EFFector Vol. 20, No. 17 May 3, 2007 editor@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 422nd Issue of EFFector:
- Government Feels the Heat at National ID Town Hall
- Bush Admin. Pushes Spying Bill at Key Senate Hearing
- Proposed Bill Aims to Save Music Webcasters
- Anti-Consumer European Directive Slips Through, Fight to Continue
- Another Misguided Spyware Bill Moves Forward
- HD-DVD Key Cease-and-Desist Campaign: A Legal Primer
- Putting Presidential Debates in the Creative Commons
- The Great Firewall of Utah (and Banning Open Wi-Fi)
- Ohio University Restricts All P2P File Sharing Software
- "Google Government" Movement Spreads to the States
- Support EFF: New Bloggers' Rights Shirts Now Available
- EFF at Maker Faire, May 19-20
- miniLinks (10): Copyrighting Religion
- Administrivia
For more information on EFF activities & alerts: http://www.eff.org/ Make a donation and become an EFF member today! http://eff.org/support/ Tell a friend about EFF: http://action.eff.org/site/Ecard?ecard_id=1061 effector: n, Computer Sci. A device for producing a desired change. : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Government Feels the Heat at National ID Town Hall Despite the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided a mere eight days notice about the one and only national town hall on REAL ID, the public made its opposition loud and clear. Nearly every speaker at the four hour event on Tuesday in Davis, CA, criticized the privacy- invasive mandate, which would force states to standardize drivers' licenses and create massive, interlinked databases of your personal information. We need to keep up the pressure. It's not too late to voice your opposition -- get your comments to DHS before the May 8 deadline: http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=287 DHS still hasn't gotten the message that REAL ID is fundamentally flawed. Time and again during the meeting, officials defended REAL ID by saying it was necessary for national security. But participants at the meeting weren't buying it. As one computer science Ph.D. student pointed out in his comment, REAL ID "solves the wrong problem," because IDs do nothing to stop those who haven't already been identified as threats. REAL ID also won't prevent wrongdoers from creating fake documents. As the Cato Institute's Jim Harper explained in recent testimony before Congress, a basic analysis using even very generous assumptions shows that the benefit of REAL ID doesn't even come close to the cost: http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-jh03262007.html And we're not just talking about the more than 23 billion dollars that states and individuals will be forced to pay. REAL ID will also cost you your privacy. Once the IDs and databases are created, their uses will inevitably expand to facilitate a wide range of surveillance activities. Private entities will be able to collect and exploit data on the cards. States will have to collect and maintain vast amounts of personally identifying information, including birth certificates, documents containing Social Security numbers, and potentially utility bills and tax records. Your private information will have to be made available to all other states as well. How does DHS say your privacy will be protected? DHS' proposed regulations generally call for the states to develop "comprehensive security plans" but do not set, define or specify any security standards. Nor do they establish or define a governance structure for the databases. Meanwhile, DHS painted a fairly rosy picture at the meeting regarding the readiness of technologies to implement REAL ID, including systems to verify data provided by applicants in order to get an ID. In reality, REAL ID depends on vaporware systems that haven't been built or tested. Only one of the verification databases is fully operational, and even this system does not yet accommodate REAL ID's demands. The system for sharing data between the states also doesn't exist, and DHS has punted on how it will be constructed. In short, the cart has been put way ahead of the horse -- it's unclear how or if REAL ID's systems are actually going to work, yet the states are being forced to expend significant resources and billions of dollars to put it in place. Those are just some of the major problems with this national ID system, and the bottom line is that REAL ID needs to be scrapped entirely. Take action and tell DHS to withdraw its proposed regulations now: http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=287 Learn more about REAL ID: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/ID/RealID/ : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Bush Admin. Pushes Spying Bill at Key Senate Hearing We recently reported on a new spying bill that could, among other things, threaten cases like EFF's against AT&T by giving blanket immunity to companies for illegally assisting the NSA spying program. After an initial delay, the Senate Intelligence Committee's held a hearing on the bill on May 1 with a completely one-sided panel -- only Bush Administration officials were allowed to testify. That means it's even more important for you to make your voice heard. Congress needs to know that you oppose this legislation