Thursday, April 29, 2004

Patriot Act Suppresses News Of Challenge to Patriot Act, by Dan Eggen, Washington Post. The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago challenging the FBI's methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now. The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the case was kept under seal to avoid violating secrecy rules contained in the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU said. The group was allowed to release a redacted version of the lawsuit after weeks of negotiations with the government. It is remarkable that a gag provision in the Patriot Act kept the public in the dark about the mere fact that a constitutional challenge had been filed in court, Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director, said in a statement. President Bush can talk about extending the life of the Patriot Act, but the ACLU is still gagged from discussing details of our challenge to it. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the case. More at the Wash Post link above or at The American Civil Liberties Union, The Electronic Privacy Information Center's USA PATRIOT Act Page, The Electronic Frontier Foundation's analysis of the USA PATRIOT Act, The American Library Association's page of information about the USA Patriot ACT, which was prepared by the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom and reviewed by legal counsel, The ACLU's records relating to the Justice Department’s implementation and use of the USA PATRIOT ACT released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, and ACLU Press Release on the lawsuit 9:31:50 AM    comment []

Net more important than morning coffee?. Given the choice at work between personal use of the Net or a morning cup o' joe, employees say the joe can go, a survey says. The study also looks at security issues. [CNET News.com] 7:00:06 AM    comment []

Copyright, Technology, and The New Surveillance Sonia Katyal of Fordham Law School has written a thought-provoking paper on the relationship between copyright enforcement and privacy in the digital age. Some very interesting observations here on the increasingly invasive methods used by rightsholders to control how intellectual property is accessed and shared. Excerpt: A few years ago, it was fanciful to imagine a world where intellectual property owners - such as record companies, software owners, and publishers - were capable of invading the most sacred areas of the home in order to track, deter, and control uses of their products. Yet, today, strategies of copyright enforcement have rapidly multiplied, each strategy more invasive than the last. This new surveillance exposes the paradoxical nature of the Internet: It offers both the consumer and creator a seemingly endless capacity for human expression - a virtual marketplace of ideas - alongside an insurmountable array of capacities for panoptic surveillance. As a result, the Internet both enables and silences speech, often simultaneously. This paradox, in turn, leads to the tension between privacy and intellectual property. Both areas of law face significant challenges because of technology's ever-expanding pace of development. Yet courts often exacerbate these challenges by sacrificing one area of law for the other, by eroding principles of informational privacy for the sake of unlimited control over intellectual property. Laws developed to address the problem of online piracy - in particular, the DMCA - have been unwittingly misplaced, inviting intellectual property owners to create private systems of copyright monitoring that I refer to as piracy surveillance. Piracy surveillance comprises extrajudicial methods of copyright enforcement that detect, deter, and control acts of consumer infringement. Ms. Katyal's paper was selected as the winning entry for the 2004 Yale Law School Cybercrime and Digital Law Enforcement Conference writing competition. [bOing bOing] 6:56:36 AM    comment []

In Class, the Audience Weighs In. Professors equipping their students with wireless keypads for classroom give-and-take say they make classes come alive. By Katie Hafner. [New York Times: Education] 6:51:34 AM    comment []

Hack Your Way to Hollywood. Heather Robinson, 25, sure has moxie. She turned her youthful indiscretions with a stolen credit card into a movie deal. Now she's trying to land another, this one based on her electronic snooping through AOL's customer database. Xeni Jardin reports from Los Angeles. [Wired News] 6:51:05 AM    comment []

Experts Back in Modern Iran to Again Study Ancient Persia. Western archaeologists are trickling back into Iran, encouraged by local officials seeking wider scientific contacts with foreigners. By John Noble Wilford. [New York Times: Science] 6:50:34 AM    comment []

Debate Stirs Over Tiny Loans for World's Poorest. There is a growing push for the nonprofit groups and banks who run microcredit programs to reach deeper into the ranks of the poor. By Celia W. Dugger. [New York Times: Business] 6:50:25 AM    comment []

ITunes Birthday Gift: More Songs. For iTunes' first birthday, Apple increases the number of computers on which people can listen to their purchased tunes. The company also announces plans to publish tons of out-of-print records. But there are a few sour notes. By Katie Dean. [Wired News] 6:50:16 AM    comment []