The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a good article on the Mike Hawash case. It's as good a summary of the case as I've seen, noting the difficulty the government faces in identifying and prosecuting domestic terrorists, as well as looking realistically at both the results and consequences of those efforts.

[...] As with the detention of Mr. Hawash, the case against the Portland Six also has drawn criticism from civil libertarians and others who feel that the government has been overly zealous. When the six were arrested in October, Attorney General John Ashcroft called the event "a defining day in America's war against terrorism," and said that "a suspected terrorist cell within our borders" had been "neutralized." Evidence that has emerged so far, however, appears to give little support to the contention that the group was a real terrorist cell. Despite months of intensive surveillance of the defendants by the FBI before their arrests, no allegation has been made that they were plotting any violent action after they returned home from China. Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said that the department views sleeper cells to be any group that "conspires to support terrorists," regardless of whether it was planning any violent action here.
The criminal complaint and lengthy affidavit in the Hawash case offer little actual evidence of what Mr. Hawash's intentions were. The sole exception is a partial transcript of a conversation recorded by a confidential FBI source with one of the other defendants in the case, Jeffrey Leon Battle. In it, Mr. Battle said a "Palestinian" who was "married to a white woman ... left with us to go fight." [WSJ Online]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 11:15 AM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Privacy, Homeland Security, Patriot Act

Will the RIAA Pursue Individuals?

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

I've been thinking about this RIAA/college student settlement and just what it means for the RIAA. There are a couple of points in this Yahoo! News article worth examining.

Students Sued by Record Companies Settle Download Case. Yahoo! May 1 2003 6:24PM ET
[...] Daniel Peng at Princeton University in New Jersey and Joseph Nievelt at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich., agreed to pay $15,000 to the recording companies, while Jesse Jordan and Aaron Sherman from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., agreed to pay $12,000 and $17,500, respectively. The students will make the payments on installment plans over the next several years.

The settlements resolve the first phase of what could be a risky legal gambit by the major record labels, including AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music, Sony Corp (news - web sites).'s Sony Music Entertainment, Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Music Group and Bertelsmann AG (news - web sites)'s BMG, to combat online music piracy, a phenomenon the labels blame for declining music sales. Recording industry executives said the lawsuits have resulted in at least 18 campus-wide file sharing networks being taken down, adding that they may ask for stiffer settlement terms in future legal actions. [...]
[...] But in suing individuals, particularly university students, analysts and attorneys believe the recording industry may risk alienating a wider swath of music fans. [...] [Moreover - Online legal issues news]

It's clear the RIAA wasn't interested in going to court, and neither were the students. It's also clear the RIAA wasn't interested in proving, or recovering, damages:

[...] Mr. Jordan added that his son's $12,000 settlement "happens to be the same amount of money that is the total of his bank account. That is money he has saved up over the course of working three years to save money for college." [...]

Looking at Title 17, Sec 504 says the copyright owner can request statutory damages of between $750 to $30,000 per infringement. In cases of willful infringement the court may, at its discretion, increase statutory damages to not more than $150,000 per infringement. A kid trading tunes from just a handful of CDs could face as much $4 to $6 million in statutory damages. But there is more, if you are a willful infringer:

Title 17, Sec. 506 Criminal Offenses
(a) Criminal Infringement.-Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either-

for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or

by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,
shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code.

Among other things, Title 18 Sec. 2319 lists prison terms of 1 to 10 years for first offenders, plus fines (additive to any damages awarded under Title 17.) The remedies in the code are clearly written to curtail large-scale criminal infringers, particularly with regard to profiteering. In fact, Sec. 2319 refers repeatedly to the infringer's profits.

So what we have here is a game of legal chicken. The criminal code views copyright infringement as a criminal endeavor of significant proportions. Its remedies never anticipated the occurrence of common, everyday file trading among lowly students with no profit motive or criminal intent. But if the RIAA ever gets a kid in court it is not clear just how it will play out. There is a risk of having the hammer fall on some hapless student and putting a very human face on the whole situation.

