Eating falafel? You're a terrorist!

Apparently the FBI thought that it could track down terrorists by watching falafel sales (collected from grocer data) in the Bay Area. If you ate too many, you would be put on a terrorist watch list.

Our tax dollars are going to _this_? Check out the Boing Boing comments for some well-deserved ridicule.

Response to Neil Portnow's SJ Mercury Editorial

Neil Portnow, the president and CEO of the Recording Academy, wrote an editorial in today's San Jose Mercury news on page 16A called "Record industry, tech firms must forge common future." I wrote the following response and posted it in the comments of that article.

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While Mr. Portnow's attitude towards technology is an improvement over that of his predecessor Michael Greene (remember the 2002 Grammy Awards speech? [1]), he nevertheless seems to posses a tunnel vision regarding the current music industry's relation to
technology.

The problem with music today is not so-called 'piracy' (I prefer to call this activity 'sharing music with fellow music lovers') but a lack of creative thinking with regard to how modern computer and networking technology change the landscape of music creation and distribution. The record industry, in the old model, solved two problems of the artists -- paying for expensive studio time and distributing the music via CD or vinyl to the masses. Both of these activities can now be done by artists themselves for little cost: modern recording and mixing software is available for every computing platform and costs an iota of studio equipment, and artists can distribute their songs directly to fans over the Internet for virtually no cost. There is simply no need anymore for an artist to go through a record label to release music.

So how does the recording industry maintain its relevance (read: cash inflows) when it is essentially serves no useful purpose? One word: copyright. While looking at the Recording Academy's 'principles' web page, [2] you'll notice that principle #2 states the need for "[compensating] copyright owners." Well guess who owns all the copyrights to the vast majority of music recorded over the last century? The recording industry, of course. The members of the RIAA want to act as a tollbooth on the information superhighway,demanding a fee in order to allow anyone to listen to or share music. None, if any, of these fees go to the majority of artists --they only serve to line the pockets of industry executives who justify these payments with the battle cry of 'artists' rights.' It's a tried and true tactic of the industry: forward the 'starving artist' myth, collect cash via royalties.

In addition to paying the wrong person, the executive instead of the artist, American copyright law has a host of other problems which degrade the liberties of music-loving individuals. Music industry lobbyists often talk about these laws as if they were as absolute as the law of gravity, and they're not. They can be modified for the better, and certainly must be if we as a society hope to gain back some of the rights we've lost. This issue is far too complicated to go into detail about here, but I highly recommend reading Lessig's Free Culture (online for free -- as in freedom -- at [3]) as an introduction to the issue. Suffice it for now to say that the current system produces ugly results such as the ridiculously high damages the RIAA can demand in court from ordinary individuals like Jammie Thomas. [4]

Finally, Mr. Portnow's article contains some misleading statements that merit pointing out. He offers the example of legislation that would correct an 'anomaly' and make the broadcast industry pay similar fees to play content as Internet radio services. The absence of this legislation doesn't put Internet radio at a 'disadvantage' -- it still pays the same amount to the industry. The party most disadvantaged by this lack of legislation is the recording industry who stands to rake in another $20 billion if its lobbying efforts in Washington are successful (a lucrative tollbooth, indeed). Mr. Portnow also elevates George Lucas as a technology visionary, which makes his ranch the appropriate place to talk with Silicon Valley executives. All technology, however, is not created equal. While Mr. Lucas may have pioneered special effects and sophisticated audio, he certainly lags behind in file-sharing technology, which is,
of course, what the summit was all about. When Mr. Lucas releases all of his movies online for free, then I believe it will be appropriate to laud him for his technology savvy in more than one sense.

Mr. Portnow believes that the future of music hinges on the harmonious relations of the music industry and the technology industry. However, for artists and fans alike, the ideal future of music would be one that includes less of the music industry.

References:
[1] Michael Greene's 2002 Grammy Awards speech http://www.boycott-riaa.com/education/grammy_speech
[2] The Recording Academy's 'Principles' http://www.grammy.com/principles
[3] Lessig's 'Free Culture' http://www.free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf
[4] Ars Technica article on Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071004-verdict-is-in.html

Additional reading:
The Promise of a Post-Copyright World http://questioncopyright.org/promise
The EFF's The RIAA vs. The People http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/riaa-v-thepeople.php

Stalk and Threaten your Ex with Government Databases

Guess what? Massive federal databases are being abused by insiders! Suprise! This particular incident involved a man who was stalking and threatening his former girlfriend by utilizing information he found in the Treasury Enforcement Communications System. Apparently he (mis)used this database 163 times before being caught. I wonder how many of these stories are not public...

