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[drone-list] Stopping Surveillance Drones over Oakland & Berkeley
by mary lovegadget 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Hello, Drone List: You may have heard that the Alameda County Sheriff plans to buy surveillance drones: Bay Area Law Enforcement Agencies Test Drones http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Bay-Area-Law-Enforcement-Agencies-Test… A group of privacy advocates and anti-drone activists held a press conference yesterday: http://occupiedoaktrib.org/2012/10/17/say-no-to-drones-in-alameda-county/ And here is the a roundup of the press so far: Alameda County Sheriff plans to buy a surveillance drone - Oakland Tribune http://www.insidebayarea.com/oakland-tribune/ci_21803888/alameda-county-she… Alameda Sheriff Seeks Drone - KQED http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2012/10/18/109720/alameda_sheriff_seeks_dron… Police use of drones concerns activists - San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Police-use-of-drones-concerns-activists… Alameda County Sheriff seeks drone for thermal imaging, surveillance; UAV would be shared among several public safety agencies - MuckRock https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2012/oct/19/alameda-county-sheriff-s… ACLU challenges Bay Area police drone plans; Alameda County will experiment with drones. Activists and residents demand details - Salon http://www.salon.com/2012/10/18/aclu_challenge_bay_area_police_drone_plans/ Alameda County sheriffbs office considers purchasing drones Civilians, civil rights groups raise concerns about aerial surveillance drones - The Daily Californian http://www.dailycal.org/2012/10/18/civilians-and-civil-rights-groups-speak-… California Sheriffbs Dept Wants Surveillance Drone To b Track Suspects With Gunsb Civil rights Activists, Attorneys, fight back - InfoWars http://www.infowars.com/california-sheriffs-dept-wants-surveillance-drone-t… Easily Abused, Domestic Drones Raise Enormous Privacy Concerns - ACLU Blog of Rights http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/easily-ab… Davey D Covers the possibility of Drones in Oakland - KPFA Hard Knock Radio http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/85323 Warnings of Domestic Spying as Oakland Police Seek Drones; Local activists worry about abuse, push for updated safeguards - Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/10/19-5 Enjoy. Mary Madden Oakland, CA _______________________________________________ drone-list mailing list drone-list(a)lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/drone-list If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 7.20, 21 October 2009
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRi-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 7.20, 21 October 2009 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. EDRI Open Letter to the EP on Amendment 138 2. Romania: Data retention law declared unconstitutional 3. France pushes the introduction of EDVIGE project through the back door 4. Web blocking gets a reality check 5. Buma/Stemra imposes levy for embedding audio and video 6. Copyright in the digital environment 7. The European Commission calls for online privacy protection measures 8. Microsoft tries to comply with EU requirements 9. Finland: Introducing Internet broadband as a universal service 10. Recommended Reading 11. Agenda 12. About ============================================================ 1. EDRI Open Letter to the EP on Amendment 138 ============================================================ EDRi sent the following open letter to all the members of the European Parliament (EP) on 19 October 2009 asking for a continuos support for the citizens' rights by not giving up on Amendment 138 in the Telecoms Package. To the Members of the European Parliament, European Digital Rights is an association of 29 privacy and civil rights organisations based in 18 European countries and active across the European Union. As an association whose focus is on protecting the civil rights of online citizens, we have serious concerns about the possible abandonment of the core meaning of the so-called "Amendment 138" in the Telecoms Package. We believe that this would not just create lasting damage for the rights of European citizens, but it would also durably damage the credibility and institutional power of the European Parliament. Citizens' Rights The purpose of Amendment 138 is to protect the fundamental rights of citizens to freedom of expression and communication, to privacy and to due process of law. It also protects the development of democratic culture on the Internet. The fact that the Council is aware of current and planned activities in Member States that will undermine or do already undermine these principles should further convince Parliamentarians of the need to defend the principles in Amendment 138. Even if, and it is far from evident that this is the case, the Council can argue convincingly that there are certain exceptional circumstances where communications must be limited for the purposes and urgency required by the European Convention on Human Rights, such limitations should remain the exception in a democratic society, while the rights defended in Amendment 138 must constitute the rule. This must be reflected in the Telecoms Package. Furthermore, failure to protect EU citizens will not only undermine their rights, but will be used in less democratic countries to victimise individuals, justified with the excuse that this is "EU policy". Parliament Powers The Parliament now has the chance to protect citizens' rights and fully perform its institutional function within the European legislative process. A capitulation faced with the unacceptably inflexible, legally dubious and democratically deficient approach of the Council would inflict lasting damage on the Parliament. What trust can voters have in an institution that will overwhelmingly support citizens' rights before an election only to abandon them immediately afterwards? What credibility will the Parliament have in future inter-institutional negotiations when it is prepared to abandon a position it supported twice with such an overwhelming majority? What authority will be left once the Parliament loses this crucial battle with the Council? Could there be a worse moment to fail so completely on an issue of such importance, at the historic moment when the institution is being entrusted with a greatly increased scope of codecision powers under the Lisbon Treaty? For the sake of the rule of law, for the sake of European citizens and for the sake of the only democratically elected European Institution, we urge you to take whatever actions you can to defend the principles in Amendment 138. In particular, we urge you to support the principle that, unless exceptional circumstances render this impossible, citizens are entitled to a prior judgment before any measure is taken to limit their fundamental right to freedom of communication. EDRi Open letter to EP on the European Parliament (19.10.2009) http://www.edri.org/files/edri_open_letter_091019.pdf French version http://www.edri.org/files/edri_open_letter_091019fr.pdf See also BEUC: Open letter from European Consumers to The Conciliation Committee on Telecom Package - Maintain the Current Amendment 138: Protect consumers' fundamental rights on the Internet http://pierani.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/229wba2009e_beuc_open_letter_on_… EuroISPA: European Parliament should maintain its defence of citizens' Fundamental Rights (16.10.2009) http://www.euroispa.org/files/091016_euroispa_telecom_review_am_138.pdf Greens/EFA call on EU Parliament to stick to its principles (16.10.2009) http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/pressreleases/dok/309/309517.telecoms_package… ============================================================ 2. Romania: Data retention law declared unconstitutional ============================================================ The Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR) announced on 7 October 2009 that it took the decision to consider unconstitutional the Romanian implementation of the data retention directive. The Romanian data retention law has been in force since the beginning of 2009, but it received a lot of bad press reviews, as reported by EDRi-gram at the beginning of the year. Several NGOs declared that they would contest the law. An initial appeal of the civil society to the Ombudsman was not successful, since the Ombudsman did not consider the law as unconstitutional and therefore he declared that he would not ask the opinion of the Constitutional Court. The case that was decided by the Constitutional Court in October 2008 was initiated by a Romanian NGO, Civil Society Commissariat, which sued its mobile operator for keeping the traffic data according to the new law on data retention 298/2008. The lawsuit brought to the Bucharest Tribunal was just a pretext to raise, during the trial, a motion for the law's unconstitutionality - so that CCR would give its opinion of the data retention law. CCR has accepted the motion for law's unconstitutionality through decision 1258/2009, based on the breach of article 28 of the Romanian Constitution, which stipulates the secrecy of correspondence. Other articles invoked were articles 25, 26 and 30 which deal with freedom of movement, privacy and freedom of expression respectively. Unfortunately, it could take some time to see the motivation of the CCR and therefore to asses the real potential of this breakthrough decision. It might take even one month to get the official text published in the Official Monitor. In any case, the decision of the CCR is final and can't be appealed. The court is the only authority of constitutional jurisdiction in Romania, independent of any other public authority. It is formed by nine judges, appointed for a nine-year term. Its members are renewed by one third every three years. The court is known for its low number of cases admitted as unconstitutional. In 2008 there were only 18 cases fully admitted, out of almost 1400 motions raised in the regular courts. The Ministry of Communication and Information Society was quick to declare that it informed the European Commission about the new situation and that they might re-draft the law in order to avoid the constitutionality issues. But the problems could be more complicated for the executive if the decision of the CCR declares unconstitutional the entire law or article 1 which stipulates the purpose of the law. The decision also comes in a rather restless political and social period that might have influenced the CCR outcome and could further on have an impact on the way in which the Government will deal with this case. But for now, there is no stable government in place, with the former one being repealed by the Parliament on 13 October and a new one under formation these days. Romanian constitution http://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/site.page?id=371 Romania's Constitutional Court Rules Data Storage Law Unconstitutional (8.10.2009) http://www.mediafax.ro/english/romania-s-constitutional-court-rules-data-st… Waw: Constitutional Court declared the law on data retention unconstitutional (only in Romanian, 8.10.2009) http://legi-internet.ro/blogs/index.php/2009/10/08/lege-pastrarii-datelor-t… Romanian authorities seek solutions for the data retention law (only in Romanian, 9.10.2009) http://economie.hotnews.ro/stiri-telecom-6261206-autoritatile-romane-cauta-… Statistical situation of the Romanian Constitutional Court Acts http://www.ccr.ro/statistics/pdf/en/sin09_2009.pdf The Ombudsman will not address the CCR regarding the data retention law (only in Romanian, 10.02.2009) http://www.ziare.com/actual/eveniment/02-10-2009/avocatul-poporului-nu-va-s… EDRi-gram: Romania: Is really privacy a topic in the public debate? (28.01.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.2/romania-privacy-in-public-debate ============================================================ 3. France pushes the introduction of EDVIGE project through the back door ============================================================ The French Government produced two new decrees published in the Official Journal on 18 October 2009 which actually resurrect the rejected EDVIGE plan to create an intelligence database with personal data. By-passing the French Parliament, the Minister of Interior Brice Hortefeux introduced the two new decrees by practically splitting the former EDVIGE decree which was withdrawn by the Government at the end of 2008, thus creating two clones of the rejected project, as EDRi-member IRIS (Imaginons un riseau Internet solidaire) explains. One of the texts is meant as a tool for the police to prevent harm to public safety, to "collect, store and analyze information concerning persons whose individual or collective activity indicates that it may jeopardize public safety." Under the pretext of preventing harms to the public security, the data collected may include complete personal data ranging from nationality, profession, address or telephone numbers to physical signs, travel behaviours or geographic origin. And this is not all as the database will include also information on people who have come into contact or relation with persons deemed susceptible of performing a criminal offence. The file is related to the public security and has nothing to do with national security or terrorism. IRIS explains this is just a disproportionate and illegal mean for the government to deal with petty and medium delinquency. Moreover the data will be stored for everybody starting with 13 years old. For minors, the retention period is limited to three years as compared to a 10-year retention period for all the others. The other text introduces a file of administrative investigations. It includes personal data of citizens starting with the age of 16 (the official age at which one person can be employed) in order to check out whether a person's behaviour is compatible with the tasks he is entrusted with, for some sensitive jobs, like those in the security field. Data including political, religious, philosophical and union information with be stored for a minimum of 5 years. Despite the obvious concerns related to the gathering of so many sensitive data, the main subject of opposition is the so called "geographic origin" which actually is a masked way of gathering information related to the ethnic origin. "Replacing the ethnical criterion with that of geographic origin is to take us as morons" stated Samuel Thomas, Vice-president of SOS Racisme. CRAN (The council representing the black associations of France) also expressed its concern related to the geographic origin reference that they consider only a way to go round the interdiction of making reference to the ethnical origin and asked Hortefeux to remove any such reference from the text. The only guarantee given by the government is that CNIL (The French Data Protection Authority), which has already approved the two texts, will have the control over the two databases but, according to the critics, this is not very reassuring. The "humour" of the Ministry of Interior of signing the two texts on 16 October, Saint Edwige's day didn't pass unnoticed. The "No to EDVIGE" group publicly declared its decision to continue its fight against the two split variants of EDVIGE project, including by starting mobilizing people against it and to file appeals to the State Council. No to EDVIGE, no its these two clones! IRIS release (only in French, 18.10.2009) http://www.iris.sgdg.org/info-debat/comm-edvigeab1009.html Two decrees recreate the EDVIGE Decree (20.10.2009) http://nonaedvige.ras.eu.org/spip.php?article1078 "The Police needs files" (only in French, 18.10.2009) http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2009/10/18/01011-20091018FILWWW00131-chev… Hortefeux creates two new police files (only in French, 18.10.2009) http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2009/10/18/01016-20091018ARTFIG0009… Brice Hortefeux Hedwig resuscitated with 2 decrees published in OJ (19.10.2009) http://space-net1.blogspot.com/2009/10/brice-hortefeux-hedwig-resuscitated.… A new version of Edvige? Clones of the previous text (only in French, 19.10.2009) http://www.20minutes.fr/article/356199/Politique-La-nouvelle-version-d-Edvi… EDRi-gram: France: No to new EDVIGE! (1.07.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.13/no-edvige-3 ============================================================ 4. Web blocking gets a reality check ============================================================ In the negotiations surrounding the formation of a new conservative-liberal coalition in Germany following the recent elections, an agreement has been reached to postpone, for at least a year, the introduction of web blocking. As the law has already been adopted, the procedure by which the law will be stopped from entering into force has not yet been decided. Coincidentally, the UK government decided also not to introduce mandatory blocking to force the remaining consumer ISPs to follow the "voluntary" blocking already undertaken by the major ISPs in that country. In Germany, the plan is to use the existing legislation in order to remove as much illegal material as possible from the Internet. After an initial 12-month trial, this approach will be reevaluated. It remains very unclear, however, on what criteria the re-evaluation may take place. The approaches of the two coalition partners on this issue are very different, with the liberal FDP steadfastly opposed to blocking during the election campaign, while the blocking legislation was pushed by the conservative CDU Minister von der Leyen. By default, therefore, the approaches and interpretations that will be taken on the "re-evaluation" will also most probably be divergent. The decision to prioritise the removal of child abuse images from the Internet was criticised by organisations whose purpose is to protect children, including Unicef. Unicef's press release explains that blocking is necessary because takedown of illegal sites is "not possible" in "foreign" countries. However, the organisation does not find it necessary to criticise or name any of the major countries which leave images of child abuse online rather than removing them. This is particularly surprising when we consider that all countries in the world, with the exception of the USA (which has signed the Optional Protocol on Child Pornography) and Somalia have signed and ratified the binding UN Child Rights Convention which requires state parties to take all appropriate national, bilateral and international measures to prevent the exploitative use of children in pornographic performances and materials. No internet censorship in Germany for the next year (18.10.2009) http://ak-zensur.de/2009/10/access-blocking-germany.html Home Office backs down on net censorship laws (16.10.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/16/home_office_iwf_legislation/ German Internet Blocking Bill Suspended (18.10.2009) http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/10/18/german-internet-blocking-bill-sus… UNICEF: Priority for Child! Access barriers are an important step - Further action needed (16.10.2009) http://www.unicef.de/091016vorrang_fuer_k.html (contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi) ============================================================ 5. Buma/Stemra imposes levy for embedding audio and video ============================================================ Dutch collecting society Buma/Stemra announced that it will impose a levy on Internet users for embedding audio- and videomaterial on their website, starting 1 January 2010. The levy starts at EUR 130 for the first six embedded links per website per year. The rules could affect small bloggers and users of social network-sites such as Facebook. As the rules were legally questionable and did not sufficiently take into account the interests of internet users and Dutch musicians, Buma's announcement immediately led to protests in the blogosphere and on Twitter. Dutch digital rights organisation Bits of Freedom drafted a letter to Buma/Stemra, assisted by numerous concerned internet users through text annotation website co-ment.net, calling for a revision of the rules. Bits of Freedom then handed its letter over to the CEO of Buma/Stemra. Meanwhile, Dutch politicians further questioned the rules in Parliament. Three days later, on 9 october 2009, Buma/Stemra responded to the criticism by stating that it would for now not apply its rules to non-commercial use. Bits of Freedom responded the same day, questioning the definition of non-commercial use by Buma/Stemra. Indeed, on 14 october Buma/Stemra revealed that even one advertisement on a website would be considered 'commercial use'. Bits of Freedom continues its efforts to defend communication freedom in relation to these controversial measures by Buma/Stemra. Brochure Buma/Stemra Digital Music Licences (only in Dutch http://www.bumastemra.nl/NR/rdonlyres/DF0B3120-8850-4DF1-ACD6-17F94B0BB18C/… Letter Bits of Freedom to Buma/Stemra (only in Dutch, 6.10.2009) http://www.bof.nl/briefbuma061009.pdf NOS eight o'clock news report (only in Dutch, 7.10.2009) http://player.nos.nl/index.php/media/play/tcmid/tcm:5-576060/ (Contribution by Ot van Daalen - EDRi-member Bits of Freedom - Netherlands) ============================================================ 6. Copyright in the digital environment ============================================================ During the 1st European Innovation Summit that was held on 12 - 16 October 2009 at the European Parliament in Brussels, a workshop on the future of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in Europe included a panel to debate the subject of the IPRs in the new digital environment. In the introduction it was asserted that national copyright laws are no longer adapted to the digital environment, that old business models have failed to produce results, that DRMs have been rejected by the consumers and that the issue now at stake is how to adapt to new business models. Professor Hugenholtz (IvIR, University of Amsterdam) said that licensing had been impacted heavily by the territorial nature of copyright. The only effective way forward is to create truly harmonising copyright regulation, as has been done for trademarks already. The problem of exceptions and limitations also needs to be effectively rethought. Antoine Aubert (Google) repeated the point that the current exceptions and limitations regime needed to be reviewed. He explained that the current 70-year copyright terms was too long. Google's priorities have been to ensure that content can find its audience in the digital world and that rights owners get value for their contents. Malte Behrmann (European Gaming Developers Federation) described how games developers had profited from the Internet to reduce the number of intermediaries in their path to the market. The online games industry has quickly adapted to the digital challenges and has developed a variety of business models. As a result, piracy is not an important issue and the games industry therefore does not support extreme solutions for copyright enforcement. He encouraged the film and music industry to follow the example of his industry. Giancarlo Miglioro (MrGoodIDEA) said that the issue of finance was missing in the debate on the future of IPR. He said that major companies saw intellectual property as a major asset and trade in it. Francisco Mingorance (Business Software Alliance) said that the adoption of the Hadopi law in France had demonstrated that technology was neutral and can be used efficiently to enforce copyright without any risk to people's privacy. There should be a focus on adopting codes of conduct for IPR enforcement, with ISPs responsible for monitoring and enforcement. Christian Engstrom, MEP (Greens/EFA (Pirate Party), Sweden) said that his party was pro-copyright but also pro-reform and pro-adaptation to the digital age. He argued for a 5-year term of protection and that all non-commercial uses should be free of copyright. Professor Hugenholz reminded participants that adjustments to the copyright term should comply with the international treaties and five years could not be acceptable. However, the recent proposal of the Commission to nearly double the term of protection for related rights has failed to provide evidence as to the need for such a long term. Margot Froehlinger defended that proposal by pointing out that it had been accompanied with an impact assessment and that the Commission's aim had been to help performers. She warned against the criterion of "commercial infringement" and gave the example of somebody copying a film and putting it online without wanting to make a profit but doing so simply as a hobby. 