Eideard

Folks in the state Senate gallery applauding passage of the bill

Washington appeared almost certain to become the seventh state to allow same-sex marriage after the State Senate voted late Wednesday for a measure that would allow gay and lesbian couples to marry beginning this summer.

Supporters had considered the Senate to be the more challenging chamber in which to pass the bill, but it was approved easily, by a vote of 28 to 21, after less than 90 minutes of debate. The measure now moves to the House, where it has wide support and could be voted on as soon as next week. Gov. Christine Gregoire has urged the bill’s approval. The governor is a Democrat, and both legislative chambers are controlled by Democrats.

“Regardless of how you vote on this bill, an invitation will be in the mail,” Senator Ed Murray of Seattle, the prime sponsor in the Senate, said in his final remarks before the vote. Mr. Murray, who is gay, has noted many times publicly that he and his longtime partner hope to marry in their home state.

The measure, echoing one passed in New York last June, includes language assuring religious groups that they would not be required to marry same-sex couples or allow them to marry in their facilities. Washington would join New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Iowa as states where same-sex couples can marry. Washington, D.C., also allows same-sex marriage…

The floor debate late Wednesday was civil and relatively succinct… A wonder in American politics.

A few Republicans joined Democrats in support of the bill.

In general, the reactionary wing of America’s artificial political division into two parties continues to come down against civil rights and civil liberties – our Constitution and Bill of Rights notwithstanding.

Predictable. I retain theoretical hope for true multiple-party electoral politics in this nation. One of these centuries.

Cyber criminals use Trojans to steal information, but are the same techniques of electronic surveillance being used by the agencies set up to protect us?

Internet crime “is no longer the elephant in the room. It is the room,” Sir Ian Andrews, chairman of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), told this week’s London Conference on Cyberspace. The rapid increase in the cost of cyber-crime means police and governments are having to protect themselves from a threat that is often nearly impossible to trace. But the web has also become a vital space to gather evidence on suspects for traditional crimes…

There was controversy earlier this month when the German state of Bavaria admitted using a Trojan – a malicious program sent to a digital device covertly to collect data – to gather intelligence on suspected criminals. The R2D2 malware received criticism for it potentially allowing officials to launch software and capture images on the infected computer…

Ironically, the Trojan is not believed to have been sophisticated enough to beat antivirus software so would only be able to infiltrate unprotected computers – something unlikely amongst experienced computer users.

But there seems to be an emerging trend of governments going on the offensive…

In the UK, senior officials have not ruled out doing something similar. “In terms of the sensitivities around particular Trojans, it wouldn’t be something that we would particularly like to talk about,” says Lee Miles, head of cyber at the UK serious crime agency, SOCA.

Cybercrime expert Professor Peter Sommer, of the London School of Economics, believes that adding software remotely to a suspect’s computer would probably be illegal under current UK law. And the introduction of new powers for the police is something that is often picked over with a fine-toothed comb before its introduction is even proposed.

“We do need to exercise care embarking down this path [of using new techniques] because of the unintended consequences – it’s something that has to be considered very carefully,” says UK Minister for Crime and Security James Brokenshire.

Will police expand the use of malware to catch cyber-criminals? Short answer? I hope so.

We’ve already had instances of counter-measures fired back at zombie servers used by hackers. That can be turned to trojan techniques in any number of ways. But, then, if I have thought of doing this – someone in computer security is probably already doing it.

Now who would want to see my email?
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) has proposed sweeping digital privacy protections that would require the government, for the first time, to get a probable-cause warrant to obtain e-mail and other content stored in the cloud.

Leahy’s proposal (.pdf) would nullify a provision of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act that allows the government to acquire a suspect’s e-mail or other stored content from an internet service provider without showing probable cause that a crime was committed, as long as the content has been stored on a third-party server for 180 days or more. The government had only needed to show that it has “reasonable grounds to believe” the information would be useful in an investigation…

“We think this is the beginning of the discussion. This is a very positive step,” Chris Calabrese, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said by telephone…

But the Leahy bill, which has not been sent to committee for review, is a give-and-take of sorts when it comes to other forms of electronic privacy…

The measure would also expand, or at least clarify, the information the government may obtain with so-called National Security Letters. They allow the FBI, without a court order, to obtain telecommunication, financial and credit records relevant to a government investigation. The Leahy bill adds “electronic communication identifiable information” and strikes “electronic communication transactional records.”

“It is not appropriate for the government to be able to get detailed information on everybody who you communicated with,” Kevin Bankston, a privacy lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said by telephone.

That said, the bill is “a great leap forward,” Bankston said.

The struggle takes us all the way back to the founding of this nation. There have always been those who are committed to the power of the government over the rights of individuals. And some libertarians who refused to consider the question of benefits to the common good superseding any individual’s rights.