and demand immediate investigations into the warrantless spying program: http://www.stopillegalspying.org Fortunately, civil liberties groups including EFF were allowed to submit written comments for the record -- you can read EFF's statement here: http://intelligence.senate.gov/070501/bankston.pdf : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Proposed Bill Aims to Save Music Webcasters A new bill in Congress could help save music webcasting. Due to a recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board, the government-set rates that most Net radio providers pay to license sound recordings will radically increase. This ruling threatens small and non-commercial webcasters as well as commercial services like Pandora, and it could take away the broad diversity of stations that exists online but never has been available through traditional broadcasters. If passed, the "Internet Radio Equality Act" would nullify the royalty ruling and bring some sensible changes to the standards used to set rates in the future. This bill's introduction has been driven by the massive grassroots outrage among webcasters and listeners, and you can help keep that momentum going. SaveNetRadio.org is among the many great sites that have helped spearhead this activism -- go there to learn more and take action now: http://www.savenetradio.org/ : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Anti-Consumer European Directive Slips Through, Fight to Continue The European Parliament has voted to pass the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED2) without substantive amendment, despite growing public opposition from across the European Union. The final vote of 374 to 278 with 17 abstentions points to a margin of Parliamentary support that has been narrowing ever since the Directive left subcommittee. While we are disappointed that IPRED2 was not defeated at this stage, we can see clearly the impact of the efforts of the over 8,000 Europeans who've taken action against the Directive. We were told by the two largest political parties that they felt that the Directive had not been given enough time to be properly discussed, and that our campaign had definitely contributed to the discussion. The fight now moves to the Council of the European Union, where it will be considered by representatives of the national governments of all EU Member States. Several states have started to mount resistance to IPRED2 in recent weeks, with the United Kingdom and Holland leading the charge. Europeans worried about their right to innovate and their ability to live under clear, fair criminal laws must now turn to their own national governments to ensure that IPRED2 doesn't set a terrible precedent for copyright law and the EU legal process. If the Council disagrees with European Parliament's action -- which we believe is possible -- IPRED2 would be returned for a second reading. We will be tracking these developments and providing opportunities to act at CopyCrime.eu: http://www.copycrime.eu : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Another Misguided Spyware Bill Moves Forward A subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce reported out H.R. 964, a.k.a. the "Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act" or "SPY Act." This bill is the latest incarnation of misguided legislative language that has been resurfacing since 2003. (In 2005, it passed the House as H.R. 29.) Although badware (i.e., spyware, malware, and deceptive adware) is a serious problem for computer users, H.R. 964 is not likely to help. In fact, having been massaged by lobbyists for the software and adware industries, the bill would actually make things worse, insulating adware vendors from more stringent state laws and private lawsuits. Read on for more: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005224.php : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : HD-DVD Key Cease-and-Desist Campaign: A Legal Primer As was reported back in February, an enterprising hacker unearthed and posted one of the decryption keys used by AACS to decode HD-DVD movies. (Other keys and exploits have been made available in the weeks since.) Now the AACS-LA (the entity that licenses AACS to makers of HD-DVD players) has set its lawyers on the futile mission of trying to get every instance of at least one key (hint: it begins with 09 f9) removed from the Internet. Predictably, this legal effort has backfired, resulting in eternal Internet fame for the key in question. In addition to having been posted on hundreds of thousands of web sites (and resulting in the temporary shutdown of Digg.com), the key has already spawned a song, a quiz, a domain name, and numerous T-shirts. So now might be a good time to review a few of the basic legal issues raised by the posting of the keys. Read on for our analysis: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005229.php : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Putting Presidential Debates in the Creative Commons With presidential debates right around the corner, it goes without saying that many people will want to use debate footage to comment on, remix, and parody the politics of our time. But there's an unnecessary barrier standing in the way: copyright