1st European Innovation Summit http://www.knowledge4innovation.eu/k4i/default.aspx (contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi) ============================================================ 7. The European Commission calls for online privacy protection measures ============================================================ On 8 October 2009 the European Commission (EC) repeated its call to all EU member states to increase their efforts in dealing with online privacy threats to the public, such as spam, spyware and malware, based on findings from a study required by the Commission. The study performed by time.lex "Study on activities undertaken to address threats that undermine the confidence in the Information Society, such as spam, spyware and malicious software", which includes assessments of progress in each EU country, shows the need of legislative improvements, more consistent enforcement rules and sanctions and better cross-border cooperation in the domain. "Today's figures show that several EU countries are doing more to enforce online privacy rules. However, spam is an area where we can and must improve for the benefit of internet users in the EU ," said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media who added that "Although since 2002, European law has prohibited spam and spyware, on average 65% of EU citizens are still affected by spam on a regular basis. We need to step up our fight against spammers and make sure that the EU adopts legislation that provides for strong civil and criminal sanctions against spammers. I call on EU countries to reinforce their national efforts to fight on-line privacy threats such as spam, spyware and malicious software." The study reveals that there are large differences in the way the member states enforce regulations and apply sanctions for spammers and recommends a more successful approach in fighting online threats that should involve a combination of prevention, enforcement and raising public awareness (as proposed also by Critical Information Infrastructure Protection policy). "Public authorities (such as telecoms regulators, data protection and consumer agencies and law enforcement bodies) must have clear responsibilities and cooperation procedures between themselves; while public and private sector must also work together." In order to achieve that, EU countries should provide sufficient resources to national authorities so that they may gather evidence, carry out investigations and built prosecution in this field. The findings also show that the level of cooperation also differs between EU countries and indicates that as spam is a global problem, there is the need for a closer cooperation with the EU as well as worldwide. More action needed to fight spammers and protect online privacy, says Commission report (8.10.2009) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1487 Study on activities undertaken to address threats that undermine confidence in the Information Society, such as spam, spyware and malicious software - Spam and spyware study SMART 2008/0013 Final Report - (2.10.2009) http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/doc/library/ext_studie… Critical Information Infrastructure Protection - a new initiative in 2009 (29.05.2009) http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/nis/strategy/activities/ciip… ============================================================ 8. Microsoft tries to comply with EU requirements ============================================================ After having long criticised and penalised Microsoft for its anti-competitive practices, the European Union seems to be now at the point of trying to close up the battle with the company after Microsoft has made a new offer to give its customers access to a wider range of web browsers through its Windows operating system and to share information with its competitors. "The commission will formally market test proposals made by Microsoft to address concerns regarding the tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows PC operating system," said the EU's competition commissioner Neelie Kroes who also expressed the idea that a at a preliminary view it appears that "Microsoft's commitments would indeed address our concerns." Microsoft's last proposal in July to give a choice screen that would allow consumers to pick from several browsers was not considered good enough and the European Commission (EC) asked for improvements. After intense discussions with the EC and with feedback from the industry, the present proposal gives a choice of 12 browsers and also addresses the other topic of concern, interoperability, by offering an exchange of information with other software companies. However, the new proposal is not considered as good by everybody. FSFE (Free Software Foundation Europe) believes that, being close to the end of her mandate, Ms Kroes is rushing in closing up a deal with Microsoft that serves the company and not the EU. FSFE argues that the solution proposed by Microsoft is tricky as the browsers offered as alternative are not pre-installed but must be downloaded. As many time downloading may be slow or even failing, depending on the connection, many people will prefer to just use Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) as it will be much easier. In the foundation's opinion, Microsoft should pre-install alternative browsers and "any browser that the user chooses needs to be integrated into the Windows operating system to the same degree that IE is integrated today." FSFE also believes that the settlement between the EC and Microsoft should not be limited to Europe, as the company proposed, but apply globally. As regarding the interoperability, the foundation argues that what is Microsoft offering now is only the interoperability information that is impossible to use in Free Software. What FSFE considers necessary is "a binding commitment from Microsoft to provide and update interoperability information on terms that are compatible with Free Software. This has to be a legally binding document, and needs to include guarantees as well as clear remedies if Microsoft fails to comply." The European Committee for Interoperable Systems also consider the settlement "does not appear to deal with the inadequacies of Microsoft's standards compliance, unfair pricing practices or other concerns related to patent abuse or standards manipulation". Microsoft's present proposal will be marked tested for one month period during which the industry and consumers may submit suggestions for further changes. Following the trial month, the Commission may decide to make Microsoft's commitment legally binding for five years and in that case, during this period, no action will be brought against Microsoft related to browsers. In the meantime, the company is close to releasing in Europe its new browser - Windows 7 - that launches on 22 October worldwide. But not without concerns. In a recent press release, FSFE warns that "Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7, is currently shipping with a potentially serious defect. Ahead of the product's global launch on Thursday, Germany's federal IT security agency (BSI) has issued a warning about a high-risk vulnerability in the SMB2 protocol. This can be exploited over the network to shut down a computer with a Denial of Service (DoS) attack." EU approves new Microsoft pledges (7.10.2009) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8294587.stm FSFE to EC: Don't waste an opportunity with a hasty deal (28.09.2009) http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/?p=263 Antitrust: Commission welcomes new Microsoft proposals on Microsoft Internet Explorer and Interoperability (24.07.2009) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/352 Microsoft browser battle draws to a close (8.10.2009) http://euobserver.com/9/28798/?rk=1 Microsoft and Europe Near Browser Truce (8.10.2009) http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2009/gb2009108_963950.htm Windows 7 to hit consumers with known security problem (19.10.2009) http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091019-01.en.html EDRi-gram: Windows 7 is launched without IE, but the Commission is not pleased (17.06.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.12/microsoft-europe-ie-windows7 ============================================================ 9. Finland: Introducing Internet broadband as a universal service ============================================================ According to a decree issued by the Finish Ministry of Transport and Communications, starting with 1 July 2010, a 1 Mbit Internet connection will be defined as a requirement of the Universal Service. Thus, Finland becomes the first country in the world to make access to broadband Internet a legal right. The decree states that by the end of 2009, the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority will establish which of the telecom operators will be imposed this universal service obligation. The designated universal service providers will have to be able to provide access for all residential or business users, at a reasonable price, to a high-quality connection of at least 1 Mbit/s. The providers may choose themselves the technology used to provide the service. The average speed of downstream traffic must be at least 75 per cent of the required speed in a 24 hour period. While in a four hour measuring period the average speed must be at least 59 per cent of the required speed. Ms Suvi Lindin, Finland's Minister of Communications, believes that high speed access to everybody will improve people's quality of life especially in the less populated areas, will boost business, enable electronic communications and encourage online banking. Finland is already amongst the first countries in the world from the point of view of access to Internet connection. According to Laura Vilkkonen, the legislative counselor for the Ministry of Transport and Communications, about 95 percent of the population have some sort of Internet access. She also stated that the one-megabit requirement is only an intermediary step as the target is to reach speeds of up to 100 megabit per second for all by 2015. "We think it's something you cannot live without in modern society. Like banking services or water or electricity, you need Internet connection," Vilkkonen said. Access to a minimum of 1 Mbit Internet connection available to everyone in Finland by July 2010 (16.10.2009) http://www.lvm.fi/web/en/pressreleases/view/920100 Finland makes broadband access a legal right (14.10.2009) http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/14/finland-broadband Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland (15.10.2009) http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/finland.internet.rights/index.html ============================================================ 10. Recommended Reading ============================================================ Law enforcement access to EURODAC: EDPS expresses serious doubts about the legitimacy and necessity of proposed measures (7.10.2009) Press release http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/EDPS/… Opinion on Eurodac http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/Consu… Communication on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy (19/10/2009) Press release http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1544&format=H… Citizens Summary http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/copyright-infso/citizens… Communication http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/copyright-infso/20091019… ============================================================ 11. Agenda ============================================================ 24 October 2009, Zurich, Switzerland Big Brother Awards Switzerland http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2009/ 25 October 2009, Vienna, Austria Austrian Big Brother Awards http://www.bigbrotherawards.at/ 26-27 October 2009, Vienna, Austria 3rd European Privacy Open Space http://www.privacyos.eu 26 October 2009, Brussels, Belgium European Commission - Public hearing on orphan works http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/copyright-infso/copyright-inf… 29 October 2009, Barcelona, Spain oXcars, the biggest free culture event of all times, 2nd edition http://oxcars09.exgae.net 29 October - 1 November 2009, Barcelona, Spain Free Culture Forum: Organization and Action http://fcforum.net/ 3 November 2009, Madrid, Spain Civil Society Conference: "Global Privacy Standards in a Global World" Organized by "The Public Voice" coalition http://thepublicvoice.org/events/madrid09 4-6 November 2009, Madrid, Spain 31st International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy http://www.privacyconference2009.org 10-11 November 2009, Cambridge, UK Public Domain Calculators Meeting http://wiki.okfn.org/PublicDomainCalculators/Meeting 13-15 November 2009, Gothenburg, Sweden Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit http://www.fscons.org/ 15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt UN Internet Governance Forum http://www.intgovforum.org/ 19-20 November 2009, Malmv, Sweden First popular European e-government conference http://malmo09.org/ 27-30 December 2009, Berlin, Germany 26th Chaos Communication Congress http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/ ============================================================ 12. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 29 members based or with offices in 18 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the EDRI website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Bush is Not Above The Law (or is he?)