It's one thing to go after some high profile file trading company in Antigua, or a couple of venture capitalists that can afford really good lawyers and big settlements. It's entirely another to be seen winning million dollar awards and locking up college kids for doing something most people aren't even sure is wrong. There is simply no public perception that file trading justifies the kind of remedies in the code, especially when there is no profit motive.

I think this is why the RIAA has been so slow in going after individuals and why they are focused on getting lots of PR and then settling for small amounts. There is risk of a serious public backlash if they push too hard. It wouldn't take but one outrageous court case to bring home the ludicrous nature of current copyright law to the parents of every college student in America. Next thing you know, some politician is grandstanding on the idea of legalizing file trading, and the RIAA is in deep shit.

Given their pathetic track record at PR this could certainly happen. In the end it could well be the human face they create that ultimately leads to changes in the copyright code that so desperately want to maintain.

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 12:35 AM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Copyright, DMCA, RIAA

Friday, May 2, 2003

'24' is a Documentary

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

I've quoted this post in its entirety from Privacy Digest, but you really ought to go read the full article in the New York Times.

According to the article, the Bush administration is now attempting to deploy the US Military and the CIA on American soil. The language authorizing this groundbreaking expansion of powers was attached, unannounced, to a broader intelligence bill now before Congress. The provision was apparently added by Senator Pat Roberts, R-Kansas and chairman of the intelligence committee, at the request of the Bush Administration.

I never, ever thought I would look back on the Clinton Administration with longing...

New York Times - free registration required Broad Domestic Role Asked for C.I.A. and the Pentagon.
The Bush administration and leading Senate Republicans sought today to give the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon far-reaching new powers to demand personal and financial records on people in the United States as part of foreign intelligence and terrorism operations, officials said.

The proposal, which was beaten back, would have given the C.I.A. and the military the authority to issue administrative subpoenas -- known as "national security letters" -- requiring Internet providers, credit card companies, libraries and a range of other organizations to produce materials like phone records, bank transactions and e-mail logs. That authority now rests largely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the subpoenas do not require court approval.

The surprise proposal was tucked into a broader intelligence authorization bill now pending before Congress. It set off fierce debate today in a closed-door meeting of the Senate Intelligence Committee, officials said. Democrats on the panel said they were stunned by the proposal because it appeared to expand significantly the role of the C.I.A. and the Pentagon in conducting domestic operations, despite a long history of tight restrictions, officials said.

After raising objections, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and other Democrats succeeded in getting the provision pulled from the authorization bill, at least temporarily, Congressional officials said.

In a closed vote, the committee passed the bill unanimously without the proposal. But Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the intelligence committee, indicated to panel members that he wanted to hold further hearings on the idea, officials said.

There was some disagreement over exactly how the provision originated. Several Senate aides active in the debate said that Senator Roberts had included it in the authorization bill. But a senior Congressional official said the Bush administration had initiated the proposal and that Senator Roberts had not objected.

A C.I.A. official said the provision had come from the Bush administration, after the White House's Office of Management and Budget signed off on it.

The official said that Congressional leaders had asked the Bush administration whether there were any additional powers needed to help combat terrorism. The administration responded with the proposal to give the C.I.A. and military the power to use the national security letters, the official said. Another Congressional official said the move came at the urging of the C.I.A. The White House had no comment last night.

[ ... ]

They said that while the F.B.I. was subject to guidelines controlling what agents are allowed to do in the course of an investigation, the C.I.A. and the military appeared to have much freer reign. The F.B.I. also faces additional scrutiny if it tries to use such records in court, but officials said the proposal could give the C.I.A. and the military the power to gather such material without ever being subject to judicial oversight.

Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the proposal "dangerous and un-American."

Mr. Edgar said that "even in the most frigid periods of the Cold War, we never gave the C.I.A. such sweeping and secret policing powers over American citizens."

