European Parliament Rips Global IP Accord: Via Threat Level.

The European Parliament delivered a political blow to Hollywood and the Obama administration, voting Wednesday 663 to 13 in opposition to a proposed and secret intellectual property agreement being negotiated by the European Union, United States and a handful of others.

Wednesday’s developments concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting and Trade Agreement are substantial because the European Union’s 27 countries vastly outnumber the remaining countries negotiating the deal. They are Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. Ambassador Ron Kirk, the top U.S. trade official, is spearheading the deal that began being crafted under the George W. Bush administration.

Kirk’s office declined comment.

To be sure, there is a dispute and heavy confusion concerning whether internet service providers under ACTA would be forced to punish customers deemed copyright scofflaws by reducing or eliminating service, according to a string of leaked documents. So Parliament members also agreed Wednesday to oppose the measure if it contains so-called “three strikes” or “graduated response” policies — regardless of whether that’s now in the text.

And because of the text’s secrecy, Parliament on Wednesday also demanded (.pdf) that the private agreement still under negotiation be publicly released. [ Read more ... ]

Privacy Protection Needed as Smart Grid Arrives / Groups Urge California PUC to Adopt Rules to Protect Consumer Privacy: Via CDT.

SAN FRANCISCO – Privacy advocates are warning that "smart meters" intended to precisely measure and control home electrical consumption could erode the privacy of daily life unless regulators limit data collection and disclosure. In a joint filing yesterday, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to adopt rules to protect the privacy and security of consumers’ energy-usage information. The Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law drafted the comments for CDT.

Joint CDT - EFF Comments to California Public Utilities Commission

More information about privacy and the smart grid

California’s Smart Grid Initiative

Read Original Article:(Via CDT.)

Worker ID Card at Center of Immigration Plan: Via Wall Street Journal.

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card. [ Read more ... ]

"Your Papers, Please!" - Get Your Fingerprints Ready! Cross-Party Senate Alliance Pushing National ID Card: Via Lauren Weinstein's Blog.

Greetings. According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Senate immigration reform advocates Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham are proposing a mandatory biometric (e.g. fingerprint-based) National ID Card system, and are attempting to brush away privacy concerns as trivial and irrelevant.

Touted as "merely" a "right-to-work" card aimed at addressing illegal immigration concerns, there's simply no fast-talking around the fact that this plan will set in motion a massive national ID infrastructure that will ultimately penetrate every aspect of our lives. Anyone who suggests otherwise is -- sorry to say -- either a liar or a fool. [ Read more ... ]

Breaching your online privacy to fight crime: Via The Ottawa Citizen.

The "mosaic effect" is an argument often put forward by governments and police to block access to sensitive information. It suggests even seemingly innocuous pieces of information can be fitted together like a puzzle to form a meaningful picture of something they want kept secret, typically a national security operation.

But when the tables are turned and it's police and government that want to piece together seemingly innocuous bits of your personal and digital information to form a picture of you, the "mosaic effect" is recast as "lawful access" and characterized as benign state intervention into the online lives of Canadians in the name of crime-fighting.

Your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address and Internet Protocol (IP) address can reveal your Internet habits, social network, personal interests, political views, secrets and more.

The government's new "lawful access" initiative, contained in bills C-46 and C-47, was tabled in the Commons in June. It's the latest attempt in a decade-long push by successive governments to give police and other agents of the state, such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Competition Bureau, modernized surveillance powers and technical capabilities to better patrol the dark side of the digital world.

But here's the rub: C-47 allows police and government agents to demand basic subscriber data from telecommunication and Internet service providers without a warrant. (Some companies routinely volunteer the data when asked, others don't, according to police.)

The Score on USA Patriot Act: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"We've come to love our fears more than we love our freedoms," Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) mused on the House floor just before that chamber voted 315-97 (with 20 members not voting) to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act without any changes for yet another year.

By now, you know the stakes — the tweaks that could have been made to guarantee that Patriot powers are used only against suspected terrorists or spies and to mandate continued reporting to ensure that we actually learn about current and future Patriot abuses. Many of these fixes were, in fact, included in prior iterations of Patriot reauthorization bills introduced in both the House and the Senate.

As Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) pointed out to her colleagues, "I think we are missing an opportunity. There are good ideas in this House about how to curb the abuses with national security letters, how to clarify that roving wiretaps are limited to a single identifiable target, and how to eliminate the lone wolf provision which has never been used and for which existing title III authority can suffice. Those ideas have been the subject of hearings in the Judiciary Committee, but they're not being debated on this floor . . . I think this is a real missed opportunity." [ Read more ... ]

Location Data Sensitive Like Medical Information, Says Congressional Witness: Via NYTimes.com .