by Peter Langston 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Forwarded-by: Gary Graves <rhythmslave(a)harbornet.com> Bush Is Not Above the Law By JAMES BAMFORD Op-Ed Contributor, NY Times, Washington January 31, 2007 LAST August, a federal judge found that the president of the United States broke the law, committed a serious felony and violated the Constitution. Had the president been an ordinary citizen - someone charged with bank robbery or income tax evasion - the wheels of justice would have immediately begun to turn. The F.B.I. would have conducted an investigation, a United States attorney's office would have impaneled a grand jury and charges would have been brought. But under the Bush Justice Department, no F.B.I. agents were ever dispatched to padlock White House files or knock on doors and no federal prosecutors ever opened a case. The ruling was the result of a suit, in which I am one of the plaintiffs, brought against the National Security Agency by the American Civil Liberties Union. It was a response to revelations by this newspaper in December 2005 that the agency had been monitoring the phone calls and e-mail messages of Americans for more than four years without first obtaining warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In the past, even presidents were not above the law. When the F.B.I. turned up evidence during Watergate that Richard Nixon had obstructed justice by trying to cover up his involvement, a special prosecutor was named and a House committee recommended that the president be impeached. And when an independent counsel found evidence that President Bill Clinton had committed perjury in the Monica Lewinsky case, the impeachment machinery again cranked into gear, with the spectacle of a Senate trial (which ended in acquittal). Laws are broken, the federal government investigates, and the individuals involved - even if they're presidents - are tried and, if found guilty, punished. That is the way it is supposed to work under our system of government. But not this time. Last Aug. 17, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the United States District Court in Detroit issued her ruling in the A.C.L.U. case. The president, she wrote, had "undisputedly violated" not only the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, but also statutory law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Enacted by a bipartisan Congress in 1978, the FISA statute was a response to revelations that the National Security Agency had conducted warrantless eavesdropping on Americans. To deter future administrations from similar actions, the law made a violation a felony punishable by a $10,000 fine and five years in prison. Yet despite this ruling, the Bush Justice Department never opened an F.B.I. investigation, no special prosecutor was named, and there was no talk of impeachment in the Republican-controlled Congress. Justice Department lawyers argued last June that warrants were not required for what they called the administration's "terrorist surveillance program" because of the president's "inherent powers" to order eavesdropping and because of the Congressional authorization to use military force against those responsible for 9/11. But Judge Taylor rejected both arguments, ruling that even presidents must obey statutory law and the Constitution. On Jan. 17, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales unexpectedly declared that President Bush had ended the program, deciding to again seek warrants in all cases. Exactly what kind of warrants - individual, as is required by the law, or broad-based, which would probably still be illegal - is as yet unknown. The action may have been designed to forestall a potentially adverse ruling by the federal appeals court in Cincinnati, which had scheduled oral arguments on the case for today. At that hearing, the administration is now expected to argue that the case is moot and should be thrown out - while reserving the right to restart the program at any time. But that's a bit like a bank robber coming into court and arguing that, although he has been sticking up banks for the past half-decade, he has agreed to a temporary halt and therefore he shouldn't be prosecuted. Independent of the A.C.L.U. case, a criminal investigation by the F.B.I. and a special prosecutor should begin immediately. The question that must finally be answered is whether the president is guilty of committing a felony by continuously reauthorizing the warrantless eavesdropping program for the past five years. And if so, what action must be taken? The issue is not original. Among the charges approved by the House Judiciary Committee when it recommended its articles of impeachment against President Nixon was "illegal wiretaps." President Nixon, the bill charged, "caused wiretaps to be placed on the telephones of 17 persons without having obtained a court order authorizing the tap, as required by federal law; in violation of Sections 241, 371 and 2510-11 of the Criminal Code." Under his program, President Bush could probably be charged with wiretapping not 17 but thousands of people without having obtained a court order authorizing the taps as required by federal law, in violation of FISA. It is not only the federal court but also many in Congress who believe that a violation of law has taken place. In a hearing on Jan. 18, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said, "For years, this administration has engaged in warrantless wiretapping of Americans contrary to the law." His view was shared by the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who said of Mr. Bush, "For five years he has been operating an illegal program." And Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, noted that much of the public was opposed to the program and that it both hurt the country at home and damaged its image abroad. "The heavy criticism which the president took on the program," he said, "I think was very harmful in the political process and for the reputation of the country." To allow a president to break the law and commit a felony for more than five years without even a formal independent investigation would be the ultimate subversion of the Constitution and the rule of law. As Judge Taylor warned in her decision, "There are no hereditary kings in America." James Bamford is the author of two books on the National Security Agency, "The Puzzle Palace" and "Body of Secrets." ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 7.20, 21 October 2009
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRi-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 7.20, 21 October 2009 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. EDRI Open Letter to the EP on Amendment 138 2. Romania: Data retention law declared unconstitutional 3. France pushes the introduction of EDVIGE project through the back door 4. Web blocking gets a reality check 5. Buma/Stemra imposes levy for embedding audio and video 6. Copyright in the digital environment 7. The European Commission calls for online privacy protection measures 8. Microsoft tries to comply with EU requirements 9. Finland: Introducing Internet broadband as a universal service 10. Recommended Reading 11. Agenda 12. About ============================================================ 1. EDRI Open Letter to the EP on Amendment 138 ============================================================ EDRi sent the following open letter to all the members of the European Parliament (EP) on 19 October 2009 asking for a continuos support for the citizens' rights by not giving up on Amendment 138 in the Telecoms Package. To the Members of the European Parliament, European Digital Rights is an association of 29 privacy and civil rights organisations based in 18 European countries and active across the European Union. As an association whose focus is on protecting the civil rights of online citizens, we have serious concerns about the possible abandonment of the core meaning of the so-called "Amendment 138" in the Telecoms Package. We believe that this would not just create lasting damage for the rights of European citizens, but it would also durably damage the credibility and institutional power of the European Parliament. Citizens' Rights The purpose of Amendment 138 is to protect the fundamental rights of citizens to freedom of expression and communication, to privacy and to due process of law. It also protects the development of democratic culture on the Internet. The fact that the Council is aware of current and planned activities in Member States that will undermine or do already undermine these principles should further convince Parliamentarians of the need to defend the principles in Amendment 138. Even if, and it is far from evident that this is the case, the Council can argue convincingly that there are certain exceptional circumstances where communications must be limited for the purposes and urgency required by the European Convention on Human Rights, such limitations should remain the exception in a democratic society, while the rights defended in Amendment 138 must constitute the rule. This must be reflected in the Telecoms Package. Furthermore, failure to protect EU citizens will not only undermine their rights, but will be used in less democratic countries to victimise individuals, justified with the excuse that this is "EU policy". Parliament Powers The Parliament now has the chance to protect citizens' rights and fully perform its institutional function within the European legislative process. A capitulation faced with the unacceptably inflexible, legally dubious and democratically deficient approach of the Council would inflict lasting damage on the Parliament. What trust can voters have in an institution that will overwhelmingly support citizens' rights before an election only to abandon them immediately afterwards? What credibility will the Parliament have in future inter-institutional negotiations when it is prepared to abandon a position it supported twice with such an overwhelming majority? What authority will be left once the Parliament loses this crucial battle with the Council? Could there be a worse moment to fail so completely on an issue of such importance, at the historic moment when the institution is being entrusted with a greatly increased scope of codecision powers under the Lisbon Treaty? For the sake of the rule of law, for the sake of European citizens and for the sake of the only democratically elected European Institution, we urge you to take whatever actions you can to defend the principles in Amendment 138. In particular, we urge you to support the principle that, unless exceptional circumstances render this impossible, citizens are entitled to a prior judgment before any measure is taken to limit their fundamental right to freedom of communication. EDRi Open letter to EP on the European Parliament (19.10.2009) http://www.edri.org/files/edri_open_letter_091019.pdf French version http://www.edri.org/files/edri_open_letter_091019fr.pdf See also BEUC: Open letter from European Consumers to The Conciliation Committee on Telecom Package - Maintain the Current Amendment 138: Protect consumers' fundamental rights on the Internet http://pierani.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/229wba2009e_beuc_open_letter_on_… EuroISPA: European Parliament should maintain its defence of citizens' Fundamental Rights (16.10.2009) http://www.euroispa.org/files/091016_euroispa_telecom_review_am_138.pdf Greens/EFA call on EU Parliament to stick to its principles (16.10.2009) http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/pressreleases/dok/309/309517.telecoms_package… ============================================================ 2. Romania: Data retention law declared unconstitutional ============================================================ The Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR) announced on 7 October 2009 that it took the decision to consider unconstitutional the Romanian implementation of the data retention directive. The Romanian data retention law has been in force since the beginning of 2009, but it received a lot of bad press reviews, as reported by EDRi-gram at the beginning of the year. Several NGOs declared that they would contest the law. An initial appeal of the civil society to the Ombudsman was not successful, since the Ombudsman did not consider the law as unconstitutional and therefore he declared that he would not ask the opinion of the Constitutional Court. The case that was decided by the Constitutional Court in October 2008 was initiated by a Romanian NGO, Civil Society Commissariat, which sued its mobile operator for keeping the traffic data according to the new law on data retention 298/2008. The lawsuit brought to the Bucharest Tribunal was just a pretext to raise, during the trial, a motion for the law's unconstitutionality - so that CCR would give its opinion of the data retention law. CCR has accepted the motion for law's unconstitutionality through decision 1258/2009, based on the breach of article 28 of the Romanian Constitution, which stipulates the secrecy of correspondence. Other articles invoked were articles 25, 26 and 30 which deal with freedom of movement, privacy and freedom of expression respectively. Unfortunately, it could take some time to see the motivation of the CCR and therefore to asses the real potential of this breakthrough decision. It might take even one month to get the official text published in the Official Monitor. In any case, the decision of the CCR is final and can't be appealed. The court is the only authority of constitutional jurisdiction in Romania, independent of any other public authority. It is formed by nine judges, appointed for a nine-year term. Its members are renewed by one third every three years. The court is known for its low number of cases admitted as unconstitutional. In 2008 there were only 18 cases fully admitted, out of almost 1400 motions raised in the regular courts. The Ministry of Communication and Information Society was quick to declare that it informed the European Commission about the new situation and that they might re-draft the law in order to avoid the constitutionality issues. But the problems could be more complicated for the executive if the decision of the CCR declares unconstitutional the entire law or article 1 which stipulates the purpose of the law. The decision also comes in a rather restless political and social period that might have influenced the CCR outcome and could further on have an impact on the way in which the Government will deal with this case. But for now, there is no stable government in place, with the former one being repealed by the Parliament on 13 October and a new one under formation these days. Romanian constitution http://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/site.page?id=371 Romania's Constitutional Court Rules Data Storage Law Unconstitutional (8.10.2009) http://www.mediafax.ro/english/romania-s-constitutional-court-rules-data-st… Waw: Constitutional Court declared the law on data retention unconstitutional (only in Romanian, 8.10.2009) http://legi-internet.ro/blogs/index.php/2009/10/08/lege-pastrarii-datelor-t… Romanian authorities seek solutions for the data retention law (only in Romanian, 9.10.2009) http://economie.hotnews.ro/stiri-telecom-6261206-autoritatile-romane-cauta-… Statistical situation of the Romanian Constitutional Court Acts http://www.ccr.ro/statistics/pdf/en/sin09_2009.pdf The Ombudsman will not address the CCR regarding the data retention law (only in Romanian, 10.02.2009) http://www.ziare.com/actual/eveniment/02-10-2009/avocatul-poporului-nu-va-s… EDRi-gram: Romania: Is really privacy a topic in the public debate? (28.01.