I wish Senator Leahy well with his attempt and will zap off an email via www.congress.org to my elected representatives suggesting they support the bill, too.

Egypt’s interior minister has disbanded the country’s feared state security agency, which was accused of torture and human rights abuses during the 30-year rule of former president Hosni Mubarak.

Major General Mansour el-Essawy, a former Cairo security chief and the new interior minister, announced the dissolution of the security apparatus…He said a new agency in charge of keeping national security and combatting terrorism will be formed “in line with the constitution and principles of human rights”.

Officers for the new agency will be chosen in the coming few days, the statement said, adding that the new agency will “serve the country without intervening in the lives of citizens while they practice their rights and political life”…

The security branch, which was empowered to conduct emergency trials, was widely hated and its officers accused of committing torture.

The move was announced as Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited the capital, Cairo in a bid to lend support to Egypt during its transition. Speaking at a joint news conference with the Egyptian foreign minister Nabil Elaraby during a visit to Cairo on Tuesday, Clinton welcomed the announcment.

RTFA. Overdue.

Think we’ll ever get round to the NSA and FBI?

European MPs have been accused of putting the rights of child pornographers ahead of abused children after it emerged that they are to water down new laws, backed by the UK government, for curbing the dissemination of child abuse images.

The European parliament’s civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee (LIBE) will meet in Strasbourg tomorrow, when it is expected to approve a controversial measure that would compel EU member states to inform publishers of child pornography that their images are to be deleted from the internet or blocked. Child pornographers will also have to be informed of their right to appeal against any removal or blocking. The measure would make the UK’s system for blocking and removing child pornography without informing the publisher illegal.

“MEPs seem more concerned with the rights of child pornographers than they do with the rights of children who have been sexually abused to make their foul, illegal images,” said John Carr, an adviser to the UK government on child internet safety and the secretary of the Children’s Charities Coalition on Internet Safety…

The Council of Ministers agreed tough new measures approving the blocking and deletion of child pornography images shortly before Christmas. But LIBE intends to reject them after civil rights campaigners mounted a lobbying campaign, warning that they were a form of internet censorship.

I believe I understand all the cross-currents dealing with civil rights and civi liberties in Europe – and how they reflect the experiences of societies and nations with the fight against fascism and its precursors. That is why Germany, for example, supports their national right to ban traffic in Nazi memorabilia and any other explicit communication glorifying the Nazi past. There are reflections of the same experience in laws throughout Europe protecting privacy – after the history of state snooping leading to WW2 and episodes within the Cold War. Both sides of the Iron Curtain.

I honestly don’t understand what that has to do with the exploitation of children. Or why some feel the essential principles protecting privacy and free speech need to be extended to acts declared illegal. It’s why we differentiate in my neck of the prairie between free speech – particularly political speech – and inciting to riot. This all seems to reinforce the growing belief that the EU is adopting a culture of lawmaking more concerned with being a nanny to socially-borderline profiteers than to concentrating on building a better life for all.

Visitors to dozens of Web sites purportedly linked to illegal file sharing and counterfeit goods were greeted by this message.

The U.S. government has launched a major crackdown on online copyright infringement, seizing dozens of sites linked to illegal file sharing and counterfeit goods.

Torrent sites that link to illegal copies of music and movie files and sites that sell counterfeit goods were seized this week by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security. Visitors to such sites as Torrent-finder.com, 2009jerseys.com, and Dvdcollects.com found that their usual sites had been replaced by a message that said, “This domain name has been seized by ICE–Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court…”

The seizures came after a Senate committee unanimously approved a controversial proposal earlier this month that would allow the government to pull the plug on Web sites accused of aiding piracy. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) allows a Web site’s domain to be seized if it “has no demonstrable, commercially significant purpose or use other than” offering or providing access to unauthorized copies of copyrighted works.

The bill hasn’t been voted into law, however.

The proposal has garnered support from dozens of the largest content companies, including video game maker Activision, media firms NBC Universal and Viacom, and the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America lobbying groups. However, critics such as…civil liberties groups say the COICA could balkanize the Internet, jeopardize free speech rights, and endanger legitimate Web sites.

Slimeballs like the MPAA aren’t deserving of anymore support than their forerunners in the RIAA. But, geeks who go out of their way to break archaic laws in the name of freedom are more than likely to get busted – in this land of liberty. It’s Congress and the courts who get to define what is liberty and what isn’t.

A group of retired Communist Party officials and intellectuals have issued an unusually blunt demand for total press freedom in China, stating that the current regime of censorship and government control of the press violates China’s constitution and debases the government’s claim to represent its citizens.