law. Television networks have traditionally retained exclusive rights to all footage of the presidential debates. While many re-uses for videos on YouTube and other sites would clearly be legally protected as fair uses, the law's uncertainty can chill individuals' ability to participate in our democratic processes in this way. To remedy this problem, a transpartisan alliance of leading technologists, public advocates, progressive and conservative organizations and Internet entrepreneurs is calling on the Democratic and Republican parties to ensure that all debate footage is put into the public domain or provided under a Creative Commons Attribution license for re-use. Spearheaded by Stanford Law Professor and EFF Board member Lawrence Lessig, the open letters to the parties were signed by former Federal Election Commission Chair Brad Smith, Craig Newmark of Craiglist, Arianna Huffington, EFF Executive Director Shari Steele and EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred Von Lohmann, as well as many others. You can help this cause by calling the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee in support -- learn more at Lessig's blog: http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003755.shtml : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : The Great Firewall of Utah (and Banning Open Wi-Fi) The Utah legislature has been considering a proposal that would require the state's ISPs to ensure that minors are unable to access explicit material on the Internet. The scheme would also make open wireless networks illegal (!) unless they are restricted to only allow connections on certain, censored, "community ports." Giving ISPs the responsibility and incentives to censor a particular subset of the web is precisely the same architecture that the Chinese Communist Party uses for their "Great Firewall of China." China uses it to filter news and political information as well as porn, but in neither case is it particularly effective. Users who are either knowledgeable or motivated quickly learn that there are easy ways around these filters. The absurd Utah proposal has been pushed by the CP80 Foundation, which pedals fantasies of a world where certain TCP ports (80, for instance) are free of any material that they consider "indecent." The group is fronted by SCO Chairman Ralph Yarro -- yes, the same SCO that went after IBM and others for allegedly using its code in Linux distributions. The chance that a state or even federal statute could (practically or constitutionally) prevent sexually explicit content from being transmitted through port 80 is approximately zero point zero zero zero percent. The chance that politicians could pass foolish laws that cause needless headaches and court battles for ISPs and users, however, is significantly higher. For this post and related links: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005223.php : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Ohio University Restricts All P2P File Sharing Software Citing the burdens of responding to the RIAA's flood of pre-litigation letters, Ohio University has decided to monitor its network in order to block all use of P2P file sharing software. Students caught using the software will have their network access disabled. This policy may temporarily relieve the IT department, but it doesn't get us any closer to a long-term solution to deal with file sharing. It won't stop "piracy," as students will simply migrate towards other readily-accessible sharing tools, and it certainly doesn't put any more money in artists' pockets. But this policy -- like related schemes implemented by other colleges -- does create yet more collateral damage to academic freedom. Want to use P2P to distribute your own writing or to acquire public domain works for class? Too bad. Meanwhile, computer science students will need to ask permission first to tinker with and study P2P software. Ohio University says it's targeting a few applications, but it's unclear whether the policy might extend to a variety of tools. For instance, there are lots of new "personal server" applications being developed for private sharing of movies, photos, and other data -- how exactly will the university draw the line? Blocking P2P is bad not only for the university and its students, but also for innovation more generally. Today's computer science students are tomorrow's technology leaders, creating tools that can empower millions. Remember, Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, and myriad other online technologies were created by students at universities, and innovations like Skype, Joost and BitTorrent are built on basic P2P technologies. The University's policy is misguided, but the bottom line is that educational institutions shouldn't be put in the position of wasting resources on the RIAA's copyright nastygrams in the first place. The record labels need to get out of the business of intimidating schools and figure out how fans can keep sharing in a way that gets artists paid. For this post and related links: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005221.php : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : "Google Government" Movement Spreads to the States Wouldn't it be great if