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.2/romania-privacy-in-public-debate ============================================================ 3. France pushes the introduction of EDVIGE project through the back door ============================================================ The French Government produced two new decrees published in the Official Journal on 18 October 2009 which actually resurrect the rejected EDVIGE plan to create an intelligence database with personal data. By-passing the French Parliament, the Minister of Interior Brice Hortefeux introduced the two new decrees by practically splitting the former EDVIGE decree which was withdrawn by the Government at the end of 2008, thus creating two clones of the rejected project, as EDRi-member IRIS (Imaginons un riseau Internet solidaire) explains. One of the texts is meant as a tool for the police to prevent harm to public safety, to "collect, store and analyze information concerning persons whose individual or collective activity indicates that it may jeopardize public safety." Under the pretext of preventing harms to the public security, the data collected may include complete personal data ranging from nationality, profession, address or telephone numbers to physical signs, travel behaviours or geographic origin. And this is not all as the database will include also information on people who have come into contact or relation with persons deemed susceptible of performing a criminal offence. The file is related to the public security and has nothing to do with national security or terrorism. IRIS explains this is just a disproportionate and illegal mean for the government to deal with petty and medium delinquency. Moreover the data will be stored for everybody starting with 13 years old. For minors, the retention period is limited to three years as compared to a 10-year retention period for all the others. The other text introduces a file of administrative investigations. It includes personal data of citizens starting with the age of 16 (the official age at which one person can be employed) in order to check out whether a person's behaviour is compatible with the tasks he is entrusted with, for some sensitive jobs, like those in the security field. Data including political, religious, philosophical and union information with be stored for a minimum of 5 years. Despite the obvious concerns related to the gathering of so many sensitive data, the main subject of opposition is the so called "geographic origin" which actually is a masked way of gathering information related to the ethnic origin. "Replacing the ethnical criterion with that of geographic origin is to take us as morons" stated Samuel Thomas, Vice-president of SOS Racisme. CRAN (The council representing the black associations of France) also expressed its concern related to the geographic origin reference that they consider only a way to go round the interdiction of making reference to the ethnical origin and asked Hortefeux to remove any such reference from the text. The only guarantee given by the government is that CNIL (The French Data Protection Authority), which has already approved the two texts, will have the control over the two databases but, according to the critics, this is not very reassuring. The "humour" of the Ministry of Interior of signing the two texts on 16 October, Saint Edwige's day didn't pass unnoticed. The "No to EDVIGE" group publicly declared its decision to continue its fight against the two split variants of EDVIGE project, including by starting mobilizing people against it and to file appeals to the State Council. No to EDVIGE, no its these two clones! IRIS release (only in French, 18.10.2009) http://www.iris.sgdg.org/info-debat/comm-edvigeab1009.html Two decrees recreate the EDVIGE Decree (20.10.2009) http://nonaedvige.ras.eu.org/spip.php?article1078 "The Police needs files" (only in French, 18.10.2009) http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2009/10/18/01011-20091018FILWWW00131-chev… Hortefeux creates two new police files (only in French, 18.10.2009) http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2009/10/18/01016-20091018ARTFIG0009… Brice Hortefeux Hedwig resuscitated with 2 decrees published in OJ (19.10.2009) http://space-net1.blogspot.com/2009/10/brice-hortefeux-hedwig-resuscitated.… A new version of Edvige? Clones of the previous text (only in French, 19.10.2009) http://www.20minutes.fr/article/356199/Politique-La-nouvelle-version-d-Edvi… EDRi-gram: France: No to new EDVIGE! (1.07.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.13/no-edvige-3 ============================================================ 4. Web blocking gets a reality check ============================================================ In the negotiations surrounding the formation of a new conservative-liberal coalition in Germany following the recent elections, an agreement has been reached to postpone, for at least a year, the introduction of web blocking. As the law has already been adopted, the procedure by which the law will be stopped from entering into force has not yet been decided. Coincidentally, the UK government decided also not to introduce mandatory blocking to force the remaining consumer ISPs to follow the "voluntary" blocking already undertaken by the major ISPs in that country. In Germany, the plan is to use the existing legislation in order to remove as much illegal material as possible from the Internet. After an initial 12-month trial, this approach will be reevaluated. It remains very unclear, however, on what criteria the re-evaluation may take place. The approaches of the two coalition partners on this issue are very different, with the liberal FDP steadfastly opposed to blocking during the election campaign, while the blocking legislation was pushed by the conservative CDU Minister von der Leyen. By default, therefore, the approaches and interpretations that will be taken on the "re-evaluation" will also most probably be divergent. The decision to prioritise the removal of child abuse images from the Internet was criticised by organisations whose purpose is to protect children, including Unicef. Unicef's press release explains that blocking is necessary because takedown of illegal sites is "not possible" in "foreign" countries. However, the organisation does not find it necessary to criticise or name any of the major countries which leave images of child abuse online rather than removing them. This is particularly surprising when we consider that all countries in the world, with the exception of the USA (which has signed the Optional Protocol on Child Pornography) and Somalia have signed and ratified the binding UN Child Rights Convention which requires state parties to take all appropriate national, bilateral and international measures to prevent the exploitative use of children in pornographic performances and materials. No internet censorship in Germany for the next year (18.10.2009) http://ak-zensur.de/2009/10/access-blocking-germany.html Home Office backs down on net censorship laws (16.10.2009) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/16/home_office_iwf_legislation/ German Internet Blocking Bill Suspended (18.10.2009) http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/10/18/german-internet-blocking-bill-sus… UNICEF: Priority for Child! Access barriers are an important step - Further action needed (16.10.2009) http://www.unicef.de/091016vorrang_fuer_k.html (contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi) ============================================================ 5. Buma/Stemra imposes levy for embedding audio and video ============================================================ Dutch collecting society Buma/Stemra announced that it will impose a levy on Internet users for embedding audio- and videomaterial on their website, starting 1 January 2010. The levy starts at EUR 130 for the first six embedded links per website per year. The rules could affect small bloggers and users of social network-sites such as Facebook. As the rules were legally questionable and did not sufficiently take into account the interests of internet users and Dutch musicians, Buma's announcement immediately led to protests in the blogosphere and on Twitter. Dutch digital rights organisation Bits of Freedom drafted a letter to Buma/Stemra, assisted by numerous concerned internet users through text annotation website co-ment.net, calling for a revision of the rules. Bits of Freedom then handed its letter over to the CEO of Buma/Stemra. Meanwhile, Dutch politicians further questioned the rules in Parliament. Three days later, on 9 october 2009, Buma/Stemra responded to the criticism by stating that it would for now not apply its rules to non-commercial use. Bits of Freedom responded the same day, questioning the definition of non-commercial use by Buma/Stemra. Indeed, on 14 october Buma/Stemra revealed that even one advertisement on a website would be considered 'commercial use'. Bits of Freedom continues its efforts to defend communication freedom in relation to these controversial measures by Buma/Stemra. Brochure Buma/Stemra Digital Music Licences (only in Dutch http://www.bumastemra.nl/NR/rdonlyres/DF0B3120-8850-4DF1-ACD6-17F94B0BB18C/… Letter Bits of Freedom to Buma/Stemra (only in Dutch, 6.10.2009) http://www.bof.nl/briefbuma061009.pdf NOS eight o'clock news report (only in Dutch, 7.10.2009) http://player.nos.nl/index.php/media/play/tcmid/tcm:5-576060/ (Contribution by Ot van Daalen - EDRi-member Bits of Freedom - Netherlands) ============================================================ 6. Copyright in the digital environment ============================================================ During the 1st European Innovation Summit that was held on 12 - 16 October 2009 at the European Parliament in Brussels, a workshop on the future of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in Europe included a panel to debate the subject of the IPRs in the new digital environment. In the introduction it was asserted that national copyright laws are no longer adapted to the digital environment, that old business models have failed to produce results, that DRMs have been rejected by the consumers and that the issue now at stake is how to adapt to new business models. Professor Hugenholtz (IvIR, University of Amsterdam) said that licensing had been impacted heavily by the territorial nature of copyright. The only effective way forward is to create truly harmonising copyright regulation, as has been done for trademarks already. The problem of exceptions and limitations also needs to be effectively rethought. Antoine Aubert (Google) repeated the point that the current exceptions and limitations regime needed to be reviewed. He explained that the current 70-year copyright terms was too long. Google's priorities have been to ensure that content can find its audience in the digital world and that rights owners get value for their contents. Malte Behrmann (European Gaming Developers Federation) described how games developers had profited from the Internet to reduce the number of intermediaries in their path to the market. The online games industry has quickly adapted to the digital challenges and has developed a variety of business models. As a result, piracy is not an important issue and the games industry therefore does not support extreme solutions for copyright enforcement. He encouraged the film and music industry to follow the example of his industry. Giancarlo Miglioro (MrGoodIDEA) said that the issue of finance was missing in the debate on the future of IPR. He said that major companies saw intellectual property as a major asset and trade in it. Francisco Mingorance (Business Software Alliance) said that the adoption of the Hadopi law in France had demonstrated that technology was neutral and can be used efficiently to enforce copyright without any risk to people's privacy. There should be a focus on adopting codes of conduct for IPR enforcement, with ISPs responsible for monitoring and enforcement. Christian Engstrom, MEP (Greens/EFA (Pirate Party), Sweden) said that his party was pro-copyright but also pro-reform and pro-adaptation to the digital age. He argued for a 5-year term of protection and that all non-commercial uses should be free of copyright. Professor Hugenholz reminded participants that adjustments to the copyright term should comply with the international treaties and five years could not be acceptable. However, the recent proposal of the Commission to nearly double the term of protection for related rights has failed to provide evidence as to the need for such a long term. Margot Froehlinger defended that proposal by pointing out that it had been accompanied with an impact assessment and that the Commission's aim had been to help performers. She warned against the criterion of "commercial infringement" and gave the example of somebody copying a film and putting it online without wanting to make a profit but doing so simply as a hobby. 