The document’s 23 signers, including academics and former executives of China’s state-controlled media, have no public influence on the nation’s ruling coalition of Communist leaders. Some of them have issued other public demands for reform in past years, to no effect…

Their letter’s unvarnished language was notable for including an undisguised attack on the legality of censorship by the party’s Central Propaganda Department, which ultimately controls much of what is published, broadcast or posted on the Internet here…

The writers’ “core demand,” they stated, was that China’s ineffectual legislature, the National People’s Congress, dismantle censorship procedures “in favor of a system of legal responsibility” for items that are freely published…

The letter also refers to recent statements by Premier Wen, including an interview with the CNN, which suggest that the nation’s economic progress may be squandered unless the political system is further reformed. At one point, the letter notes that even those comments have been censored inside China, and that official reports on his remarks include only his statements on topics that do not involve reform.

“Of course, from our perspective the letter in a way is reacting to Premier Wen’s calls,” one signer, Jiang Ping, the former president of the China University of Political Science and Law, said in a telephone interview. “But whether the things we are calling for are consistent with what he has in mind, I don’t know.

“The reason I signed my name to this open letter is that it’s high time now we should have reform of the political system. The key element of this reform is freedom of speech, And I think now is the time to seek these reforms.”

Bravo! The course of commerce and civil liberties have been separated during the political struggle bringing China from the days of feudalism to a system dedicated to building a market-based economy responding to socialist ethics – the two course of those rivers must be joined.

It’s time for an Age of Reason in Chinese history. Of course, that’s a quality still essentially absent here in the United States; but, we get to discuss it openly.

During an open book exam on agent guidelines covering domestic investigations, “a significant number of FBI employees engaged in some form of cheating or improper conduct,” a Justice Department report has found.

The Office of Inspector General found agents and analysts broke rules by consulting with others about the exam, using and sharing answer sheets and in some instances even using a computer system flaw to reveal the correct answers to questions.

The test was open book, but FBI employees were required to take it on their own and the last question specifically asked each test-taker to certify he or she did not consult other people in arriving at answers.

In some instances, FBI officials became suspicious when employees finished the exam in less than 20 minutes when most employees needed an hour and a half or more…

The report did not give names of employees who are alleged to have cheated, but it said among those are several top level officials at the Washington field office including the assistant director in charge there. The assistant director at the time was Joseph Persichini, who retired before the investigation and disciplinary decisions were finalized.

According to the report, three other top officials in the Washington office acted improperly, including the legal adviser…

The test was only about civil liberties and whether or not agents understood that freedoms, privacy and other rights should not be violated.

Nothing important.

The government and the courts are collaborating in slicing away freedoms and pushing Britain to the brink of becoming a “database” police state.

In a day of speeches and discussions, academics, politicians, lawyers, writers, journalists and pop stars joined civil liberty campaigners to issue a call to arms for Britons to defend their democratic rights.

More than 1,500 people, paying £35 a ticket, attended the Convention on Modern Liberty in Bloomsbury, central London, which was linked by video to parallel events in Glasgow, Birmingham, Belfast, Bristol, Manchester, Cardiff and Cambridge. They heard from more than 80 speakers, including author Philip Pullman; musicians Brian Eno and Feargal Sharkey; journalists Fatima Bhutto, Andrew Gilligan, Nick Cohen and Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger; politicians Lord Bingham and Dominic Grieve; a former director of public prosecutions, Ken Macdonald; and human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy.

In her speech Kennedy said she felt that fear was being used as a weapon to break down civil liberties. “There is a general feeling that in creating a climate of fear people have been writing a blank cheque to government. People feel the fear of terrorism is being used to take away a lot of rights.”

She said that voters were anxious that their communities were ‘being alienated’ by the use of powers designed to protect national security being applied outside their original remit, and that there was now an open window of opportunity for the electorate to make their feelings known to government before the next election: “People are fearful of the general business of collecting too much information about individuals…“

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The topic of ISP data retention is up once again in the halls of Congress. A new bill, known as the “Internet SAFETY Act,” seeks to compel ISPs and anyone who hosts a Wi-Fi access point to log all information that could identify users, in order to assist police investigating child pornography. Actually two companion pieces of legislation – one working its way through the Senate as S.436, and the other through the House as H.R.1076. Their sponsors are Senator John Cornyn and Representative Lamar Smith, and both are republicans hailing from Texas.

“While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children,” said Cornyn in a Thursday press conference. “Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level.”

Both bills are virtually identical, and contain the same language. “[Providers] of an electronic communication service or remote computing service” will be required to retain “all records … pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address” for two years.

Observers interpret the law to mean anyone who runs a network that assigns users a temporary IP address, internal or external – which would cast ISPs like AT&T in the same lot as coffee shops and corporate networks using DHCP.

The last serious try at this crap came from the now absent and unlamented Alberto Gonzales. The Attorney General with a shallow memory – and an even shallower interpretation of civil liberties.