[ ... ]

New figures released today also showed that the Justice Department is relying with increasing frequency on secret warrants that allow the officials to go to a secret court to get approval for surveillance and bugging warrants in terrorism and espionage investigations without notifying the target.
[Privacy Digest]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 11:28 PM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Policy & Regulation, Security, Homeland Security

US Trade Rep Creates Copyright Confusion

Comments
Link
Trackbacks (0)

ZDNet's Charles Cooper discusses the USTR flap noted Wednesday.

U.S. may add to copyright confusion. ZDNet May 2 2003 7:58AM ET [Moreover - IP and patents news]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 12:30 PM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Copyright, Globalization, Policy & Regulation

US Trade Rep Copyright Watch List

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

More on info on the USTR's program of creating a worldwide oligopoly for the US Copyright Cabal.

Text: U.S. Releases Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property. Washington File May 2 2003 0:17AM ET
[...] USTR placed 36 trading partners on the watch list for IPR violations: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovak Republic, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
Another 11 trading partners, including the European Union (EU), were placed on the priority watch list, which entails a greater level of scrutiny. The 11 trading partners are Argentina, the Bahamas, Brazil, EU, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, and Taiwan. [...] [Moreover - IP and patents news]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 12:25 PM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Copyright, Policy & Regulation, Globalization

Open Access Education Journals

Comments
Link
Trackbacks (0)

From the folks at open-education.org comes this pointer to a lengthy list of fully accessible ejournals in education.

Open e-journals in Education. The AERA SIG Communication of Research hosts a list of more than 130 full access e-journals in the field of education:
http://aera-cr.ed.asu.edu/ejournals/index.html

"To the best of our ability to discern, we have included only links to electronic journals that are scholarly, peer-reviewed, full text and accessible without cost. We have excluded professional magazines that are largely not refereed, and commercial journals that may only allow access to a very limited number of articles as an enticement to buy. By restricting membership in this way on the list that follows, we hope to do what little we can to promote free access world wide to scholarship in education.

The AERA SIG Communication of Research supports the Budapest Open Access Initiative and urges ejournals to support the initiative." [open-education.org]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 10:09 AM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Learning, Resources

Cell Phone Life Gets Interesting

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

Cell life is about to get interesting. If Mobile Number Portability (MNP) goes into effect in November you can expect chaos while everyone scrambles for a better deal. This Wired article suggest much of the negotiating can start already. Now where'd I put that Sprint customer discipline number...

Let's Make a Cell-Phone Deal. Facing an increasingly competitive market and legislation that will let customers keep their phone numbers even when they switch carriers, cell-phone companies are upping the ante in their bid to attract and retain customers. By Elisa Batista.
[...] "After some mild haggling with a low-level rep who wasn't going to budge -- he insisted that he couldn't give me a plan other than those offered to new subscribers -- I asked to speak to a supervisor, who immediately offered me 500 anytime minutes, unlimited night and weekend calling, free long distance and $100 toward a new phone, all for $35 a month. [...] [Wired News]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 9:40 AM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Policy & Regulation, UnWired

RIAA, Students Settle Piracy Suit

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

Interesting note in this Wired article regarding the RIAA suit against four college students. All four settled for relatively small amounts -- small, given the millions and millions of dollars RIAA claimed to be losing from their efforts.

While the settlement amounts are not insignificant for a college student, it's less than the cost of a top-line Hyundai. Can such a settlement set a precedent for realistic values in future file trading suits?

This seems an interesting balance the RIAA is trying to strike between public hysteria to drive new laws but more restrained actions against actors in their prime target market.

How, exactly, do you treat the vast majority of your customers as criminals while still trying to market to them? Interesting dilemma...