1st European Innovation Summit http://www.knowledge4innovation.eu/k4i/default.aspx (contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi) ============================================================ 7. The European Commission calls for online privacy protection measures ============================================================ On 8 October 2009 the European Commission (EC) repeated its call to all EU member states to increase their efforts in dealing with online privacy threats to the public, such as spam, spyware and malware, based on findings from a study required by the Commission. The study performed by time.lex "Study on activities undertaken to address threats that undermine the confidence in the Information Society, such as spam, spyware and malicious software", which includes assessments of progress in each EU country, shows the need of legislative improvements, more consistent enforcement rules and sanctions and better cross-border cooperation in the domain. "Today's figures show that several EU countries are doing more to enforce online privacy rules. However, spam is an area where we can and must improve for the benefit of internet users in the EU ," said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media who added that "Although since 2002, European law has prohibited spam and spyware, on average 65% of EU citizens are still affected by spam on a regular basis. We need to step up our fight against spammers and make sure that the EU adopts legislation that provides for strong civil and criminal sanctions against spammers. I call on EU countries to reinforce their national efforts to fight on-line privacy threats such as spam, spyware and malicious software." The study reveals that there are large differences in the way the member states enforce regulations and apply sanctions for spammers and recommends a more successful approach in fighting online threats that should involve a combination of prevention, enforcement and raising public awareness (as proposed also by Critical Information Infrastructure Protection policy). "Public authorities (such as telecoms regulators, data protection and consumer agencies and law enforcement bodies) must have clear responsibilities and cooperation procedures between themselves; while public and private sector must also work together." In order to achieve that, EU countries should provide sufficient resources to national authorities so that they may gather evidence, carry out investigations and built prosecution in this field. The findings also show that the level of cooperation also differs between EU countries and indicates that as spam is a global problem, there is the need for a closer cooperation with the EU as well as worldwide. More action needed to fight spammers and protect online privacy, says Commission report (8.10.2009) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1487 Study on activities undertaken to address threats that undermine confidence in the Information Society, such as spam, spyware and malicious software - Spam and spyware study SMART 2008/0013 Final Report - (2.10.2009) http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/doc/library/ext_studie… Critical Information Infrastructure Protection - a new initiative in 2009 (29.05.2009) http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/nis/strategy/activities/ciip… ============================================================ 8. Microsoft tries to comply with EU requirements ============================================================ After having long criticised and penalised Microsoft for its anti-competitive practices, the European Union seems to be now at the point of trying to close up the battle with the company after Microsoft has made a new offer to give its customers access to a wider range of web browsers through its Windows operating system and to share information with its competitors. "The commission will formally market test proposals made by Microsoft to address concerns regarding the tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows PC operating system," said the EU's competition commissioner Neelie Kroes who also expressed the idea that a at a preliminary view it appears that "Microsoft's commitments would indeed address our concerns." Microsoft's last proposal in July to give a choice screen that would allow consumers to pick from several browsers was not considered good enough and the European Commission (EC) asked for improvements. After intense discussions with the EC and with feedback from the industry, the present proposal gives a choice of 12 browsers and also addresses the other topic of concern, interoperability, by offering an exchange of information with other software companies. However, the new proposal is not considered as good by everybody. FSFE (Free Software Foundation Europe) believes that, being close to the end of her mandate, Ms Kroes is rushing in closing up a deal with Microsoft that serves the company and not the EU. FSFE argues that the solution proposed by Microsoft is tricky as the browsers offered as alternative are not pre-installed but must be downloaded. As many time downloading may be slow or even failing, depending on the connection, many people will prefer to just use Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) as it will be much easier. In the foundation's opinion, Microsoft should pre-install alternative browsers and "any browser that the user chooses needs to be integrated into the Windows operating system to the same degree that IE is integrated today." FSFE also believes that the settlement between the EC and Microsoft should not be limited to Europe, as the company proposed, but apply globally. As regarding the interoperability, the foundation argues that what is Microsoft offering now is only the interoperability information that is impossible to use in Free Software. What FSFE considers necessary is "a binding commitment from Microsoft to provide and update interoperability information on terms that are compatible with Free Software. This has to be a legally binding document, and needs to include guarantees as well as clear remedies if Microsoft fails to comply." The European Committee for Interoperable Systems also consider the settlement "does not appear to deal with the inadequacies of Microsoft's standards compliance, unfair pricing practices or other concerns related to patent abuse or standards manipulation". Microsoft's present proposal will be marked tested for one month period during which the industry and consumers may submit suggestions for further changes. Following the trial month, the Commission may decide to make Microsoft's commitment legally binding for five years and in that case, during this period, no action will be brought against Microsoft related to browsers. In the meantime, the company is close to releasing in Europe its new browser - Windows 7 - that launches on 22 October worldwide. But not without concerns. In a recent press release, FSFE warns that "Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7, is currently shipping with a potentially serious defect. Ahead of the product's global launch on Thursday, Germany's federal IT security agency (BSI) has issued a warning about a high-risk vulnerability in the SMB2 protocol. This can be exploited over the network to shut down a computer with a Denial of Service (DoS) attack." EU approves new Microsoft pledges (7.10.2009) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8294587.stm FSFE to EC: Don't waste an opportunity with a hasty deal (28.09.2009) http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/?p=263 Antitrust: Commission welcomes new Microsoft proposals on Microsoft Internet Explorer and Interoperability (24.07.2009) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/352 Microsoft browser battle draws to a close (8.10.2009) http://euobserver.com/9/28798/?rk=1 Microsoft and Europe Near Browser Truce (8.10.2009) http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2009/gb2009108_963950.htm Windows 7 to hit consumers with known security problem (19.10.2009) http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091019-01.en.html EDRi-gram: Windows 7 is launched without IE, but the Commission is not pleased (17.06.2009) http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.12/microsoft-europe-ie-windows7 ============================================================ 9. Finland: Introducing Internet broadband as a universal service ============================================================ According to a decree issued by the Finish Ministry of Transport and Communications, starting with 1 July 2010, a 1 Mbit Internet connection will be defined as a requirement of the Universal Service. Thus, Finland becomes the first country in the world to make access to broadband Internet a legal right. The decree states that by the end of 2009, the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority will establish which of the telecom operators will be imposed this universal service obligation. The designated universal service providers will have to be able to provide access for all residential or business users, at a reasonable price, to a high-quality connection of at least 1 Mbit/s. The providers may choose themselves the technology used to provide the service. The average speed of downstream traffic must be at least 75 per cent of the required speed in a 24 hour period. While in a four hour measuring period the average speed must be at least 59 per cent of the required speed. Ms Suvi Lindin, Finland's Minister of Communications, believes that high speed access to everybody will improve people's quality of life especially in the less populated areas, will boost business, enable electronic communications and encourage online banking. Finland is already amongst the first countries in the world from the point of view of access to Internet connection. According to Laura Vilkkonen, the legislative counselor for the Ministry of Transport and Communications, about 95 percent of the population have some sort of Internet access. She also stated that the one-megabit requirement is only an intermediary step as the target is to reach speeds of up to 100 megabit per second for all by 2015. "We think it's something you cannot live without in modern society. Like banking services or water or electricity, you need Internet connection," Vilkkonen said. Access to a minimum of 1 Mbit Internet connection available to everyone in Finland by July 2010 (16.10.2009) http://www.lvm.fi/web/en/pressreleases/view/920100 Finland makes broadband access a legal right (14.10.2009) http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/14/finland-broadband Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland (15.10.2009) http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/finland.internet.rights/index.html ============================================================ 10. Recommended Reading ============================================================ Law enforcement access to EURODAC: EDPS expresses serious doubts about the legitimacy and necessity of proposed measures (7.10.2009) Press release http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/EDPS/… Opinion on Eurodac http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/Consu… Communication on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy (19/10/2009) Press release http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1544&format=H… Citizens Summary http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/copyright-infso/citizens… Communication http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/copyright-infso/20091019… ============================================================ 11. Agenda ============================================================ 24 October 2009, Zurich, Switzerland Big Brother Awards Switzerland http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2009/ 25 October 2009, Vienna, Austria Austrian Big Brother Awards http://www.bigbrotherawards.at/ 26-27 October 2009, Vienna, Austria 3rd European Privacy Open Space http://www.privacyos.eu 26 October 2009, Brussels, Belgium European Commission - Public hearing on orphan works http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/copyright-infso/copyright-inf… 29 October 2009, Barcelona, Spain oXcars, the biggest free culture event of all times, 2nd edition http://oxcars09.exgae.net 29 October - 1 November 2009, Barcelona, Spain Free Culture Forum: Organization and Action http://fcforum.net/ 3 November 2009, Madrid, Spain Civil Society Conference: "Global Privacy Standards in a Global World" Organized by "The Public Voice" coalition http://thepublicvoice.org/events/madrid09 4-6 November 2009, Madrid, Spain 31st International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy http://www.privacyconference2009.org 10-11 November 2009, Cambridge, UK Public Domain Calculators Meeting http://wiki.okfn.org/PublicDomainCalculators/Meeting 13-15 November 2009, Gothenburg, Sweden Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit http://www.fscons.org/ 15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt UN Internet Governance Forum http://www.intgovforum.org/ 19-20 November 2009, Malmv, Sweden First popular European e-government conference http://malmo09.org/ 27-30 December 2009, Berlin, Germany 26th Chaos Communication Congress http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/ ============================================================ 12. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 29 members based or with offices in 18 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the EDRI website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Bush is Not Above The Law (or is he?)