Point and Click Surveillance

Wired has an excellent article on the FBI's surveillance system used to eavesdrop on anyone with a cellphone. Some of the pictures are particularly revealing; they show how simple it is to use this powerful system. Some commentary on the system from the article:

Columbia's Bellovin says the flaws are appalling and show that the FBI fails to appreciate the risk from insiders.

"The underlying problem isn't so much the weaknesses here, as the FBI attitude towards security," he says. The FBI assumes "the threat is from the outside, not the inside," he adds, and it believes that "to the extent that inside threats exist, they can be controlled by process rather than technology."

Bellovin says any wiretap system faces a slew of risks, such as surveillance targets discovering a tap, or an outsider or corrupt insider setting up unauthorized taps. Moreover, the architectural changes to accommodate easy surveillance on phone switches and the internet can introduce new security and privacy holes.

"Any time something is tappable there is a risk," Bellovin says. "I'm not saying, 'Don't do wiretaps,' but when you start designing a system to be wiretappable, you start to create a new vulnerability. A wiretap is, by definition, a vulnerability from the point of the third party. The question is, can you control it?"

Well it's a good thing that we can completely trust the FBI to understand the scope of its responsibilities and the limits of its power because it has never abused the privileges entrusted to it in the past. Oh, wait.

Thoughtcrime, fine, but Windows? The horror!

Another day, another ridiculous copyright-related story that is a testament to how our government and its Big Media puppeteers are ruining peoples lives. This one comes courtesy of the lovely Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005. It makes the innocuous act of turning on anything capable of recording multimedia (your phone or camcorder today, perhaps your cuff links tomorrow at the rate technology is getting more portable and powerful) punishable by three to six years in prison. Nice.

Today's unlucky soul is an ex-administrator of a BitTorrent tracker who pled guilty to counts of ‘conspiracy to commit copyright infringement’ (Thoughtcrime, anyone?) and ‘criminal copyright infringement.’ This meant some jail time for him, followed by some ankle-bracelet accompaniment following. Now the government wants to monitor him even more, tracking his internet and computer usage. But, wait! It gets worse:

"'I had a meeting with my probation officer today, and he told me that he has to install monitoring software onto my PC. No big deal to me, that is part of my sentence. However, their software doesnt (sic) support GNU/Linux (Which is what I use). So, he told me that if I want to use a computer, I would have to use an OS that the software can be installed on.' ...
Sk0t is left with a tough choice. Give in to the evils of the monitoring software, format his hard drive and install Windows - or be barred from using a PC completely."

Bush legalizes NSA progam

The New York Times today reported that Bush has signed into law a new bill that "broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants." Basically, it puts the Attorney General (As Cory Doctorow would say, Chief Torturer and Selective Amnesiac Alberto Gonzales) the power to approve international surveillance. It turns out those secret courts that were set up to approve this kind of stuff just were getting in the way too much! Funny, even they felt some obligation to defend American liberties, something that this president clearly does not value.

How did he ever get away with this? What was that whole wiretapping scandal about? Wasn't there enough of an outcry that the President knew that he could never get away with something like this again? Well, apparently not because he just did.

This development is troubling, but another disturbing revelation comes towards the end of the article:

In January, the administration placed the N.S.A.’s warrantless wiretapping program under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and subjected it for the first time to the scrutiny of the FISA court.

Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that they believed that pressure from major telecommunications companies on the White House was a major factor in persuading the Bush administration to do that. Those companies were facing major lawsuits for having secretly cooperated with the warrantless wiretapping program, and now wanted greater legal protections before cooperating further.

But the change suddenly swamped the court with an enormous volume of search warrant applications, leading, in turn, to the administration’s decision to seek the new legislation.

So you're saying that 1) the only reason that the wiretapping thing ever became such an issue was because the telcos were playing a big game of lobbyist-CYA and 2) that following due process just became too troublesome to deal with? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THIS COUNTRY???

Malaysia: hopefully not the future U.S.A.

Malaysia will potentially use anti-terror laws to crack down on free speech, specifically that which insults those in power or the predominant religion of the country. Insults to those in power or the perceived national heritage have been used in other countries as well, such as Turkey, to stifle critics of the powers that be.

Unfortunately, the United States seems to be creeping towards this state of affairs itself. The president already gave himself dictatorial powers, we're detaining people indefinitely that are suspected "terrorists" and respected politicians have already claimed that we should re-examine our free speech beliefs to stay ahead of terror.

What's the next logical step? Something like what Malaysia is doing now?