

Posted by mikki at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CDT Joins Push to Thwart Funding for Real ID Act:


CDT has signed onto a letter with 75 other privacy and civil liberties groups urging Congress to cut funding for the Real ID Act from the upcoming 2008 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security. The Real ID Act, which requires national standards for driver's licenses, and may result in the creation of a massive system of identifying information on most American adults, lacks privacy and security protections. DHS has failed to issue final regulations for implementing the Act. CDT has urged Congress to rectify the privacy and security holes in the Real ID plan before funding its implementation. CDT and the other signatories are asking Congress to reallocate the $50 million REAL ID funding in the DHS bill to other national priorities.

Posted by mikki at 02:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

EFF Calls on Senate Judiciary Committee and Full Senate to Take More Time and Not Let Telephone Companies Off the Hook:

Washington, D.C. - Tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up a bill introduced by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) that would substitute the government for the phone companies in all current litigation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), co-lead counsel in the nearly 40 pending lawsuits against the major telephone carriers, strongly believes that Congress need not and should not grant amnesty for providing the National Security Agency (NSA) with the full content of billions of their customers' emails, text messages and Internet-carried phone calls.

"While EFF appreciates the attempt by Senator Specter to craft a compromise to save the litigation, the bill contains serious flaws that undermine the goal of allowing the courts to decide whether the carriers and the president broke the law when they engaged in over five years of warrantless surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "Given the gravity and unprecedented complexities of the issues raised by the carriers' demand for amnesty, Congress should not be rushed into action by an arbitrary deadline and should instead take the time to carefully consider Senator Specter's proposal as well as others."

Prior to the Thanksgiving break, Senator Specter had the right idea when he said: "I don't think Congress can stand by, and in the face of what has happened, give carte blanche, a free ticket, grant retroactive immunity to suggest to future administrations that they can ignore separation of powers and they can ignore Congressional oversight and just run roughshod over the entire process without being held accountable. The better practice is to allow judicial proceedings to take their course and let the courts make their own determinations."

"The Judiciary Committee's instincts before Thanksgiving to separate out the substantive changes to FISA -- which are tied to the sunset of the Protect America Act in February, 2008 -- from the question of amnesty were correct," said Cohn. "Before tens of millions of Americans and their legitimate claims are kicked out of court, Congress owes the American people a transparent process -- not a few weeks of pressured consideration and a single public hearing by the Committee charged with protecting the Bill of Rights."

The "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Substitution Act of 2007," introduced on December 3 by Sen. Specter, addresses one important problem regarding damages if the plaintiffs' case is proven. Regrettably, however, it falls short. Specifically, the new Specter substitution bill:

* Would require the plaintiffs to change their legal claims from those against telecoms to claims that can only be made against the government, paradoxically making the lawsuits more likely to trigger national security concerns even as they slant the playing field sharply in favor of the government

* Could empower the government to kill the litigation by asserting legal privileges that the government alone possesses

* Would dramatically and prejudicially limit the plaintiffs' current rights to discovery and other key procedural rights critical to getting at the facts about the telecoms' ongoing violations of multiple Congressional privacy statutes, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). These statutes specifically require telecoms to say "No" to an overreaching Executive Branch when it demands warrantless and illegal access to customers' private calls and call records.

"Although regrettably we cannot support Sen. Specter's new bill, we applaud his serious efforts and his fundamental approach to this issue," said Cohn. "We couldn't agree more with his bottom line on telecom amnesty and hope that every senator will take this to heart as FISA reform makes its way to the Senate floor this year or next."

For more on the telecom lawsuits:

http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying

Contacts:

Kevin Bankston

Staff Attorney

Electronic Frontier Foundation

bankston@eff.org

Cindy Cohn

Legal Director

Electronic Frontier Foundation

cindy@eff.org

Posted by mikki at 02:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another thought provoking piece from John Quarterman

Egerstad Arrested: Uses Tor to Snoop Snoopers; Is This a Crime?:


So this fellow was just arrested and some of his computers confiscated:

Dan Egerstad, a security consultant, intercepted data carried over
a global communications network used by embassies around the world in
August and gained access to 1000 sensitive email accounts. They contained
confidential diplomatic memos and other sensitive government emails.

After informing the governments involved of their security failings and
receiving no response, Egerstad published 100 of the email accounts,
including login details and passwords, on his website for anyone curious
enough to have a look. The site, derangedsecurity.com, has since been
taken offline.

—
Swedish Police Swoop on Dan Egerstad - UPDATE
by Fergie,
Fergie's Tech Blog,
14 Nov 2007

He got this information by installing Tor, which people use to hide their IP addresses, and looking to see what passed over it. What he saw he thinks was people who had already broken into embassy accounts using them illicitly. He tried to inform governments, who (except for Iran) were uninterested. Then he posted his information online, thus probably stopping the snoopers.

So Egerstad gets arrested, yet
this man, who says "Privacy no longer can mean anonymity" walks around free.

-jsq

Posted by mikki at 02:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CNN is reporting that Mike Huckabee is now leading other republicans by 22 points in Iowa. This is a man who says he can't separate faith from politics. This misogynist would overturn Roe v. Wade, would appoint only "pro choice" people into public positions that have anything to do with women's choice, and says:

As Governor, I did all I could to protect life. The many pro-life laws I got through my Democrat legislature are the accomplishments that give me the most pride and personal satisfaction. To me, life doesn't begin at conception and end at birth. Every child deserves a quality education, first-rate health care, decent housing in a safe neighborhood, and clean air and drinking water. Every child deserves the opportunity to discover and use his God-given gifts and talents.

So how can you do this while cutting taxes, building fences, fighting this war on terror, etc.? Oh, "Fair Tax" which would tax people 30% of everything they buy, and allowing full globalization, where he says "Globalization, done right, done fairly, can be the equivalent of a big pay raise by allowing us to buy things more cheaply." But how can that be unless we buy from countries that pay their people a fraction of what we make here, exporting American jobs so the corporations can make another buck? Another buck that they don't pay taxes on.

Without even going into his draconian approach to religion, and his thoughts that global warning is a "moral issue," isn't this enough to reject the guy? What's going on there in Iowa anyway?

Perhaps the pundits have it right - the reason why Huckabee is doing well is because the media never thought he really had a chance, so hasn't seen fit to play hard ball with him and give the voters the information they might need. But wait a minute....does this mean that if "the media" chooses a candidate then we'll only get good information about that candidate? Do we really give them that much control of our lives and our votes? Is "One Nation Controlled By the Media" real?

Maybe that's why so many media conglomerates are against net neutrality..... Think about it.

Posted by mikki at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)