keeping tabs on government spending were as easy as searching the Internet? Imagine a site you could visit that would enable you to search by legislation name, or the name of a particular contractor, or by government agency -- a way to Google the government. Instead of doing searches like "furniture, vintage, 1950s," you could do searches like this: "Halliburton, contracts, 2007." Just such a site was mandated by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which was signed into law in 2006. By early 2008, the public should be able to track the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal disbursements: http://www.federalspending.gov Now, a coalition of public advocacy groups is pushing to replicate this victory at the state level. The Show Me the Spending Coalition is demanding legislation that will bring user-friendly databases of grant and contract spending to the states, providing model legislation, and encouraging the public to contact their representatives through their website at: http://www.showmethespending.org/ For this post and related links: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005215.php : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Support EFF: New Bloggers' Rights Shirts Now Available EFF's Bloggers' Rights Campaign has scored some big victories, and now you can show your support by picking up one of EFF's new bloggers' rights T-shirts. Shirts are black, available in women's and men's styles, and come in all sizes. Buy a shirt for $25 from the EFF shop, or get it as part of your membership: http://secure.eff.org/shop http://secure.eff.org/bloggersjoin Learn more about the Bloggers' Rights Campaign: http://www.eff.org/bloggers/ : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : EFF at Maker Faire, May 19-20 If you're going to O'Reilly's Maker Faire on May 19-20 in San Mateo, California, be sure to stop by EFF's booth. Grab some schwag and chat with us about all things digital rights -- we look forward to seeing you! For more on the Maker Faire: http://www.makezine.com/faire/ : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : miniLinks The week's noteworthy news, compressed. ~ Copyrighting Religion Pakistan court quotes American trademark law in deciding to forbid a religious group from using Islamic epithets and practices: "The principles involved are: do not deceive and do not violate the property rights of others." http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C04%5C28%5Cstory_28-4-2007_pg3_2 ~ IP Over-Enforcement Could Stifle Growth Canada's Law Times ponders the dangers of maximalist IP policies as demonstrated down south. http://www.lawtimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1831&Itemid=82 ~ Gaming the System The National Review looks into government censorship in the video game industry. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTNmMDM5YjEyZjg5NDYzODg5MjYxMmRkMTczMzJiY2U= ~ Who Killed Cryptome? Wired's Ryan Singel documents the shutting down of one of the Net's most fearless document archives. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/05/who_killed_cryp.html ~ Politicians Like Blogger Codes of Conduct Unsurprisingly, a UK minister would prefer a quieter Net too. http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tessa_jowell/2007/05/civility_in_ourspace.html ~ The 301 Report: US Still Unhappy with Neighbors China, Thailand, Russia top culprits in not obeying America's IP law; Canada, Brazil and Poland looking very suspicious. http://techdirt.com/articles/20070501/004949.shtml ~ FLOSSworld International Workshop Open source adoption across the world: a conference from May 11-12 in Brussels. http://www.flossworld.org/conf2/ ~ America's War on Tourists The unintended consequences of security theater. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10436518 ~ Criminalizing the Consumer The Economist summarizes the move away from DRM in content industry and asks the obvious question: "Why couldn't [they] have thought of that in the beginning?" http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/techview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9096421&fsrc=nwl ~ Cell Phones in Africa: Tracking and Computing Promise and threats of cell phone technology that could bring general-purpose computers and/or mass surveillance, as seen by MIT Media Lab's Nathan Eagle. http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=1404 : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Administrivia EFFector is published by: The Electronic Frontier Foundation 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco CA 94110-1914 USA +1 415 436 9333 (voice) +1 415 436 9993 (fax) http://www.eff.org/ Editor: Derek Slater, Activism Coordinator derek@eff.org Membership & donation queries: membership@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy, or online resources queries: information@eff.org Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. Press releases and EFF announcements & articles may be reproduced individually at will. Current and back issues of EFFector are available via the Web at: http://www.eff.org/effector/ Click here to change your email address: http://action.eff.org/addresschange This newsletter is printed on 100% recycled electrons.