"The writing is on the wall that there will be baseline privacy legislation introduced," said John Morris, general counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology at a Congressional hearing on location data and privacy yesterday. "It will require location be treated as sensitive data, like medical data. You'll need to do more than just post a disclosure statement."

We're entering an era of location as platform but should that location data be as fundamentally private by default as medical information is?

Many users are concerned about their location being exposed in ways they don't control and that have adverse impacts on their safety and freedom. That's one side of the debate. [ Read more ... ]

Epic Fail in Congress: USA PATRIOT Act Renewed Without Any New Civil Liberties Protections: Via EFF.org Updates.

Yesterday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to renew three expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, after the Senate abandoned the PATRIOT reform effort and approved the extension by a voice vote on Wednesday night.

Disappointingly, the government's dangerously broad authority to conduct roving wiretaps of unspecified or "John Doe" targets, to secretly wiretap of persons without any connection to terrorists or spies under the so-called "lone wolf" provision, and to secretly access a wide range of private business records without warrants under PATRIOT Section 215 were all renewed without any new checks and balances to prevent abuse. Despite months of vigorous debate, when PATRIOT renewal bills providing for greater oversight and accountability were approved by the Judiciary Committees of both the House and the Senate, Democratic leaders' push for reform fizzled in the face of staunch Republican opposition buoyed by recent hot-button events such as the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day and the shooting at Fort Hood. [ Read more ... ]

South Carolina Senate Should Reject Warrantless Search Bill Approved By House, Says ACLU South Carolina National Office: Via American Civil Liberties Union.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

The South Carolina House on Thursday approved on its third reading Senate bill 191, which authorizes warrantless searches of juveniles and adults on probation and parole. The ACLU South Carolina National Office urges the Senate to vote no on this bill when it takes it up next week.

"There is no evidence supporting the concept that we can reduce recidivism by expanding police power to conduct warrantless searches of people's cars and possessions," said Victoria Middleton, Executive Director of the ACLU SC National Office. "The proposed expansion of police power would, in essence, create a category of citizens with no right to privacy – all those who are on probation or parole."

This bill would undermine the goals of omnibus criminal justice legislation (S 1154) recently proposed by the South Carolina Sentencing Reform Commission. [ Read more ... ]

Congress Drops the Ball on Upgrading Patriot Protections: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

We're sorry to say, but is anyone surprised that Congress has capitulated to post-underpants bomber fear-mongering and passed the three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act without so much as a debate?

Oh, you didn't hear about that?

Wednesday night, the Senate passed a straight one-year extension by voice vote, and last night, the House followed suit.

That’s right. No changes. Nothing. Nada. Zip, zilch, zero. (You get the picture.)

That leaves ordinary Americans like you and me without the civil liberties safeguards proposed by several bills last year. Both the House and Senate had bills that would have improved the Patriot Act. The Senate bill even had the support of the White House. But instead of passing the much-needed reforms, Congress: [ Read more ... ]

Lawmakers Punt Patriot Act to Obama: Via Threat Level.

The House and Senate are forwarding to President Barack Obama legislation reauthorizing three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act — despite heated debate among lawmakers the surveillance measure went too far.

The act, hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, greatly expanded the government’s ability to spy on Americans in the name of national security. Three measures of the act were set to expire at the end of 2009, but lawmakers in December extended the deadline to the end of February in hopes of reaching a compromise.

But no deal was reached by the end of the new Feb. 28 deadline. Instead, both chambers ditched two competing measures and extended the Patriot Act for another year without any changes. The final package was sent to the president Thursday for his expected signature.

Lawmakers had taken the expiration as an opportunity to revisit a number of the act’s surveillance provisions, including elements of the Patriot Act that were not expiring. This included proposals to alter the standard by which so-called National Security Letters are issued. [ Read more ... ]

Democrats retreat on new privacy protections: Via The Washington Post .

Democrats have retreated from adding new privacy protections to the nation's primary counterterrorism law, stymied by Senate Republicans who argued the changes would weaken terror investigations.

The proposed protections were cast aside when Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass them. Dashing the hopes of liberals, the Senate Wednesday night instead passed - by voice vote without debate - a one-year extension of key parts of the USA Patriot Act that would have expired on Sunday.

Thrown away were restrictions and greater scrutiny on the government's authority to spy on Americans and seize their records.

The House was prepared to approve the extension Thursday, dropping even more extensive privacy protections approved by the House Judiciary Committee. [ Read more ... ]

Repealing DADT + National Security = A Match Made in Heaven: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Here in Washington, D.C., efforts to finally repeal the discriminatory and ineffective "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy gather increasing momentum by the day. However, some in the Pentagon could do better by more closely listening to the views of Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of U.S. Central Command, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen. In appearances before two congressional committees yesterday, Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, and Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, expressed their mutual concerns about moving too swiftly in repealing DADT.

