August 08, 2008
Papers, Please. Laptops, iPods, cameras, phones, pamphlets, too.
After pressure from a slightly odd combination of civil liberties watchdogs and business traveler associations, the DHS has revealed the extent of their laptop/electronic device policies at the US border:
Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing ... The policies state that officers may "detain" laptops "for a reasonable period of time" to "review and analyze information." This may take place "absent individualized suspicion."
But it's not just laptops, either (bad though that may be, and in violation of at least two amendments:
The policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.' "Reasonable measures must be taken to protect business information and attorney-client privileged material, the policies say, but there is no specific mention of the handling of personal data such as medical and financial records.
So, basically, don't travel to a conference outside the US or risk having all your materials confiscated at the border. But it's keeping us safe from the terrorists:
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote in an opinion piece published last month in USA Today that "the most dangerous contraband is often contained in laptop computers or other electronic devices." Searches have uncovered "violent jihadist materials" as well as images of child pornography, he wrote.
Yeah, because that makes for great reading on the plane. Can you imagine a faster way to get a plane grounded if someone reads something like that over your shoulder? With the plethora of online storage spots, it's much, much safer to encrypt, upload, and then download after traveling - and with laptop theft (by the government or from the government - Laptop containing 33000 Clear users information stolen) so prevalent, a good idea for any traveler, terrorist or business.
How many years, decades, or administrations will it take to just get us back to the level of freedom and democracy (not to mention peace, economic strength, and good standing in the world) we had just eight years ago? Is it even possible?
Posted by griffjon at 10:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 19, 2006
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a documentary about the 2002 coup in Venezuela. I don't know how I've missed seeing this for so long. It's available for watching via google video and for bittorrent download
There's of course some doubt to its.... evenhandedness, but regardless, it reveals the scary power of media to distort and thereby alter reality.
Posted by griffjon at 09:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 06, 2006
Privacy and Piracy
In working on a short final paper dealing with the US/EU privacy debate, I had some thoughts about the current state of the music and movie industry's approach to piracy.
The EU/US disconnect on privacy has the band-aid of the Safe Harbor Act, which allows the US market to self-regulate and use privacy seal programs (remember TrustE?) which can then be linked to acceptable practices under the privacy directive. Now, these self-certification systems are ... dubious at best. For TrustE, you basically wrote your privacy statement and proved to them that you did what you said. It was OK to say "I take all my customer data and credit card numbers and send them to business associates in Russia" -- as long as that accurately portrayed your business processes, you win a seal! This didn't really catch on, but remains the trust model.
I want this market-regulated system for piracy! I want to present media producers with my media consumption practices, and they can choose whether or not to sell media to me.
e.g.
With this media, I will:
Listen to it.
Copy it to a portable music device
Burn it to CDs to listen to in my car
Share with my friends, so as to introduce them to new artists.
I will not share it with anonymous users.
I will not upload it to the Internet in a public forum, download site, or p2p network
etc.
Of course, this would require two-directional negotiation and data flow, instead of the one-directional "You can't do anything" approach of DRM.
Posted by griffjon at 02:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 21, 2006
Net Regulation
The Miami Herald has an interesting article on some emerging problems of regulating things such as discriminatory housing ads on the Internet, particularly CraigsList:
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights recently filed a lawsuit against Craigslist for allowing ads the group deems discriminatory.The suit argues that since July 2005, Craigslist has allowed more than 100 ads to run unchallenged on its Chicago-based site. The ads include such language as ''No Minorities'', ''Christians only'' and ''Non-Women of Color need Not Apply.'' Similar ads have appeared in South Florida postings on Craigslist.
$375 -- Christian Female to Share 1-Bedroom Miami Beach Apt.
I am looking for a Christian female to share a clean and simple 1-bedroom apartment two blocks from the beach.
Internet companies have long argued that they are immune from any liability based on a section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.
Their interpretation of federal law: Internet providers are not liable for users' postings because the sites are merely facilitators and not publishers. Although sites such as Craigslist derive income through partnerships with other Internet companies, many of the services provided are free.
Of course, who's to blame? CL doesn't moderate posts, CL users do, sporadically, and generally only for the worst offenders. It seems like the posters themselves are the most liable party, but then the burden of prosecuting it will be piled on the person discriminated against.
Buckmaster posted on the site a lengthy defense to the lawsuit: ``These lawyers demand that we impose ill-conceived, mistake-prone and potentially illegal controls on the Craigslist community, which if adopted would actually reduce fair housing opportunity while eroding important free speech and privacy rights.''The suit, Buckmaster writes, ``ignores the fact that Craigslist is not a publisher but, rather, a community-moderated commons run by its users, who self-publish and . . . use a flagging system to police the site.'
[...]
The lawsuit has rekindled the debate about how best to regulate the Internet -- if at all.
Michael Masinter, a law professor at Nova University who specializes in constitutional, civil rights and anti-discrimination law says Congress -- not the courts -- should make such decisions.
Until then, Craigslist and others should be allowed to exist as they are, Masinter said. ``The Internet has to be permitted to flourish, otherwise we would all be reduced to an Internet serviceable to 12 year olds. If they were required to prescreen the millions of ads posted on their site, it would be the end of Craigslist.'''
Requiring moderation would definitely kill CL's business model, and in fact most of "Web 2.0," where the motto is to let the user do all the work. Suing CL would be like suing the owner of an unprotected community bulletin board because someone had posted a racist housing ad on it. Suing the posters of these ads, similarly, is a difficult proposition, as it ends up placing the burden on the already-discriminated-against. I'd argue further that for the peer-to-peer world of craigslist, why bother? Even if the selection process for a new roommate was colorblind, I can't imagine many people interested in living in such a hostile environment. As a white male I wouldn't want to live with some mouthbreathing racist (though admitedly, I'm speaking from the position of being a white male, with very, very few housing opportunities being ruled out for me because of that (OK, the Christian ones would fail to get me, but I could potentially lie about that situation).
The obvious underlying problem is racism, which, sadly, will take education and contact/familiarity to get past, which these people are depriving themselves of. From a policy standpoint, however, focus should be on systematic racism (does an apartment complex have racist policies?) over people looking for roommates (or mates, for that matter -- does a dating service that allows filtering based on race/religion cross the same line? Shouldn't it?). This is hard for me to say, though, because it's still unfair, and it presumes that there are other viable housing/roommates options, which may not be the case in some (many? most?) areas.
For CraigsList, perhaps it should further the effort to remind not just posters, but people browsing the housing ads about the illegality of race in housing decisions, and enable/encourage the user community to flag these racist posts as such.
Posted by griffjon at 09:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack