[Sigifp-l] Information Policy Post 1/30/02

[Terrence Maxwell]

SECURITY

U.S. Special Registration for Non-Immigrants Continues Despite Criticism.
<http://www.dfn.org/news/usa/special-registration.htm
On January 16, the United States Department of Defense declared that 
nationals from Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Kuwait would join a 
list of 20 countries already required to participate in the Special 
Registration program of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). 
Non-immigrants from these countries have been identified 'as presenting 
elevated national security concerns.'

Senators Seek to Block TIA.
<http://www.cdt.org/>
Several measures have been introduced in the Senate to block the Defense 
Department's controversial Total Information Awareness program.

Senate Limits TIA Program.
<http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981945.html>
The U.S. Senate recently voted unanimously to slap restrictions on a 
controversial Pentagon data-mining program that critics say would amount to 
a domestic spying apparatus.

USACM Concerned about TIA Program.
<http://www.acm.org/usacm/Letters/tia_final.html>
Association for Computing Machinery's U.S. Public Policy Committee express 
concerns about the Department of Defense's Total Information Awareness 
Program.

PRIVACY

Sen. Joseph Lieberman - Spammer-in-Chief?
<http://news.com.com/2010-1071-981258.html>
Lieberman might have just announced his intentions to run for the Presidency 
in 2004, but he also seems to be 'itching to be our spammer-in-chief.'

DOJ Confirms FBI Agents Snoop in Libraries.
<http://www.politechbot.com/p-04338.html>
'The Department of Justice has confirmed in a letter to Senate Judiciary 
Committee Democrats that FBI agents have snooped around public libraries to 
learn the reading and Internet-surfing habits of suspected terrorists.'

Bars in Sacramento Begin Swiping.
<http://www.sacticket.com/nightlife/story/5839603p-6805951c.html>
Some Northern California bars (and I imagine elsewhere) are requiring hard 
card swipes of state ID from patrons at the door, gathering a print-out of 
name, sex, age and address.

Suspected Bomb Turns Out To Be Tracking Device.
<http://www.theitem.com/CityDesk/030118a_news.cfm>
'A device that appeared to be a bomb on a vehicle parked outside Simpson's 
Hardware and Sports on Wesmark Boulevard kept local and state authorities 
busy for nearly four hours Friday before the object was found to be a 
tracking system placed on the car by the driver's wife.'

Network Solutions Spills E-Mail Addresses.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35318-2003Jan23.html>
'Herndon-based Internet domain registrar Network Solutions Inc. said it will 
apologize to tens of thousands of customers whose e-mail addresses the 
company inadvertently released.  Some customers whose names were included in 
the mailing said they feared a deluge of unsolicited commercial e-mail as a 
result of the gaffe.'

ACCESS

Supreme Court Bans FCC from Revoking Broadband Licenses.
<http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/01/27/scotus.fcc.broadband/index.html>
In a defeat for the federal government, the Supreme Court ordered the return 
of wireless licenses worth billions of dollars seized from a telecom 
business that had gone bankrupt.

Cybersquatting Tactics Enter the Campaign Race.
<http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_1650692,00.html>
A candidate in Colorado has registered 'likely domain names of his opponents 
with the sole intent of preventing their use.  He's stated his intention to 
keep the sites blank and merely deny their use to the opponents whose names 
are in the domain names.'

Anti-Abortion Cybersquatter.
<http://www.channel4000.com/msp/news/stories/news-193339620030124-070126.html>
A South St. Paul man ordered by a judge to give up registered Web addresses 
using variations of trademarked names to lure people to his anti-abortion 
Web sites said he's ready to go to jail rather than give them up.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

SonicBlue File Sharing Lawsuit.
<http://www.planetreplay.com/sharing_011603.php>
Napster, KaZaa, and now another file sharing website has been forced to 
suspend its operations.'it became clear to me that the Plaintiffs consider 
my web site, Planet Replay, to be aiding in the violation of their 
copyrights.'
See also: http://news.com.com/2100-1040-981128.html

RIAA Wins bBttle to ID Kazaa User.
<http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981449.html>
A federal judge ordered Verizon Communications to disclose the identity of 
an alleged peer-to-peer pirate in a legal decision that could make it easier 
for the music industry to crack down on file swapping.

Guilty Of A Federal Felony?
<http://news.com.com/2010-1071-982121.html>
If you've ever used a peer-to-peer network and swapped copyrighted files, 
chances are pretty good you're guilty of a federal felony.  It doesn't 
matter if you've forsworn Napster, uninstalled Kazaa and now are eagerly 
padding the record industry's bottom line by snapping up $15.99 CDs by the 
cartload.

Trouble With Prime Numbers: DeCSS, DVD and the Protection of Proprietary 
Encryption Tools.
(by Andrés Guadamuz González, Law Lecturer, University of Edinburgh).
<http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/02-3/guadamuz.html>
This essay deals with the cracking of DVD encryption and its further 
diffusion as a computer programme named DeCSS.

INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION POLICY

Police In Malaysia Attack Freedom of the Press.
<http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/200301200018964.php>
'Dang Wangi district police, reacting to a report lodged by Umno Youth, 
seized 15 CPUs and four servers worth RM150,000 for 'forensic examination' 
from the malaysiakini office in Bangsar Utama.'

Tunisian Internet Activist Goes on Hunger Strike.
<http://www.dfn.org/news/tunisia/hunger.htm>
Imprisoned Tunisian Internet activist Zouhair Yahyaoui is in the midst of a 
hunger strike to protest the harsh conditions of his confinement.

Germany Allows Irony on the Web.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2639755.stm>
A German court has cleared a man over the nature of comments about the 11 
September attacks he posted on the internet.

Iranian Newspaper Remains Closed for 'Offensive' Cartoon.
<http://www.dfn.org/news/iran/hayateno.htm>
On Wednesday, January 8, the Iranian government shut down the reformist 
Iranian newspaper, Hayat e No, after the daily published a cartoon depicting 
a character resembling Iran's late revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomenei, 
being crushed by a giant thumb.

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION POLICY

CDT Policy Post.
Volume 9, Number 3, January 23, 2003
<http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_9.03.shtml>
Contents:
(1) Feds Open Portal for Online Comments on Regulations
(2) Improvements Needed in New Site
(2) Background on Online Rulemaking and E-government

WSIS Delegates Fail to Agree on Open-Source 'Support'.
<http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/01/15/030115hnwsisos_1.html>
'A three-day meeting [in Tokyo] that brought together Asian governments, 
organizations, companies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) ended 
Wednesday morning with the approval of a declaration that, among other 
things, calls for encouraging the development of open-source software.'

Compiled by Dylan Thomarie
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