According to an article by Thom Shanker in today's New York Times, Gen. Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee: "I do have serious concerns about the impact of repeal of the law on a force that's fully engaged in two wars and has been at war for eight-and-a-half years." [ Read more ... ]

States eye ban on public release of 911 calls: Via Seattle Times Newspaper.

Because of situations like Casey's, lawmakers in Alabama, Ohio and Wisconsin are deciding whether to bar the public release of 911 calls.

Missouri, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wyoming already keep such recordings private. But generally, most states consider emergency calls public records available on request, with exceptions sometimes made for privacy reasons or to protect a police investigation.

"Nationally there is a growing concern about the release of audiotapes that don't involve newsworthy people or events - just things that people like to hear because of their sensational nature," said Sonny Brasfield, executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama, which drafted legislation in the state to bar the release of 911 recordings. "There is a concern nationally that these kinds of things are having a chilling effect on people's willingness to call 911."

Open-government advocates disagree and say that prohibiting the release of the recordings takes away a valuable tool that has exposed botched calls. [ Read more ... ]

Leaked ACTA draft reveals plans for internet clampdown: Via Computerworld(NZ).

ISPs must snoop on subscribers or face being sued by content owners

The US, Europe and other countries including New Zealand are secretly drawing up rules designed to crack down on copyright abuse on the internet, in part by making ISPs liable for illegal content, according to a copy of part of the confidential draft agreement that was seen by the IDG News Service.

It is the latest in a series of leaks from the anticounterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) talks that have been going on for the past two years. Other leaks over the past three months have consisted of confidential internal memos about the negotiations between European lawmakers.

The chapter on the internet from the draft treaty was shown to the IDG News Service by a source close to people directly involved in the talks, who asked to remain anonymous. Although it was drawn up last October, it is the most recent negotiating text available, according to the source.

It proposes making ISPs (internet service providers) liable under civil law for the content their subscribers upload or download using their networks. [ Read more ... ]

ACTA "internet enforcement" chapter leaks: Via Boing Boing .

Someone has uploaded a PDF to a Google Group that is claimed to be the proposal for Internet copyright enforcement that the USA has put forward for ACTA, the secret copyright treaty whose seventh round of negotiations just concluded in Guadalajara, Mexico. This reads like it probably is genuine treaty language, and if it is the real US proposal, it is the first time that this material has ever been visible to the public. According to my source, the US proposal is the current version of the treaty as of the conclusion of the Mexico round.

I've read it through a few times and it reads a lot like DMCA-plus. It contains, for example, a duty to technology firms to shut down infringement where they have "actual knowledge" that such is taking place. This argument was put forward in the Grokster case, and as Fred von Lohmann argued then, this is a potentially deadly burden to place on technology companies: in the offline world Xerox has "actual knowledge" that its technology is routinely used to infringe copyright at Kinko's outlets around the world -- should that create a duty to stop providing sales and service to Kinko's?

This also includes takedown procedures for trademark infringement, as well as the existing procedures against copyright infringement. [ Read more ... ]

Copyright Undercover: ACTA & the Web: Via Internet Evolution - The Big Report .

Let's pause a moment to consider the nature of copyright, the Internet, and governance. Copyright law has historically been made by and for the entertainment industry's supply chain. Copyright rules were not envisioned as an adequate or desirable regulation-set for any other realm: We don't try to shoehorn labor law, finance, education, healthcare, election campaigns, or parenting matters into copyright.

But once you take those activities onto the Internet, copyright becomes the first line of regulation governing everything. It's impossible to do anything on the Internet without making copies (you made between 5 and 50 copies of this article just by following a link to it). And since copyright regulates copying, any rule that affects copyright will affect all those realms, too.

That's what makes ACTA's secrecy so troubling, even if you don't care about copyright, fair use, or other wonky subjects. [ Read more ... ]

Google Books Fosters Intellectual, Legal Crossroads: Via Threat Level.

Nobody in their right mind opposes the intellectual soundness of digitizing the world’s books – even titles gathering dust in the stacks of university libraries — and making them available online.

Yet Google will encounter stiff resistance in a Manhattan federal court Thursday during a marathon hearing that could grant Google the keys to free the written word from a business and intellectual model as old as paper and ink.

“The benefits of approval are bounded only by the limits of human creativity and imagination,” Google told U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in a recent court filing ahead of Thursday’s hearing.