by Peter Langston 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Forwarded-by: Gary Graves <rhythmslave(a)harbornet.com> Bush Is Not Above the Law By JAMES BAMFORD Op-Ed Contributor, NY Times, Washington January 31, 2007 LAST August, a federal judge found that the president of the United States broke the law, committed a serious felony and violated the Constitution. Had the president been an ordinary citizen - someone charged with bank robbery or income tax evasion - the wheels of justice would have immediately begun to turn. The F.B.I. would have conducted an investigation, a United States attorney's office would have impaneled a grand jury and charges would have been brought. But under the Bush Justice Department, no F.B.I. agents were ever dispatched to padlock White House files or knock on doors and no federal prosecutors ever opened a case. The ruling was the result of a suit, in which I am one of the plaintiffs, brought against the National Security Agency by the American Civil Liberties Union. It was a response to revelations by this newspaper in December 2005 that the agency had been monitoring the phone calls and e-mail messages of Americans for more than four years without first obtaining warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In the past, even presidents were not above the law. When the F.B.I. turned up evidence during Watergate that Richard Nixon had obstructed justice by trying to cover up his involvement, a special prosecutor was named and a House committee recommended that the president be impeached. And when an independent counsel found evidence that President Bill Clinton had committed perjury in the Monica Lewinsky case, the impeachment machinery again cranked into gear, with the spectacle of a Senate trial (which ended in acquittal). Laws are broken, the federal government investigates, and the individuals involved - even if they're presidents - are tried and, if found guilty, punished. That is the way it is supposed to work under our system of government. But not this time. Last Aug. 17, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the United States District Court in Detroit issued her ruling in the A.C.L.U. case. The president, she wrote, had "undisputedly violated" not only the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, but also statutory law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Enacted by a bipartisan Congress in 1978, the FISA statute was a response to revelations that the National Security Agency had conducted warrantless eavesdropping on Americans. To deter future administrations from similar actions, the law made a violation a felony punishable by a $10,000 fine and five years in prison. Yet despite this ruling, the Bush Justice Department never opened an F.B.I. investigation, no special prosecutor was named, and there was no talk of impeachment in the Republican-controlled Congress. Justice Department lawyers argued last June that warrants were not required for what they called the administration's "terrorist surveillance program" because of the president's "inherent powers" to order eavesdropping and because of the Congressional authorization to use military force against those responsible for 9/11. But Judge Taylor rejected both arguments, ruling that even presidents must obey statutory law and the Constitution. On Jan. 17, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales unexpectedly declared that President Bush had ended the program, deciding to again seek warrants in all cases. Exactly what kind of warrants - individual, as is required by the law, or broad-based, which would probably still be illegal - is as yet unknown. The action may have been designed to forestall a potentially adverse ruling by the federal appeals court in Cincinnati, which had scheduled oral arguments on the case for today. At that hearing, the administration is now expected to argue that the case is moot and should be thrown out - while reserving the right to restart the program at any time. But that's a bit like a bank robber coming into court and arguing that, although he has been sticking up banks for the past half-decade, he has agreed to a temporary halt and therefore he shouldn't be prosecuted. Independent of the A.C.L.U. case, a criminal investigation by the F.B.I. and a special prosecutor should begin immediately. The question that must finally be answered is whether the president is guilty of committing a felony by continuously reauthorizing the warrantless eavesdropping program for the past five years. And if so, what action must be taken? The issue is not original. Among the charges approved by the House Judiciary Committee when it recommended its articles of impeachment against President Nixon was "illegal wiretaps." President Nixon, the bill charged, "caused wiretaps to be placed on the telephones of 17 persons without having obtained a court order authorizing the tap, as required by federal law; in violation of Sections 241, 371 and 2510-11 of the Criminal Code." Under his program, President Bush could probably be charged with wiretapping not 17 but thousands of people without having obtained a court order authorizing the taps as required by federal law, in violation of FISA. It is not only the federal court but also many in Congress who believe that a violation of law has taken place. In a hearing on Jan. 18, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said, "For years, this administration has engaged in warrantless wiretapping of Americans contrary to the law." His view was shared by the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who said of Mr. Bush, "For five years he has been operating an illegal program." And Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, noted that much of the public was opposed to the program and that it both hurt the country at home and damaged its image abroad. "The heavy criticism which the president took on the program," he said, "I think was very harmful in the political process and for the reputation of the country." To allow a president to break the law and commit a felony for more than five years without even a formal independent investigation would be the ultimate subversion of the Constitution and the rule of law. As Judge Taylor warned in her decision, "There are no hereditary kings in America." James Bamford is the author of two books on the National Security Agency, "The Puzzle Palace" and "Body of Secrets." ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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[johnmacsgroup] Thompson: Kingdom of Fear - 2003
by Randall 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

----snip--snip--snip---- >From "Kingdom Of Fear " 2003 By Hunter S. Thompson Let's face it, the yo-yo president of the U.S.A. knows nothing. He is a dunce. He does what he is told to do, says what he is told to say, poses the way he is told to pose. He is a fool. No. Nonsense. The president cannot be a Fool. Not at this moment in time, when the last living vestiges of the American Dream are on the line. This is not the time to have a bogus rich kid in charge of the White House. Which is, after all, our house. That is our headquarters, it is where the heart of America lives. So if the president lies and acts giddy about other people's lives, if he wantonly and stupidly endorses mass murder by definition, a loud and meaningless animal with no functional intelligence and no balls. To say this goofy child president is looking more and more like Richard Nixon in the summer of 1974 would be a flagrant insult to Nixon. Whoops! Did I say that? Is it even vaguely possible that some New Age Republican whore-beast of a false president could actually make Richard Nixon look like a Liberal? The capacity of these vicious assholes we elected to be in charge of our lives for four years to commit terminal damage to our lives and our souls and our loved ones is far beyond Nixon's. Shit! Nixon was the creator of many of the once-proud historical landmarks that these dumb bastards are savagely destroying now: the Clean Air Act of 1970; Campaign Finance Reform; the endangered species act; a Real-Politik dialogue with China; and on and on. The prevailing quality of life in America-by any accepted methods of measuring-was inarguably freer and more politically open under Nixon than it is today in this evil year of our Lord 2002. The Boss was a certified monster who deserved to be impeached and banished. He was a truthless creature of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a foul human monument to corruption and depravity on a scale that dwarfs any other public official in American history. But Nixon was at least smart enough to understand why so many honorable patriotic U.S. citizens despised him. He was a Liar. The truth was not in him. Nixon believed, as he said many times, that if the president of the United States does it, it can't be illegal. But Nixon never understood the much higher and meaner truth of Bob Dylan's warning that "To live outside the law you must be honest." The difference between an outlaw and a war criminal is the difference between a pedophile and a Pederast: The pedophile is a person who thinks about sexual behavior with children, and the Pederast does these things. He lays hands on innocent children, he penetrates them and changes their lives forever. Being the object of a pedophile's warped affections is a Routine feature of growing up in America, and being a victim of a Pederast's crazed "love" is part of dying. Innocence is no longer an option. Once penetrated, the child becomes a Queer in his own mind, and that is not much different than murder. Richard Nixon crossed the line when he began murdering foreigners in the name of "family values"- and George Bush crossed it when he sneaked into office and began killing brown skinned children in the name of Jesus and the American people. When Muhammad Ali declined to be drafted and forced to kill "gooks" in Vietnam he said, "I ain't got nothin' against them Viet Cong. No Cong ever called me Nigger." I agreed with him, according to my own personal ethics and values. He was right. If we all had a dash of Muhammad Ali's eloquent courage, this country and the world would be a better place today because of it. Okay. That's it for now. Read it and weep....See you tomorrow, folks. You haven't heard the last of me. I am the one who speaks for the spitit of freedom and decency in you. Shit. Somebody has to do it. We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world-a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us... No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today- and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill "gooks". They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are racists and hate mongers among us-they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. -- "There's nothing you could point to in the Bush Administration with pride. Nothing. There is no way any rational, reasonable person can say that the Bush Administration has been good for America." ---- Janeane Garofalo ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy No Snore & Get a Good Night's Sleep. Natural Oral Spray -- $24.95 (1 bottle, 1 month supply, with sweet almond oil, eucalyptus oil & more). http://www.challengerone.com/t/l.asp?cid=2881&lp=h515.html http://us.click.yahoo.com/2oMABA/nuYGAA/ySSFAA/XgSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: johnmacsgroup-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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EFF event on Tor, San Francisco, May 10