School Blocks Out File-Trading. Amid growing pressure from the Recording Association of America to stamp out illegal file-trading on university campuses, a New Jersey school takes matters into its own hands. By Katie Dean.
[...] On Thursday, all four students named in the complaints -- Aaron Sherman and Jesse Jordan of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Daniel Peng of Princeton and Joe Nievelt of Michigan Technological University -- settled with the music trade group for between $12,000 and $17,500 apiece. [...] [Wired News]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 9:34 AM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Copyright, DMCA

Big Losers File for Refunds

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

Enron, MCI, Qwest, HealthSouth and others are filing, or planning to file, for tax refunds on the billions of income they falsely claimed during their creative-GAAP period. Maybe all that new money can help some of their starving lawyers.

After Inflating Their Income, Companies Want IRS Refunds
By REBECCA BLUMENSTEIN, DENNIS K. BERMAN and EVAN PEREZ
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
A parade of big companies is under investigation for inflating their earnings during the stock-market boom of the 1990s. Now some of them see an unusual silver lining: They want back the taxes they overpaid along the way.
In the latest wrinkle in the unfolding series of corporate scandals, MCI and Enron Corp. are in the process of collecting or filing for tax refunds or credits from the Internal Revenue Service because of tax payments on billions of dollars they falsely claimed to have earned. Qwest Communications International Inc., which plans to restate $2.2 billion in revenue, also is likely to seek a refund. Embattled HealthSouth Corp., accused of overstating its earnings by more than $2 billion, said that it hasn't made a final decision to file for a refund but is considering it. [...] [Wall Street Journal Online (subscription required)]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 9:15 AM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Business & Finance, Policy & Regulation

Thursday, May 1, 2003

Knowledge Capture Mindmap

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

Matt Mower has created an excellent visual summary of the key elements in knowledge capture. Contrary to a lot of what's written in the mindmap literature, creating a good mindmap is not easy. Condensing thoughts to a single keyword or two, aligning them into patterns that add context, and keeping it clean are much more difficult in practice than in theory.

Nice job, Matt.

Thinking about capturing knowledge.
[Curiouser and curiouser!]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 10:53 PM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Knowledge Mgmt, Mindmaps

Sacrificial Lambs

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

RIAA has first sacrificial lambs for its pursuit of individual file traders. This is where the focus should be, and should have always been (on individuals, not infrastructure providers.) Except the DMCA has removed any need for the RIAA to show just cause or submit to oversight for its actions. Essentially, the DMCA has turned the RIAA into an unregulated, unelected, unaccountable enforcement agency. Your government at work.

If there were oversight restrictions in place we could be assured that the RIAA would be forced to concentrate on individuals acting with criminal intent. It would not be possible for them to flood entire networks or castigate entire classes of users. As it stands they can go after anyone they want, any time, without incurring significant cost.

RIAA Suits Against Students May Settle.. RIAA lawsuits brought last month against the four students making and operating network search engines apparently will settle soon. The Daily Princetonian reports that Daniel Peng, and the three others, have been working with attorneys to negotiate an end to this, and expect some kind of announcement today. "It would be really expensive to litigate," said Peng, who has avoided commenting publicly since the filing. "I would like to reach an amicable settlement." In a... [bIPlog]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 4:08 PM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Copyright, DMCA, RIAA

Multiple RSS Feeds

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

I've been messing around with my RSS feeds for a while, testing the ability of Stapler to create multiple feeds with different parameters. You will notice some new icons over on the right that link to a truncated feed (first paragraph) and a headline-only feed.

It works pretty well and Stapler does a good job, but this is a less-than-optimal solution. IMO the aggregator should filter feeds the way a user wants to see them, rather than me having to provide multiple feeds. The RSS reader ought to be configurable to the point that it shows as much, or as little, of the feed as wanted.

The other thing that would be nice is an option for a "summary" of an item to be specifically called out. This would be especially valuable for longer posts. It's a technique John Udell uses pretty often. It's also supported in Conversant, though I'm not sure how it works within the RSS files.

Ideally, the summary text would be an RSS module that would be read if present, ignored otherwise. And the aggregator could be set to display the summary in full (if present), or display some truncated version of the full post otherwise.

I see the summary being used by folks who usually create longer, essay-style posts or by publications that want to syndicate full articles with a summary attached. Maybe something like this already exists. I'd like to know.

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 2:58 PM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: RSS, Technology, Userland Radio

Anti-RAVE Act Becomes Law

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

President Bush has signed 'Amber Alert' bill to reduce abduction and save the children. Every good Mommy and Daddy will support this bill.

Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) attached his Anti-RAVE bill as a rider to Amber Alert, pushing it through Congress when it failed to survive on its own last year. Anti-RAVE makes business owners criminally liable for the personal behavior of their customers and is a significant expansion of the 'War on Drugs'. The rider underwent no public review, open debate, or Congressional hearings this year.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft hailed the law, calling it a "comprehensive effort to protect our children."

Make up your own mind.

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 1:00 PM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Policy & Regulation, War on Drugs

HP Time-limits Ink Cartridges

Comments
Trackbacks (0)

Tag this one with the Lexmark DMCA case, as a logical attempt to extend control, and hence profits, to the greatest reach legally possible. The problem is the DMCA extends this control well beyond previously legal ends by stopping any form of competition or modification that would bypass any of HP's digital intellectual property. It's only a matter of time before HP joins the DMCA legal chorus to enforce its rights under this new industrial monopoly grant.

Whole industries -- aftermarket auto parts, aftermarket printer cartridges, memory chips, manufacturers of any performance mechanical parts, radio and computer hobbyists, and others -- could well be destroyed by a few oligopolies embedding sufficient DigIP into their products to make them immune to any form of competition.

I don't see why it would take anything more than simple RFID embedding to establish a DMCA-qualified barrier to modification. Within a few years companies could be embedding inexpensive RFID tags into every conceivable part, linking them to a DMCA-protected control system that stops operation unless all parts are identified as OEM equipment.

Whose law trumps in such a case -- restraint of trade or DMCA?

theinquirer.net - HP inkjet cartridges have built-in expiry dates.
PRINTER GIANT HP has built in time limits for its inkjet printer cartridges which means machines may stop working even if the consumable has 75% ink let to go

[ ... ]

HP has told him that the date printed on the ink cartridge is not the expiry date, and that is determined either by a cartridge being in the printer for 30 months, or the cartridge is 4.5 years old, whichever comes first. [...]
[Privacy Digest]

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 10:36 AM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Copyright, DMCA, Manufacturing

Syndication

Contact

Presence

ICQ

www.flickr.com

More of GratefulZed's photos

This Page was last updated: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:06:57 GMT

License: Unless otherwise expressly stated all original material, of whatever nature, created by Terry W. Frazier and included in this website, its related pages and archives, is licensed under a Creative Commons License, some rights reserved.

Disclaimer: This is a personal website. The views expressed here are those of the author and no one else. This is also an experiment in thinking out loud, so there are no warranties as to the reliability or accuracy of anything presented here. Source material -- references, citations, quotes, photos, and other elements -- are gathered from publicly available materials and some of it may be restricted. Any trademarks used are the property of their respective creators or owners. All are reproduced under the principle of Fair Use.

b.cognosco

Most Popular

Book Reviews

Recently

Saturday, May 3, 2003

Gay Bar

Summary of Hawash Case

Will the RIAA Pursue Individuals?

Friday, May 2, 2003

'24' is a Documentary

US Trade Rep Creates Copyright Confusion

US Trade Rep Copyright Watch List

Open Access Education Journals

Cell Phone Life Gets Interesting

RIAA, Students Settle Piracy Suit

Big Losers File for Refunds

Thursday, May 1, 2003

Knowledge Capture Mindmap

Sacrificial Lambs

Multiple RSS Feeds

Anti-RAVE Act Becomes Law

HP Time-limits Ink Cartridges

Syndication

Contact

Presence