The final word on the so-named “Google Books” plan won’t rest with Judge Chin, and instead likely could fall on the U.S. Supreme Court. [ Read more ... ]

Wikileaks and Iceland MPs propose 'journalism haven': Via BBC News.

Iceland could become a "journalism haven" if a proposal put forward by some Icelandic MPs aided by whistle-blowing website Wikileaks succeeds.

The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), calls on the country's government to adopt laws protecting journalists and their sources.

It will be filed with the Althingi - Iceland's parliament - on 16 February.

If the proposal succeeds it will require the Icelandic government to consider introducing legislation.

Julian Assange, Wikileaks' editor, told BBC News that the idea was to "try and reform Iceland's media law to be a very attractive jurisdiction for investigative journalists".

He has been in Iceland for a number of weeks and is advising MPs on the IMMI.

The hope is that journalist-friendly laws will encourage media businesses to move to Iceland. [ Read more ... ]

FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited: Via Politics and Law - CNET News.

WASHINGTON--The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes.

FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users' "origin and destination information," a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting on Thursday.

As far back as a 2006 speech, Mueller had called for data retention on the part of Internet providers, and emphasized the point two years later when explicitly asking Congress to enact a law making it mandatory. But it had not been clear before that the FBI was asking companies to begin to keep logs of what Web sites are visited, which few if any currently do.

The FBI is not alone in renewing its push for data retention. As CNET reported earlier this week, a survey of state computer crime investigators found them to be nearly unanimous in supporting the idea. Matt Dunn, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the Department of Homeland Security, also expressed support for the idea during the task force meeting. [ Read more ... ]

Katie’s Law May Change New York’s Approach to DNA Sample Collection: Via PogoWasRight.org » Legislation.

If you are convicted of a violent crime in the state of New York, you are required to provide a DNA sample to authorities. This is kept on file and used by law enforcement to help identify the perpetrators of future crimes. Key to this practice is the idea that a DNA sample is taken after an individual has been found guilty.

This could soon change, however, if New York lawmakers pass Katie’s Law. The law would give law enforcement the right to take DNA samples from anyone arrested for a violent crime.

Arrest vs. Conviction

It is important to note the difference: DNA samples would be taken from suspects following arrest, rather than conviction. This means that someone who is wrongly accused and arrested would be required to submit a DNA sample and, even if acquitted, would have his or her most personal information listed next to convicted criminals’ information. [ Read more ... ]

ACTA: International Harmonization at What Cost?: Via EFF.org Updates.

The next round of negotiations on ACTA start today in Guadalajara, Mexico. This week’s negotiations will apparently focus on civil enforcement, border measures, and enforcement procedures in the digital environment, and briefly, transparency.

One of the main goals of ACTA is creating new harmonized international IP enforcement standards above those in the 1994 TRIPs agreement. Thirty-seven countries with 37 different national laws are negotiating ACTA, so reaching agreement on new substantive IP enforcement standards will inevitably involve compromises. Some countries will be required to change their national law to bring them closer to other countries' approaches to IP regulation. Since two of the major powers negotiating ACTA are the US and the European Union (and its 27 Member States), there is much scope for different approaches and disagreements to arise. This is particularly true for Internet intermediary liability — where laws in the US and the various EU Member States take quite different approaches.

Which country prevails in this battle of legal wills will have tremendous consequences for citizens' access to knowledge and the future of the Internet as a powerful tool for communication, cross-border collaboration and a platform for innovation. [ Read more ... ]

Blogging ACTA Across the Globe: CIPPIC's David Fewer on What ACTA Means for Canadian Citizens: Via EFF.org Updates.

The next round of negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) — the secret copyright treaty that targets the Internet — starts tomorrow in Guadalajara, Mexico. From January 26-29, negotiators from Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States will discuss civil enforcement, border measures, enforcement procedures in the digital environment (a.k.a. "the Internet chapter" of ACTA) and transparency.

[ Read more ... ]

ACLU Opposes Proposed Legislation Making Constitution Optional In Terrorism Cases: Via American Civil Liberties Union.

Criticizing the Obama administration's decision to charge accused Christmas Day attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the criminal court system, members of Congress are calling for legislation requiring intelligence officials to be consulted about how to handle terrorism suspects after their capture, arguing that options other than the criminal justice system should be considered. The Washington Post, in an editorial on January 23, supported this approach. [ Read more ... ]

12 Trends to Watch in 2010: Via EFF.org Updates.

It's the dawn of a new year. From our perch on the frontier of electronic civil liberties, EFF has collected a list of a dozen important trends in law, technology and business that we think will play a significant role in shaping online rights in 2010.

In December, we'll revisit this post and see how it all worked out. [ Read more ... ]