by Roger Dingledine 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Free Tor t-shirt if you run a Tor server. Hope to see some of you there. :) --Roger ************ Explore the World of Anonymous Communication Online Join EFF at 111 Minna Gallery to Hear Stories From the Trenches About the Creation of Tor, an Anonymous Internet Communication System WHEN: Tuesday, May 10th, 2005 7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. WHAT: Tor: A Brief History of the Most Important Privacy Software Since PGP Tor is a free/open source software project to create an anonymous communication system on the Internet. Tor runs on all major platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux/UNIX). WHO: Roger Dingledine - Tor Project - tor.eff.org Roger Dingledine is the chief researcher and developer of Tor and has worked on anonymity and security software at MIT, Reputation Technologies, and his own Freehaven Project. Roger will share his personal experiences about the creation of Tor. Chris Palmer - Electronic Frontier Foundation - www.eff.org Chris Palmer is EFF's Technology Manager. He will discuss EFF's goals and reasons for supporting the Tor Project. WHERE: 111 Minna Gallery 111 Minna Street San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel: (415) 974-1719 This event is free and open to the general public. You must be 21+. Refreshments will be served. Free t-shirts for people currently running Tor nodes. (Bring your IP address.) To learn how to set up a Tor node, see http://tor.eff.org/cvs/tor/doc/tor-doc.html#server. Please RSVP to (415) 436-9333 x129 or bayff-rsvp(a)eff.org 111 Minna Gallery is accessible via BART. Get off at the Montgomery station and exit at 2nd and Market. Walk south on 2nd Street for a block and a half, and take a right down the Minna Street Alley. 111 Minna Street is located between Mission and Howard. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the world: http://www.eff.org/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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Re: [IP] more on AP Story Justice Dept. Probing Domestic
by Bill Scannell 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Spying Leak Dave, Lest we forget what this is about: George W. Bush illegally ordered NSA to spy on US citizens. This is a felony, for which I (and many other former and current NSA employees) hope to see him impeached and jailed. As as former SIGINT analyst, I -and anyone else ever associated with NSA- know that USSID 18 prohibits the spying on United States Persons. This is NSA's Prime Directive, Ten Commandments, and Bill of Rights, all rolled into one. It is an unlawful order to direct NSA to eavesdrop on US citizens. It is impossible for me to stress strongly enough that from day one, every human associated with NSA has USSID 18 drilled into him. With USSID 18, NSA is able to protect and defend our country. Without USSID 18, NSA can be used to oppress the American populace. It comes as no surprise to me that, in the face of an unlawful order, someone went to the papers with the story. The exception to the rule of course, is the FISA courts. President Bush declined to use these courts despite the ability to get a FISA warrant three days after the fact. It is a shame that with such a massive crime freely admitted by President Bush, a smart guy like Hiawatha continues to carry water for this Administration. -Bill PS: A public version of USSID 18 can be read at: http://cryptome.org/nsa-ussid18.htm Also sprach David Farber aka dave(a)farber.net on 30.12.05 13:50 : > > >Begin forwarded message: > >From: h_bray(a)globe.com >Date: December 30, 2005 12:55:23 PM EST >To: dave(a)farber.net >Subject: Re: [IP] AP Story Justice Dept. Probing Domestic Spying Leak > >Because (a) the DOJ approved of the spying and (b) the leakers >violated >federal law by revealing an ongoing intelligence operation in >wartime. If >the Valerie Plame leak was a crime, this leak is doubly so. > > > >Hiawatha Bray > > > > > David Farber > <dave(a)farber.net> > > To > 12/30/2005 12:32 ip(a)v2.listbox.com > >PM cc > > >Subject > Please respond to [IP] AP Story Justice Dept. >Probing > dave(a)farber.net Domestic Spying Leak > > > > > > > > > > > > >Begin forwarded message: > >From: Mary Shaw <mary.shaw(a)cs.cmu.edu> >Date: December 30, 2005 12:26:18 PM EST >To: Dave Farber <dave(a)farber.net> >Subject: AP Story Justice Dept. Probing Domestic Spying Leak > >Dave, > >Why is the Justice Dept probing the leak rather than the domestic >spying program itself? Or did I miss the announcement of the latter? > >Excerpted from http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/ >20051230/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/domestic_spying_probe_6 > >Mary > >============================ > >Justice Dept. Probing Domestic Spying Leak > >By TONI LOCY, Associated Press Writer > >The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of >classified information about President Bush's secret domestic spying >program, Justice officials said Friday. > >The officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of >the probe, said the inquiry will focus on disclosures to The New York >Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National >Security Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. > >[[[snip]]] > >Revelation of the secret spying program unleashed a firestorm of >criticism of the administration. Some critics accused the president >of breaking the law by authorizing intercepts of conversations ? >without prior court approval or oversight ? of people inside the >United States and abroad who had suspected ties to al-Qaida or its >affiliates. > >[[[snip]]] > > > > >------------------------------------- >You are subscribed as bray(a)globe.com >To manage your subscription, go to > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip > >Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- >people/ > >------------------------------------- >You are subscribed as bill(a)scannell.org >To manage your subscription, go to > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip > >Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- >people/ > ??? --- ??? ??? --- ??? "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen(a)leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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[IP] more on AP Story Justice Dept. Probing Domestic Spying Leak
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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[johnmacsgroup] Thompson: Kingdom of Fear - 2003
by Randall 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

----snip--snip--snip---- >From "Kingdom Of Fear " 2003 By Hunter S. Thompson Let's face it, the yo-yo president of the U.S.A. knows nothing. He is a dunce. He does what he is told to do, says what he is told to say, poses the way he is told to pose. He is a fool. No. Nonsense. The president cannot be a Fool. Not at this moment in time, when the last living vestiges of the American Dream are on the line. This is not the time to have a bogus rich kid in charge of the White House. Which is, after all, our house. That is our headquarters, it is where the heart of America lives. So if the president lies and acts giddy about other people's lives, if he wantonly and stupidly endorses mass murder by definition, a loud and meaningless animal with no functional intelligence and no balls. To say this goofy child president is looking more and more like Richard Nixon in the summer of 1974 would be a flagrant insult to Nixon. Whoops! Did I say that? Is it even vaguely possible that some New Age Republican whore-beast of a false president could actually make Richard Nixon look like a Liberal? The capacity of these vicious assholes we elected to be in charge of our lives for four years to commit terminal damage to our lives and our souls and our loved ones is far beyond Nixon's. Shit! Nixon was the creator of many of the once-proud historical landmarks that these dumb bastards are savagely destroying now: the Clean Air Act of 1970; Campaign Finance Reform; the endangered species act; a Real-Politik dialogue with China; and on and on. The prevailing quality of life in America-by any accepted methods of measuring-was inarguably freer and more politically open under Nixon than it is today in this evil year of our Lord 2002. The Boss was a certified monster who deserved to be impeached and banished. He was a truthless creature of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a foul human monument to corruption and depravity on a scale that dwarfs any other public official in American history. But Nixon was at least smart enough to understand why so many honorable patriotic U.S. citizens despised him. He was a Liar. The truth was not in him. Nixon believed, as he said many times, that if the president of the United States does it, it can't be illegal. But Nixon never understood the much higher and meaner truth of Bob Dylan's warning that "To live outside the law you must be honest." The difference between an outlaw and a war criminal is the difference between a pedophile and a Pederast: The pedophile is a person who thinks about sexual behavior with children, and the Pederast does these things. He lays hands on innocent children, he penetrates them and changes their lives forever. Being the object of a pedophile's warped affections is a Routine feature of growing up in America, and being a victim of a Pederast's crazed "love" is part of dying. Innocence is no longer an option. Once penetrated, the child becomes a Queer in his own mind, and that is not much different than murder. Richard Nixon crossed the line when he began murdering foreigners in the name of "family values"- and George Bush crossed it when he sneaked into office and began killing brown skinned children in the name of Jesus and the American people. When Muhammad Ali declined to be drafted and forced to kill "gooks" in Vietnam he said, "I ain't got nothin' against them Viet Cong. No Cong ever called me Nigger." I agreed with him, according to my own personal ethics and values. He was right. If we all had a dash of Muhammad Ali's eloquent courage, this country and the world would be a better place today because of it. Okay. That's it for now. Read it and weep....See you tomorrow, folks. You haven't heard the last of me. I am the one who speaks for the spitit of freedom and decency in you. Shit. Somebody has to do it. We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world-a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us... No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today- and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill "gooks". They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are racists and hate mongers among us-they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. -- "There's nothing you could point to in the Bush Administration with pride. Nothing. There is no way any rational, reasonable person can say that the Bush Administration has been good for America." ---- Janeane Garofalo ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy No Snore & Get a Good Night's Sleep. Natural Oral Spray -- $24.95 (1 bottle, 1 month supply, with sweet almond oil, eucalyptus oil & more). http://www.challengerone.com/t/l.asp?cid=2881&lp=h515.html http://us.click.yahoo.com/2oMABA/nuYGAA/ySSFAA/XgSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: johnmacsgroup-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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